Pro HGH

In this new age of natural bodybuilding, many bodybuilders are putting their faith in growth hormone for druglike size-and-strength increases. This powerful hormone has proved itself as an anabolic agent due to enhanced muscle protein synthesis or reduced muscle protein catabolism. In other words, it can give your sluggish hypertrophy a high-voltage charge.

Athletes from all sports have been putting it to the test for years. For example several members of the Chinese swim team were caught recently with growth hormone in their possession while on their way to an international meet in Australia. GH is popular with athletes because, though it is officially banned by most international athletic governing bodies, it is undetectable by presently available drug tests.

Rumors are rampant that GH is also a popular bodybuilding drug. Most top-level bodybuilders who’ve used GH say that when taken alone, the drug helps preserve muscle during stringent dieting and speeds up fat losses. When combined with other anabolic substances, such as anabolic steroids (particularly testosterone injections) and insulin, GH has synergistic anabolic effects. Some bodybuilding observers even speculate that this combination of drugs explains the current spate of bodybuilding behemoths, with a few competitors walking on stage weighing 250 or more minus even a scintilla of apparent bodyfat.

While it initially seems as if the use of drugs such as GH are rampant in bodybuilding, the truth is that availability is often limited by cost. Taking the correct amount of GH is expensive, and if taken too long, the chances of side effects increase. Such possible side effects include gynecomastia (male breasts); carpel tunnel syndrome (a painful nerve impingement of the hand that often requires surgery); and a facial disfigurement called prognathism, characterized by a protruding jaw and forehead that imparts an apelike facial appearance.

Recognition of these problems has led many athletes to investigate safer, more natural means of promoting GH release. Several amino acids are known to elicit a GH response, the most prominent being the amino acids arginine and ornithine. One problem with this is that the most reliable release of GH with amino acids has occurred when the amino acids are given intravenously, often in 30-gram or higher dosages.

An often-quoted 1981 Italian study of 15 healthy young men showed that providing them with only 1,200 milligrams each of arginine and another amino acid called lysine led to GH blood levels eight times higher than baseline.

Large doses of oral amino acids, however, may cause gastrointestinal distress because of a pronounced osmotic effect. In effect, taking large doses of oral amino acids draws water into the intestine, leading to symptoms that include possible gas, bloating and diarrhea. Even if you escape that uncomfortable fate, the ingested aminos may be degraded by liver enzymes before reaching the blood.

Using various amino acids for eliciting GH release also depends on several other extenuating factors. For example, GH is released more reliably under conditions of low blood glucose and a low content of circulating free fatty acids in the blood. This means that such amino acid supplements work best if taken on an empty stomach. This explains the frequent suggestion to take such GH-promoting aminos before bedtime—assuming you haven’t eaten anything for at least three to four hours. Taking aminos at that time is suggested as a way to augment the natural peak release of GH, which occurs during the initial 90 minutes of sleep.

Taking other amino acids in conjunction with GH releasers, including a whole protein supplement such as whey, will completely negate any GH activity of the GH-releasing aminos due to competitive interference with brain uptake courtesy of other circulating amino acids.

Still another limiting factor that determines the efficacy of GH-releasing amino acids is acetylcholine production in the brain. Acetylcholine is a brain neurotransmitter synthesized from acetyl coenzyme-A and the nutrient, choline. The significance of acetylcholine related to amino acid GH-releasers is that the release of GH is, by way of amino acids, fostered by acetylcholine activity in the brain’s pituitary gland. Thus, if your acetylcholine production isn’t up to par, you’ll derive zilch from any quantity of GH-releasing supplements.

The philosophy of Symbiotropin is to take commonly available natural GH-releasers to a higher, more effective level that compensates for the many problems associated with using oral amino acids for purposes of GH release. Symbiotropin is based on the discovery in 1981 of peptides that are similar in structure to naturally occurring pain substances such as enkaphalin in the human brain. Enkaphalin acts like a natural form of morphine in ameliorating pain perception, and for some unknown reason, also boosts GH release.

The usual release of GH in the brain depends on the interplay between a substance that promotes GH release (growth hormone-releasing hormone, or GHRH) and one that inhibits it (somatostatin). The interesting thing about GH-releasing peptides is that they act independently of both of these usual limiting GH substances. The peptides themselves are just a chain of six or so amino acids in a specific sequence.

