milk thstle

[thunder20]

i am currently running fina in my cycle and want to clean out some of my insides, i now milk thistle is good for that but my question is how many mgs should i take a day....any help would be greatly appreciated thanks for the time

[eacman65]

this is probably a good question under the pct forum or the steroid questions forum

[thunder20]

i got sent here from steroid forum...should i try pct?

[nsa]

Pct is necesary after any AAS cycle. Milk thistle should be taken at 1000 mg ED during pct.

[thunder20]

what about while i am on?

[eacman65]

just use it during your PCT bro

[nsa]

I've seen studies that say milk thistle can disipate the effects of steroids while taking them with ,milk thistle. I would say save it for pct. What are you taking, you really only need milk thistle after methylated compounds like winny, m1t, d-bol, etc..

[Lozgod]

It costs like 5 or 6 bucks you can take it everyday for the rest of your life like a multi-vitamin. I say take all the time period. Not during PCT or on cycle, just take it like a vitamin. It can only help never hurt.

[nsa]

I've read studies that show that it decreases the power of methylated compounds if taken during the cycle.

[eacman65]

good thing i didnt decide to take it during my cycle

[nsa]

Thats why i wrote in my example cycle in that m1t faq to take it only during pct instead of during cycle and pct.

[Lozgod]

good thing i didnt decide to take it during my cycle

I totally disagree, I doubt that the effects dont justify leaving your liver that open to damage. I dont know a single person that dosent use Milk Thistle during a cycle.

I've read studies that show that it decreases the power of methylated compounds if taken during the cycle

Can someone post that study to prove it? I dont believe it, I took a year long course to get certified as an herbalist and the properties of Milk Thistle dont have those qualities.

[nsa]

The study was posted a few weeks ago in this forum.

[Lozgod]

The study was posted a few weeks ago in this forum.

I never met anyone that didnt gain because they are taking Milk Thistle, to tell someone to not take something that PROTECTS them is the worst advice I have seen on here yet!

[nsa]

I didn't say you wouldn't gain, the study showed that those who used a liver protectant during use of methyls didn't gain as much as those who didn't use a liver protectant. If you take 4 weeks of a methylated compound its not going to kill you or harm your liver all that much. So whats the harm in taking milk thistle in your time off of methylated compounds?

[Lozgod]

If you take 4 weeks of a methylated compound its not going to kill you or harm your liver all that much. So whats the harm in taking milk thistle in your time off of methylated compounds?

Do a search eacman and make up your own mind. I would never ever even think about telling someone not to take Milk Thistle or anything else to protect your liver.

[Lozgod]

Bad advice in the Supplement forum please help.

[nsa]

If anyone can find the thread with the study in it please post the thread link...

[Lozgod]

If anyone can find the thread with the study in it please post the thread link...

You are the one that tells everyone to do a search, you find it, if it exists.

[SportsMedVIP]

I smell sh*t, of the bull variety. I'd like to see that study as well. I am running Milk Thistle at a low dosage because I'm not running a 17aa right now but when I ran winn I had it above 1g a day and could see the results streaming out of me every few hours. And I guess I don't have a study to back it up but I don't feel it stopped any of my gains, caust they were good. Does any one else smell that?

[nsa]

what is wrong with you loz, i don't tell every one to do a search. Whats your problem with me?

[nsa]

Obviously your not going to be able to visibly tell how much it effects the gains. The study was posted a few weeks back, i tried to find it but it was under a name other than liver protectant study. Why would i make up something like that?

[Lozgod]

what is wrong with you loz, i don't tell every one to do a search. Whats your problem with me?

I don't have a personal problem with you, I am just pissed you gave that bad advice, but if you had good intentions, I apoligize.

[nsa]

I could not find the study i was looking for, but he's another study...

