The Facts on Androstenedione, By: Hugo Riveria

The purpose of this article is to briefly touch on the subject of Androstenedione and pro hormones by defining what they are and why I believe that you should stay away from them.

Pro Hormones are hormones that are precursor to other hormones. Androstenedione is probably the most popular of all pro hormones. It is a precursor to the hormone testosterone.

The product is being marketed as a dietary supplement to help increase testosterone levels and produce anabolic effects. Makers of androstenedione and other prohormone supplements promote the muscle building qualities of their products due to their supposed ability to increase testosterone levels way above normal. However, this is not a true statement as such companies that make these claims are assuming that the body will convert all of the ingested Androstenedione into testosterone. This is an incorrect assumption as there are many factors involved in determining how much of this prohormone will actually be converted to testosterone. Such factors include the amount of testosterone that you have in your system already as well as the availability of the enzymes needed to make such conversion happen. So in other words, while the Androstenedione that you intake may indeed be turned into testosterone some times, other times, depending on the chemical environment inside of your body, it may get turned into estrogen! As if this wouldn't be enough, let's remember that whenever you introduce a foreign hormone into the body, the body senses the presence of such substance and then shuts down the production of such hormone in an attempt to keep a hormonal balance. So in other words, by ingesting Androstenedione you may be short circuiting your natural testosterone production as the body will sense the extra amount of this hormone and then will shut down its production. Add to this the fact that some studies suggest that Androstenedione is very androgenic in nature, so side effects like increased acne, aggressiveness and promotion of baldness could be expected.

I wish I could tell you that this compound works as good as some companies claim it does. However, not only does it not work but it also brings risks associated with using it. Lets remember that since prohormones behave much like steroids, and in some cases are technically steroids, they provide many of the same problems. As a matter of fact a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined short and long-term effects of androstenedione supplementation in thirty young men aged 19-29 years who were not currently engaged in resistance training. In the short-term study, 10 of the 30 men received a one-time dose of 100 mg of androstenedione. For the long-term study, the remaining 20 men performed 8 weeks of resistance training and received either 300 mg. per day of androstenedione or a placebo. As I expected, the resistance training groups using androstenedione did not experience a rise in free or total testosterone, nor did they experience an increase in strength. To make matters worse, test subjects in the androstenedione/resistance training group experienced a decrease in HDL (high density liberal protein) cholesterol, which is the good cholesterol, along with a rise in estrogen! So my question to you is: Why would you take something that has very similar side effects to those of anabolic steroids if you are not even going to get the benefits that steroids do offer?

Conclusion
My suggestion for increasing testosterone (or at least keeping it on the high range) and growth hormone in an effort to gain muscle mass is to do so by natural means such as limiting the amount of time that your weight training session lasts to an hour or less, using the correct amount of weight and rest in between sets, following a good nutrition program with the proper ratios and frequency of meals, taking 3 grams of vitamin C a day, taking 3 grams of glutamine after a workout, ensuring adequate levels of zinc and manganese in your diet, and ensuring that you get sufficient amounts of sleep. Doing this will give you measurable results in your physique and hormonal levels while at the same time improving your health and well being.