Several of these GH-releasing peptides have been, and still are, under continuous study. They are of extreme interest to researchers because they appear to increase the active anabolic factor of GH, insulinlike growth factor-1 (IGF-1). As such they have potential benefit in treating many catabolic diseases, such as those associated with HIV, cancer and aging. The advantage of these peptides is that they are available orally, unlike GH or IGF-1, which must be administered only by injection. The general term for these peptides is growth hormone secretagogues, since they work by augmenting both the amount and release of existing GH in the brain’s pituitary gland.

The potency of a few of these synthetic secretagogues is impressive. For instance, in one study a GH-peptide called MK-677 was given to 15 elderly women and 17 elderly men. Taking the drug orally for four weeks both enhanced pulsatile GH release and restored IGF-1 levels to that found in a young adult.

So what happens if you give an oral GH-peptide to a younger person? In a 1996 study of young men, MK-677 given orally for one week resulted in an enhanced GH pulse activity, yet without an elevation of GH secretion. IGF-1 levels also increased, as did the stages of deep sleep. This is significant and exciting to bodybuilders because it’s during these deep sleep stages that most of the body recovery attributed to sleep takes place.

Based on the findings of studies with drug versions of oral GH secretagogues, a pharmacologist decided to develop a natural form, which he called Symbiotropin. The primary ingredient in Symbiotropin is pituitary peptides, similar in structure to the drug versions. But the supplement also contains other ingredients, including what the developer calls chaperon molecules, that enhance both the effectiveness and delivery of the supplement in the body.

Symbiotropin also contains several known GH-releasing amino acids, such as arginine, glutamine, GABA, glycine, lysine and tyrosine. This is a very powerful combination. The developer says that the amino acids contained in the product are far more efficient in promoting GH release compared to taking the same aminos independently because of the superior delivery system incorporated into Symbiotropin, i.e., the chaperon molecules.

The brain chemical, L-dopa, is also a known GH releaser. L-dopa is made in the body from the amino acid, L-tyrosine, and is used medically to treat Parkinson’s Disease. Symbiotropin contains a legume found in the rain forest called Lacuna bean that is naturally high in L-dopa. While the developer of Symbiotropin indicates that this bean source is one of the primary ingredients of Symbiotropin, how much of the L-dopa gets past the protective blood-brain barrier is open to question. I imagine that the so-called chaperon molecules are involved in this activity.

Similarly to GH-releasing aminos, Symbiotropin is best taken on an empty stomach, either right before bed at night, or in the morning as soon as you get up. The latter technique may be best, since studies with the drug versions of GH peptides show that you get a more reliable GH release if the drugs are taken first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. To facilitate uptake, Symbiotropin is provided in an effervescent tablet that you dissolve in water because, as the developer of Symbiotropin notes, studies show a 15 percent increase in GH release from oral glutamine provided the amino in an effervescent form.

You are also advised to exercise within an hour of taking Symbiotropin, again on an empty stomach. This allows a synergistic effect between the known GH-releasing effects of exercise, and the GH enhancement induced by Symbiotropin. Training with a high level of intensity, focusing on working larger muscle areas, also adds to the effect.

The suggested dosage schedule for Symbiotropin calls for taking the supplement for five consecutive days, followed by a two-day break. Then the cycle is repeated. While Symbiotropin is generally suggested for people over 40 who show a decline in IGF-1 levels (this relates to 80 percent of people over 40), an unpublished study of Symbiotropin that included both elderly people and three young, healthy bodybuilders showed that one bodybuilder had an 8.5 percent increase in measured IGF-1 levels after just one day of using the supplement. Another bodybuilder in the study had a 12.5 percent rise in IGF-1 after a day; while the third bodybuilder showed a 36.6 percent increase in IGF-1 after six days of taking Symbiotropin.

This contrasts with older people in the study, who started with low levels of IGF-1. Their levels of the hormone increased anywhere from 7 to 229 percent after using Symbiotropin for varying time periods. Obviously, the lower your baseline IGF-1 level, the higher it will be after taking something known to increase the level of this hormone. IGF-1 levels are measured due to the ephemeral blood levels of GH. While GH is broken down in the liver about an hour after being released into the blood, IGF-1 levels (which are directly stimulated by GH) last for up to 18 hours.

Also noteworthy is that one clinic in California that dispenses GH as a means of youth restoration offers Symbiotropin as an alternative for those who are needle-phobic. According to the professionals at that clinic, results seen with Symbiotropin show that the supplement is about 65 percent as effective as actual growth hormone injections. In fact, many doctors are using Symbiotropin exclusively.

From all indication, it looks as if the next level of muscle-building supplementation has arrived. Symbiotropin has demonstrated its ability to significantly boost anabolism and recovery, making it a boon to many drug-free bodybuilders looking for that all-natural increase in mass and strength.