Hepatoxicty: Fact or Fiction
by Roy Harper


We all know that the alpha alkylated steroids are hepatotoxic, right….. But, is there actually any truth to this? We’ve been told for years that if you take 17 alpha-alkylated steroids, you will eventually run into liver problems. Never combine 17 aa’s, never go beyond 50mg day, never go longer than 4 weeks, etc. All of this is crap! As I we walk you through some studies, today, you’ll see 17 alpha-alkylated steroids can be hepatotoxic but not to the degree you would think.

To make a steroid hepatotoxic, you need only a small change to a steroid molecule; A strong bond that cannot readily be down broken by enzymes in the liver. This may be a bond at the 17th position, or even at the 1st position (as in methenolone or proviron ). Because the liver cannot easily break the steroid down before it is released in to the blood stream, this also results in the steroid to becoming more orally bio-available.

We can see that the liver has to work harder to break down these steroids. Enzymes in the blood and tissue easily metabolize other steroids such as Testosterone . Commonly, this increase in liver activity has been viewed as a harmful process, but as you will see, this increase is, in and of itself, irrelevant. The liver is THE filter of the human body -- it can figure out what to do with just about anything. The only real problem comes in when one keeps their liver at full blast for long periods of time.

Let’s look at some studies showing the hepatotoxicity of steroids. Here's one of my favorites, a study published in 1979[1]. Essentially, researches did a study of deaths caused by hepatic angiosarcoma (a malignant tumor of vascular tissue in the liver) between 1964 and 1974. Researchers found 131 reported cases of death from hepatic angiosarcoma. Out of the 131 cases, 3.1% (4 cases) were reported to be at all related to the use of androgenic -anabolic steroids. Keep in mind that these 4 people could have liver complications before any steroids were used, aka a genetic disposition. In fact there is no proof, in this study at least, that the anabolic-androgenic steroids even caused the hepatic angiosarcoma.

This is the classic case of associating a cause with an effect, without any evidence, aside from both existing. Furthermore, based on the above numbers, there are only 0.4 cases of hepatic angiosarcoma reported each year, by those using AAS. Now consider the number of people on steroids at this time. Now factor in all the people that don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to using AAS, properly. Clearly, this is very week evidence. Lastly there has not been a real increase in hepatic angiosarcoma since the early seventies. Meanwhile, there has been a huge, almost exponential, increase in steroid use during this period.

Another study, that somewhat supports the previous hepatotoxicity case, showed the possibilities of hepatic adenomas(cysts in the liver) caused by androgenic-anabolic steroids [2]. In this study, a Japanese girl was found to have multiple liver lesions after the use of the drug oxymetholone (aka Anadrol ). Most everyone “knows” that Anadrol is linked with liver problems, but a closer inspection into this study shows more.

Apparently, this girl, starting at the age of 14, was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. She was prescribed oxymetholone at 30mg per day. This continued for 6 years until the lesions first appeared. Assuming that the girl was most likely around 100 lbs., this was a pretty heavy dosage. If you extrapolated this data out to a 200 - 250lbs. male, that would be taking approximately 60 - 90mg of anadrol per day for 6 years. Ouch!

The researchers also stated that there were only 17 other cases of hepatic adenomas, found in English literature between 1975 and 1998. They failed to mention the causes of these 17 cases, but there is no reason to believe they were all using 17-AA androgens and 17 is certainly miniscule compared to the number of people who have used them. The authors’ finish off the study by saying the following: "This report may be helpful in identifying the population who is at risk of developing hepatic sex hormone-related tumors." So remember, if you're a small 14-year-old girl taking 30mg of Anadrol per day for 6 years, you may be at risk!

