Gelatin Pep

Scientists have long sought a means of doubling the endurance of athletes, soldiers, tired business men without resorting to harmful stimulants. Key chemical which staves off muscular fatigue is glycine, one of the 14 amino acids necessary for life. But doctors cannot prescribe pure glycine for this purpose because it is nauseating.

Several months ago, Physiologist George Burrill Ray of Brooklyn's Long Island College of Medicine had a hunch that large quantities of a food rich in glycine might do the trick. Last week he announced the remarkable results of experiments with ordinary gelatin, which is 25% glycine.

Dr. Ray and his assistants, Dr. John Raymond Johnson and Miss Marjory Metcalf Taylor, persuaded six men and four women to pedal furiously on a stationary bicycle every day until each was exhausted. The bicycle operated a dynamo which was connected with a number of electric lamps and a wattmeter which measured the amount of energy each subject was capable of expending. After about 30 days of this sort of thing, the scientists began to feed each cyclist daily glasses of chilled orange and lemon juice containing unflavored gelatin, made from the bones of animals. The men were given 60 grams (two ounces) of gelatin, the women 45 grams.

To their amazement, the scientists discovered that practically every one of the men doubled his energy output after drinking the gelatin mixture. One cyclist increased his output from 90 watts to 225 watts, enough to win a marathon. "The results," said Dr. Ray, "varied from 37% to 240% increases. . . ."

Strangely enough, none of the women ever did better than 40 watts. This, said Dr. Ray, was due to the physical inability of women to store creatine, one of the bodily products from glycine. Whether glycine produced extra mental energy, Dr. Ray could not say.

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