FRS

Free Radical Scavenger otherwise known as FRS, is an antioxidant product aimed at increasing athletic performance. FRS professes that their product can “help athletes boost energy during workouts, enhance performance and speed recovery.” Because when we workout we breath more, we take in more oxygen and increase our metabolic rate, more free radicals are produced in the body. FRS claims that their product neutralizes these free radicals, elements which have been linked with atherosclerosis, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Free radicals are unstable elements as they have unpaired electrons.
FRS claims that their product blocks the negative effects of free radical production during exercise by binding with the free radicals and oxidizing the unstable elements. However, Powers et al (2004) conclude “To date, there is limited evidence that dietary supplementation with antioxidants will improve human performance.”
Dr. Powers in his keynote address at the 2006 American College of Sports Medicine conference proclaimed that free radicals (in low doses) actually help maintain vascular tone, are responsible for cell signaling, participate in muscle contraction and are involved in growth differentiation.
Cooper et al concur that the claims made by FRS are unscientifically founded. “High intensity exercise induces oxidative stress. There is no evidence that this affects sporting performance in the short term, although it may have long term, not detrimental, health consequences.” (Cooper, et al.)
The study that FRS cites on their website by MacRae has many flaws. Quercetin, the anti-oxidant that FRS touts as the key ingredient in FRS was never measured in tissue or blood samples. We do not know the absorption rate of Quercetin, nor do we know the bioavailability in the muscles or the blood. Measuring the amounts of Quercetin with a muscle biopsy would add to the increase in the cost of the experiment, however, if FRS is going to claim that it is Quercitin that is responsible for the ergogenic aids of FRS, then it is imperative to know how the body absorbs Quercetin, something as yet unmeasured.
There is no placebo in the study, the control group ingested FRS without Quercetin and still performed their training regiment. Vo2 was sited as the measurement to insure that training effects did not account for the effectivity of the FRS, however Vo2 is incredibly difficult to change. Rather lactate threshold levels are more of an indication of the effects of training, not vo2 peak. There were no training nor diet records kept or mentioned in the write up of the study. One further flaw is that the experimenters told the subjects their past TT time. Bettering a past performance is an extrinsic motivator and should have been kept from the athletes.
According to Max Shute, PhD and CTS coach, maintaining or boosting glutathione key to anti-oxidant performance enhancers, however the research isn’t there yet. As such FRS in theory is a sound product, but in practice it does not yet have the sound scientific evidence to prove its effectiveness.