Let's move on to some more useful studies. Take for example a 1995 study that showed the toxic effects of anabolic-androgenic steroids in primary rat hepatic cell cultures[3]. In this study the researchers used the following drugs and dosages:

Steroid
1x10^-8M
1x10^-6M
1x10^-4M

19-nortestosterone
0.002744mg
0.2744mg
27.44mg

Fluoxymesterone
0.003365mg
0.3365mg
33.65mg

Testosterone cypionate
0.004126mg
0.4126mg
41.26mg

Stanozolol
0.003285mg
0.3285mg
32.85mg

Danazol
N/A
N/A
N/A

Oxymetholone
0.003325mg
0.3325mg
33.25mg

Testosterone
0.002884mg
0.2884mg
28.84mg

Estradiol
0.0027424mg
0.2724mg
27.24mg

Methyltestosterone
0.003024mg
0.3024mg
30.24mg


As proof of the hepatoxicity they used Lactate dehydrogenase release, neutral red retention, and glutathione depletion to determine plasma membrane damage, cell viability, and possible oxidative injury, respectively.

What they showed was that the 17 alpha-alkylated steroids, methyltestosterone, stanozolol and oxymetholone, significantly increased Lactate dehydrogenase release and decreased neutral red retention at the 1x10^-4M dosage for 24h. Both methyltestosterone and oxymetholone also showed depleted glutathione at the 1x10^-4M dosage after 2h, 6h and 8h treatments. In other words they increased liver activity. You may also note that the other, non-alkylated steroids showed no significant difference in any levels. All in all this not only shows that 17 alpha-alkylated steroids are directly “hepatotoxic”, but also non-alkylated steroids are note hepatotoxic at all. But is this a real measure of hepatotoxicity? There is yet to be any correlation between the increase of the above-mentioned measurement and “hepatotoxicity”. Obviously, high dosages of the 17 alpha-alkylated steroids are potentially dangerous, but upon closer inspection, the study reveals more.

Take a look, the researchers took cell cultures from the liversse of 60-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats. Not only are rat livers much smaller than human livers, but these were merely cultures. Furthermore, it was the 1x10^-4M concentrations that caused the most changes, but these are approximately 1 to a 1/3 of a full, daily human dosage -- at least for the 17 alpha-alkylated steroids. Even at the 1x10^-6M concentration, there were no significant changes observed. It's apparent that the levels of 17 alpha-alkylated steroids used were potentially toxic, but for a human to take the same amount would be insane. I'm guessing this could translate to maybe 4 grams every 24 hours or 28 grams a week if not more.

What is common so far is we can only prove that any steroid, that is believed to be hepatotoxic, only increases liver activity. I’ll say it again, where is the correlation to hepatotoxicity? We know that if the liver is running at 100% for long periods this may cause complications, but this is akin to any other chemical, which is metabolized by the liver. Ever noticed that liver cancer due to alcoholism takes decades of constant alcohol abuse? It’s apparent that the possibility for hepatotoxicity is there, but for the smart steroid user this is nearly an impossible task.

Another study done in 1999, attempted to show the acute and chronic effects of stanozolol on the liver[4]. In acute treatments of stanozolol, dosages not mentioned, both cytochrome P456 and b5 (microsomal enzymes) levels dropped after 48 hours, and then at 72 hours, levels significant increased. On the other hand, with chronic treatments, time or dosage not mentioned, these microsomal enzymes showed a decrease in levels. Researchers showed that both acute and chronic treatments resulted in "slight to moderate inflammatory or degenerative lesions in centrilobular hepatocytes", but the authors did not note true hepatotoxicity.

How about we look at the other side of the story, the good studies. For instance, in a 1999 study, which looked at the effects of an 8-week cycle of 17 alpha-alkylated steroids[5]. The researchers used fluoxymesterone, methylandrostanolone, or stanozolol on rats at 2mg/kg-body weight, five times a week for 8 weeks. That's 182mg per dosage, for a 200lb man, or 910mg per week. Half of the rats were sedentary and the other were trained on a treadmill.

Levels of NADH-cytochrome c reductase, succinate cytochrome c reductase, and cytochrome oxidase (showing liver activity), increased in the steroid-administered rats, while citrate synthase showed no change. Comparatively, in vitro, the "cytochrome oxidase and citrate synthase activities were insensitive to the AAS, whereas NADH-cytochrome c reductase and succinate cytochrome c reductase activities were partly inhibited."

