ergo-log.com

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

07.06.2018

Taking eight puffs of terbutaline every day results in a kilo of extra muscle mass 4 weeks later

If you use a bit more of the asthma drug terbutaline than patients usually need, you build over a kilo of muscle mass in a month. This happens when you work out with weights, but also when you just have a lifestyle with sufficient physical activity. Sport scientists from the University of Copenhagen come to this conclusion in a human study, which will soon appear in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports.

Terbutaline
Terbutaline, like clenbuterol and salbutamol, is a beta 2 agonist. Beta-2 agonists, as the name suggests, attach themselves to the adrenergic beta-2 receptor. When this receptor is activated smooth muscles relax, and the airways dilate.

Many beta-2 agonists also have an anti-catabolic effect, allowing users to build up extra muscle mass. Pharmacological athletes often use beta-2 agonists to make a fat loss diet more effective.

If athletes have asthma, they are allowed use terbutaline. As far as we known, medical doses of terbutaline have no effect on muscle mass. But, the Danes asked themselves, what happens if athletes use more terbutaline than is usually necessary to alleviate asthma?

Study
The researchers, who by the way were paid by the Danish government and the WADA, experimented with 66 healthy and active men aged 18-36 years. The men exercised 2-5 hours a week. They played football, jogged or cycled daily to and from work. The researchers divided the men into 3 groups.

The men in the first group did not change their exercise patterns [Habitual].

The men in the second group started endurance training. For 4 weeks, 3 times a week, the men did an interval training, which consisted of 3 sessions of 10 minutes of cycling with an intensity of 85 percent of the maximum oxygen uptake. Each session ended with a final sprint of 30 seconds. After the training, the men drank a shake with 30 grams of whey.

The men in the third group started resistance training, 3 times a week. Each training consisted of a full body workout, in which the men trained their main muscle groups with basic exercises such as leg-press, bench-press, extensions, military-press, lunges, lat-pulldowns, leg-curl and low-row. The men made sets of 12 reps, and rested for 2 minutes between sets. After each workout they drank a shake with 30 grams of whey.

In each group, half of the men used terbutaline. The drug was administered drug was administered by inhalation. The men used Bricanyl Turbohaler from AstraZeneca, if you want to know exactly. Every day the men took 8 puffs of 0.5 milligrams of terbutaline. That is 4 milligrams a day.

Results
In the men in the Habitual group, and in the men who trained with weights, the administration of terbutaline increased lean body mass [say: muscle mass] by just over one kilo. That did not happen with the men in the endurance training group.

Terbutaline had no effect on fat mass.

Conclusion
"The present study shows that daily inhalation of a commonly administered beta2-agonist increases lean mass in individuals who are not training per se, but rather maintaining a low physical activity level, and increases lean mass additively when combined with resistance exercise", the researchers write.

"This is a challenging anti-doping issue, and establishing a urine threshold for terbutaline should be a priority for WADA, in order to avoid excessive misuse for hypertrophic gains by athletes who have acquired terbutaline."

"Nevertheless, data from the present study should be a point of caution for clinicians who are treating elite athletes as terbutaline inhalation in doses of 4 mg, and presumably above, may potentiate training adaptations to resistance training."

Source:
Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2018 May 19. doi: 10.1111/sms.13221. [Epub ahead of print].

More:
The anabolic effect of combining salbutamol with L-dopa 02.11.2013
Using myostatin blockers to grow? Add clen and you'll grow more 01.05.2011
More fat burnt in a cardio session with salbutamol 24.11.2008

Archives:
Beta-2-Agonists

Apigenin, a natural anabolic compound in parsley The human equivalent of the dose researchers gave to their lab mice in this study is fairly low.	Anabolic effect of ecdysterone "strong enough to put it on the doping list" German biochemists have worked out how ecdysterone makes muscle fibres bigger and stronger – and they think that ecdysterone should perhaps be placed on the doping list.	The anti-catabolic effect of water in strength training Strength athletes grow faster after training sessions if they have enough water in their bodies.