Welcome to the first in a series where we take a closer look at steroids and peptides via an exclusive series of interviews with one of the head scientists at a major production laboratory.
First in line is Human Growth Hormone.....
So, first of all, why is Growth Hormone such an attractive drug to bodybuilders?
At first we tried "Cro-Mag," but it didn't roll well off the tongue. "Knuckle-dragger" and "Mr. Acromegaly" just seemed way too long. We finally settled on "Karloff" in honor of silver screen actor Boris Karloff, due to his classic portrayal of the Frankenstein monster.
Because the name was chosen as much for his caveman-like personality and lack of social graces as it was for his thick brow, jutting chin and prodigious use of growth hormone, the nickname (despite our every effort) wasn't taken as an insult. It stuck.
After spending the greater part of his life in bodybuilding, the anonymous subject of our interview stands at the critical juncture of his bodybuilding career. He has begun to compete at the National- level. This is a period in which many lifters "go for broke" and abandon logic for feats of daredevil chemistry, convinced that either their bodies are immune to harm or that ungodly dosages can overcome genetic limitations. Our subject is definitely more insightful than average. He has been around the sport in a variety of capacities, seen others climb fast and often go down in flames. He's aware of the realities of high-level competition but approaches things with thinking derived from observation and research, not insecurity.
On a recent episode of Super Human Radio I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Stephen Welle. Welle's group over at Rochester University of Medicine published a study that may be the single most important paper since the discovery of Myostatin by Dr. Se Jin Lee.
Many people have tried various OTC and pharmaceutical Myostatin inhibitors with little or no results. This has caused a general feeling that Myostatin inhibitors simply don't work. Well the problem may not be that these supplements and drugs are outright fakes, but instead, that the doses used are not achieving the required suppression levels.
Some of you have heard of the process to make Trenbolone acetate from cattle implant pellets (Finaplix), and have asked me how it is done. That number has risen to the point where I figured I'd tell you a little story about making one of my all-time favorite drugs yourself at home.
Deca Durabolin has a long history of use in the athletic community and remains, to this day, to be one of the most popular steroids in the sport's world. The popularity it enjoys stems from the fact that it has a very high anabolic activity and produces significant mass increases with relatively few side effects. It also produces less water retention, has less effect on blood pressure and is far less toxic to the liver and kidneys than most of its mass-building buddies.
To say growth hormone is an interesting drug is to say Pablo Picasso was an interesting painter. There has been much debate about the use of growth hormone as both a performance-enhancing agent - undetectable by standard IOC urine tests - and elixir of youth, along the lines of something Ponce de Leone hoped to find. Athletes swear by it for its ability to build lean muscle and burn fat as much as the aging baby boomers crave its age-defying properties. However, the FDA considers these as unacceptable uses for the hormone in spite of numerous animal and human studies which support it. In fact, they have only approved the drug for the treatment of children who grow slower because of inadequate growth hormone secretion and for children who have undergone kidney transplantation.
At Rx Muscle, we pride ourselves on providing readers with an honest insider's view of all aspects of weight training - nutrition, training, supplementation and pharmaceutical usage. When it comes to athletic drug use, Dave Palumbo provides in-depth knowledge of the science behind proper therapy. John Romano does an unrivaled job of exposing the socio-cultural and legal implications of the subject. With these two areas covered, I decided to share the behind-the-scenes real world views by top athletes, explaining their introduction to anabolic use, what worked (or didn't) for them, and what type of benefits and risks they encountered.
Yesterday, I was checking out Steroid-Rx.com, and the idea of Anabolic and Androgenic scores came up in this thread. And frankly, all over the Internet, I see people posting tables and lists with various anabolic and androgenic scores (presumably compiled from the profiles I wrote for Steroid.com). These scores are comforting, because they assign a numerical value to the differing properties of various anabolic steroids - but they are almost totally misleading, to be honest. I put them in my first book because I thought that they were important, I put them in my second book because I thought people wanted to see them, and the current profiles I'm writing (for a site-yet-to-be-named) don't have them at all - and for good reason.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with a South African doctor about Post Cycle Therapy (PCT) for steroid users coming off of a cycle. My previous thoughts on this topic are probably the most widely published PCT on the internet, but I’m always looking for more information on the topic. It’s a very poorly researched area, and although I think Dr. Michael Scally’s take on this topic is interesting, I can’t help but realize that he has a huge vested financial interest in his PCT program (and as a result, uses exclusively drugs on which the patent has expired).
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