Month of weight training with prohormone 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one: four lean kgs' gain

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

28.02.2014

A couple of years after the American government banned the highly effective designer steroids 1-testosterone and 1-androstenedione in 2004, the biochemist Pat Arnold introduced 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one [structural formula on the right] under the name 1-DHEA. And 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one was pretty effective too, write sports scientists at West Texas A&M University in an article that'll appear soon in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Designer supplements these days still contain full blown anabolic steroids. Most of them are unknown steroids that have never appeared on the market, ones that biochemists have unearthed from forgotten scientific literature. Their anabolic effect is comparable to that of the orals you can buy on the black market. Their biggest problem is that they've never been tested on humans.

Before designer steroids were discovered by the industry you had precursors or prohormones: mostly steroids that in themselves were inactive, but that could be converted into steroids by enzymes in the body, that you'd expect to enhance muscle growth.

Independent studies showed that the effect of these prohormones on body composition was disappointing. But these studies didn't look at the prohormones that were based on 1-testosterone [structural formula shown above], such as 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one. That's why the researchers at West Texas A&M University decided to examine this substance closely.

They performed experiments on 17 male strength athletes aged between 18 and 35. For a month half of the group took a placebo containing sugar and the other half took a product containing 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one. The preparation that the researchers used was probably Finaflex 1-Andro. Its composition is shown below.

The subjects in the 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one-group took three capsules a day. That meant that they ingested 330 mg 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one plus 150 mg 6,7-dihydrobergamottin [formula shown on the right] daily. The latter is a substance found naturally in grapefruit. It inhibits the enzyme P450 34A. Because P450 34A plays a role in removing 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one from the body, 6,7-dihydrogergamottin enhances the effect of 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one.

At the end of the month – the subjects all followed the same training schedule during that time – the bodybuilders who had taken the 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one had managed to pile about four kgs lean body mass on to their frame and on top of that they'd lost over two kgs fat.

In addition, the maximal weight with which the subjects in the 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one group could just manage 1 rep on the bench press had increased by more than in the placebo group.

The effects of 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one on muscle mass and strength are about the same as taking 300 mg testosterone enanthate per week the researchers concluded from the literature. Against this weighs the fact that several hundred milligrams testosterone have negligible effects on cholesterol balance, and kidney and liver functioning. This was not the case for 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one. According to the study, 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one had similar effects to those you'd expect from almost any oral anabolic steroid.

The figure below shows that 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one [1-DHEA] almost halved the concentration of 'good' cholesterol HDL, and drastically increased that of 'bad' cholesterol LDL.

The researchers also discovered that the Glomerular Filtration Rate decreased in the users of 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one, which meant their kidney function decreased somewhat.

The concentration of the enzyme Alkaline Phosphatase [ALP] decreased in the 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one group, while the concentration of the enzyme Aspartate Transaminase [AST] rose. These are indications that the liver had difficulties in functioning.

3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one has now been banned in the US too. In the EU this prohormone has never been legal. WADA, the doping authority, has put the stuff on its doping list and a few years ago German doping hunters developed a test that shows up use of 100 mg 3-beta-hydroxy-5-alpha-androst-1-en-17-one for up to nine days.

Source:
J Appl Physiol (1985). 2013 Dec 31. [Epub ahead of print].

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