Furthermore, in vivo, each rat had liver enzyme levels that were within normal range. From this, the researchers determined that the steroid-administered rats, trained or sedentary, did not show "...classical serum indicators of hepatic function". Extrapolating this, 910mg a week for 8 weeks could potentially have little to no effect on the liver in humans.

As for human studies, in 1999 researchers tried to prove that the hepatotoxicity of steroids is overstated[6]. In this study, 15 of the participants were bodybuilders using self-administered steroid dosages and 10 were non-steroid bodybuilders. Serum data was compared to 49 patients with viral hepatitis, and 592 exercising and non-exercising medical students. [

All of the bodybuilders showed increases in aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and creatine kinase (CK) while gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT) levels were in the normal range. In comparison, hepatitis patients showed increased ALT, AST, and GGT levels while the control exercising medical students showed increased CK levels. From this, the researchers suggested that it is the correlation between AST, ALT and GGT that shows true liver dysfunction. Keep in mind, we can only guess that the 15 steroid users were using 17 alpha-alkylated steroids, and we do not know what the dosages that were used., but common sense tells us the results are likely relevant.

Last but not least, a simple study done in 1996, showed the long term benefits after taking a 3 month break from steroids[7]. 16 bodybuilders using steroids were compared to 12 bodybuilders that were not. After a three-month drug withdrawal, the researchers showed that levels of liver enzymes, types not mentioned, returned to the same as the non users. Again the dosages are left to the reader’s imagination and we can only guess that the 16 steroid users were using 17 alpha-alkylated steroids.

So what can we conclude from all of this? First off, 17 alpha-alkylated steroids are hepatotoxic in high dosages taken for a long time. On the other hand, short cycles and small dosages appear to be perfectly safe. I suggest that maximum dosages should be 500mg to 900mg per day. They should be cycled for perhaps 8 weeks at a time, and if needed a 3-month break from them should be used. Using the above-mentioned techniques, your liver can be healthy for a long time. Simply put, the hysteria surrounding “hepatoxic” steroids, is based mainly on folk lore.


References:

[1] Lancet 1979 Nov 24;2(8152):1120-3, Hepatic angiosarcoma associated with androgenic-anabolic steroids. Falk H, Thomas LB, Popper H, Ishak KG.

[2] J Gastroenterol 2000;35(7):557-62, Multiple hepatic adenomas caused by long-term administration of androgenic steroids for aplastic anemia in association with familial adenomatous polyposis. Nakao A, Sakagami K, Nakata Y, Komazawa K, Amimoto T, Nakashima K, Isozaki H, Takakura N, Tanaka N.

[3] J Pharmacol Toxicol Methods 1995 Aug;33(4):187-95, Toxic effects of anabolic-androgenic steroids in primary rat hepatic cell cultures. Welder AA, Robertson JW, Melchert RB.

[4] Arch Toxicol 1999 Nov;73(8-9):465-72, Evaluation of acute and chronic hepatotoxic effects exerted by anabolic-androgenic steroid stanozolol in adult male rats. Boada LD, Zumbado M, Torres S, Lopez A, Diaz-Chico BN, Cabrera JJ, Luzardo OP.

[5] Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1999 Feb;31(2):243-50, Rat liver lysosomal and mitochondrial activities are modified by anabolic-androgenic steroids. Molano F, Saborido A, Delgado J, Moran M, Megias A.

[6] Clin J Sport Med 1999 Jan;9(1):34-9, Anabolic steroid-induced hepatotoxicity: is it overstated? Dickerman RD, Pertusi RM, Zachariah NY, Dufour DR, McConathy WJ.

