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Definition: "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance "

20.04.2009

Plant steroid in Mass FX is chlorogenin

It's called Mass FX, and Anabolic Xtreme launched it a few years ago. It's a designer supplement with an anabolic effect, according to the manufacturers. It cost us a lot of detective work to find out what's in it, going on the manufacturer's information, but we've managed. We think.

Anabolic Xtreme let it be known in August 2006 via message boards that it had Mass FX in the pipeline. The company was looking for testers, according to a thread on bodybuilding.com. [Bodybuilding.com 8/06]

The company made no secrets about what the guinea-pigs would experience. In the first week they would feel an alpha mentality developing: their manliness would be accentuated, they'd feel an increase in libido and aggression, and wake up at the crack of dawn full of energy. In the second week they'd notice that they could train harder and be able to feel more pump. And in the third week they'd notice changes in their body. Mass FX would result in "lean muscle mass and strength gains".

Well, well. With an experimental set up like that you don't need a placebo group at all. Good way of keeping costs down.

Apparently the testers' experiences were positive, as in November 2006 Anabolic Xtreme announced on the Anabolic Minds board that it was launching Mass FX. The active ingredient in Mass FX is 25R-Diol, an abbreviation for (3b,5a,6a,25R)-Spirostan-3,6-diol. "A natural derivative of a class of compounds called sapogenins", wrote Anabolic Xtreme. "It has potent anabolic properties and no (pro-hormone type) harsh side effects. Although we have gone the SYNTHETIC route to this compound it is related to nature. The route we have taken to create this compound is its key to success."

Now, 25R-diol is definitely not synthetic. You can manufacture it synthetically, but the costs are astronomic. It's a naturally occurring substance, known to plant scientists as chlorogenin. It's found in Tribulus [Ann Pharm Fr. 1968;26(12):745-8.], the wild hyacinth [Phytochemistry. 1991;30(11):3721-7.] and probably in other plants too. Anabolic Xtreme gets its compound from one of these plant sources.

What this compound does to people or animals we don't know. We have not been able to find a single study. Nor do we know how Anabolic Xtreme got the idea of putting this plant substance into supplements, but we do have a theory. There is a plant substance that bears a remarkable resemblance to this compound and that has been researched.

The compound shown here has an anabolic effect, according to Russian studies done in the seventies. This substance is 25R 5alpha-spirostane 2alpha,3beta,5alpha-triol 6-one. [Farmakol Toksikol. 1976 Sep-Oct;39(5):631-5.] [In the abstract a hydroxyl group on C6 is mentioned. This should be an oxo group – Ed.] The structural formula is shown above.

The Russians claim to have shown that plant substances like ecdysteroids and spirostanes are just as effective as anabolic steroids and in some cases even more so. Whether this is really the case is anyone's guess. We're not in a position to pronounce judgement... yet.

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