[7] Int J Sports Med 1996 Aug;17(6):429-33, Body composition, cardiovascular risk factors and liver function in long-term androgenic-anabolic steroids using bodybuilders three months after drug withdrawal. Hartgens F, Kuipers H, Wijnen JA, Keizer HA.

[Lozgod]

Where is the part about Milk Thistle?

[nsa]

Read the top of the thread...

[eacman65]

hmmmm this all seems to be a little stupid but anyways im still gonna wait for my pct even if it is god to take it now(which im not saying it is) i just dont like to take to many pills in a day, and i already fel like im taking a **** load

[Lozgod]

this is probably a good question under the pct forum or the steroid questions forum

Milk Thistle is an HERBAL SUPPLEMENT.

[Lozgod]

hmmmm this all seems to be a little stupid but anyways im still gonna wait for my pct even if it is god to take it now(which im not saying it is) i just dont like to take to many pills in a day, and i already fel like im taking a **** load

I never understood that statement about taking "too many pills". If you could get a mediocre 1 pill multi-vitamin or a quality vitamin once-a-day pack that was complete and top notch that had 5 pills why not take it. Milk thistle helps, it is a benefit no matter how many other pills you are taking.

[Lozgod]

Read the top of the thread...

You said that a report said that milk thistle made 17-orals less effective, that info is not at the top of the thread.....and it isnt in what you cut and pasted either.

[eacman65]

i say that because swollowing pills is a little hard to me for some reason

[Lozgod]

i say that because swollowing pills is a little hard to me for some reason

They got liquid milk thistle extract in most good health food stores. Not GNC I mean the specialty shops. Probaly online too.

[eacman65]

oh yeah i didnt know they made it like that, ill have to check that out

[Lozgod]

I dont mean to come off like a jerk, its just two things piss me off about the milk thistle issue.
People saying it doesnt work....because it does.

And people thinking it is all out powerfully potent and protects you 150%.

It is an herb that nutrionally supports your liver the same way Vitamin C supports your immune system. However if you inhale a bunch of influenza viruses you can take all the vitamin C you want, it may shorten the recovery time and the symptoms, but you will still catch the flu.

[eacman65]

i feel your pain, dont worry about it though everybody has there own beliefs i guess

[nsa]

Milk thistle works. But i've read studies that show that it dimishes the gains from methylated compounds to a degree. It will not save your liver if you use too much of a methylated compound or drink while taking a methylated compound.

I said to look at the top because i couldn't find the study i was looking for about milk thistle dimishing the gains, but i found a relevant study so i posted it.

[Lozgod]

Milk thistle works. But i've read studies that show that it dimishes the gains from methylated compounds to a degree. It will not save your liver if you use too much of a methylated compound or drink while taking a methylated compound.

Well that study you posted cotradicts the belief that your liver is damaged by 17-aa's. So too much of a methylated orals wouldn't matter, according to that study that is.

[nsa]

The study shows that methylated compounds aren't that bad for your liver, unless you run them either too much or too long, i.e. over 50 mg's or over 8 weeks. All i was saying is that 10 mg of m1t for 4 weeks doesn't really warrant milk thistle during the cycle. Its not that bad for your liver and taking milk thistle during pct should be enough to keep your liver healthy.

[nsa]

Alcoholics do alot more damage to their liver than people who run m1t for 4 weeks at 10 mg's and the alcoholics don't run milk thistle at all, and how many people you know that drink heavily have died from a hepatic angiosarcoma?

[Lozgod]

The study shows that methylated compounds aren't that bad for your liver, unless you run them either too much or too long, i.e. over 50 mg's or over 8 weeks. All i was saying is that 10 mg of m1t for 4 weeks doesn't really warrant milk thistle during the cycle. Its not that bad for your liver and taking milk thistle during pct should be enough to keep your liver healthy.

Well I take it ED on or off cycle. I have a whole vitamin and herbal regimine I follow year round. I spend like $100.00 a month on herbs and vitamins. If anyone needs a cheap site check out Puritans Pride. www.puritan.com