Originally Posted by
RedBaron
Wow! Talk about a tall order. This is not a really easy set of questions to answer ... and in fact I hate to tell you that medicine and science really doesn't have all of the answers to this as of yet. For every question that gets answered in labs all over the world, it just opens up 100 other questions that are even more difficult and that are without an answer. In general though, here are some thoughts that the scientific community has been able to some up with so far. In a nutshell, I am going to tell you that we have only scratched the surface of the full work of growth hormones and growth factors. We are only beginning to unravel their scope of work on the body.
The first thing is that HGH doesn't seem to "turn" into IGF-1 as it passes through the liver. Just like GHRH acts on the pituitary to release HGH, HGH acts on the liver to secrete IGF-1. HGH doesn't ONLY act on the liver though. HGH also seems to act on muscle cells themselves, releasing its own IGF-1, though slightly different in structure to the form secreted by the liver. As it isn't a function of HGH "turning" into IGF-1, that in part would seem to explain why there isn't a linear progression of XXX amount of IGF-1 per YYY increase in HGH dosage. I had posted a general observation that for me to get the biggest bang for the investment as far as getting my measurable IGF levels at their highest with the least amount of HGH, it seemed that if I kept my individual doses to about 3-4 IU's a piece, my IGF levels would be higher than giving myself doses of up to 10 IU's a piece. It seems to me anyway that there is a point of diminishing returns as far as IGF-1 secretion from the liver is concerned at least in the group that experimented with some options a few years back. It seems that the liver at some point is only going to give you an XXX secretion of IGF, and hammering it with megadoses beyond some personally defined threshold isn't really going to impress it to give you much more at that time. The bigger question though is this - How important is it, beyond verifying that our HGH is doing its job, to worry about maximizing IGF-1 secretions from the liver. There seems to be a correlation only in the extremes of the scale. If you IGF level is off the bottom of the chart, then you are probably not going to feel so great, are going to have a tough time growing and keeping everything healthy, and such. If you numbers are off the charts at the top, you are probably going to be growing bone, organs, and things you don't really want to. Everywhere in between is a reasonable question mark though, and there are a few ideas floating around as to why.
As mentioned above, HGH acts on the liver to secrete IGF-1, which then in theory travels through the bloodstream and acts on bone, muscle, connective tissues, and organs to signal and activate satellite cells and produce growth. In a controlled setting, if we introduce IGF-1 directly into bone or muscle tissue, growth is the result. The questions began though when we consider growth in normal, healthy adults. It has been suggested that just possibly it isn't so much the IGF-1 secreted by the liver, traveling through the bloodstream, and into the muscle and connective tissues that is so important in full grown folks, but rather the growth factors that HGH triggers the tissues themselves to secrete. If that is the more important facet of adult growth, then that might explain why larger doses of HGH usually equal more growth ... in spite of the fact that our systemic IGF levels don't make a huge jump upward.
The other thing to consider is the fact that the resulting IGF secretion from the liver and the other tissues is not the only function of HGH. It is shuttling nutrients to the tissues, it is triggering the cells to burn fat for fuel, and frankly it is doing a number of other functions that we are only beginning to understand. If you keep an eye out for studies, tests, and other things, you are going to see some interesting things with respect to HGH and IGF over the next several years. We most certainly haven't unraveled all of their mysteries yet. What seems to hold true in lab animals doesn't always pan out in humans. What seems to pan out for children, teens, and growth challenged folk don't pan out for normal adults. What pans out for some adults don't really seem to hold true universally for all adults. So what does that leave us?
After using HGH in just about every way I could come up with over a whole decade, I have come to the opinion that the most important thing with respect to HGH is to get your weekly dose right. If you are looking for fat loss, then the dose is lower per week. If you are looking for muscle gain, you are going to have to make a significant investment and get the doses up there (especially if you are dealing with the import offerings). That is why it has always been my recommendation that HGH be reserved for a pretty select group of people outside children with growth issues. If you are suffering from wasting due to age, disease, or illness, HGH is going to help. If you are beyond your 40's and don't want to get old before your time, then HGH is going to help. If you are a bodybuilder that has maximized all of your God given muscle tissues, then HGH is going to help recruit some new ones. Outside of that HGH costs a lot to do a cycle justice for a meager payoff in the grand scheme of things. The particular weekly dosing protocol is really going to depend on so many factors that are personal in nature that it is going to take a little experimentation to get it dialed in for you.
In general, I would dose it so you aren't robbing yourself of your own large secretions of growth hormones (of which there may be more than the 191aa that we have focused our attention on so far), and I would dose it so you aren't plagued with unbearable sides of joint pain, swelling, bloating, and water retention. Beyond that, I wouldn't personally get overly concerned with getting your IGF levels on your blood work to enter the stratosphere. As long as you're posting respectable IGF levels on your blood panels, and your weekly dose of HGH is sufficient for your age, size, general condition, and goal, then I think you will grow.
In terms of doses (assuming a 5-6 day protocol) it seems in general for normal adult males that 2-3 IU's of the prescription offerings, or 4-5 IU's of the import offerings are going to result in general health, well-being, and fat loss. To achieve anywhere near a significant amount of growth, it would likely take 6 or so IU's of the prescription offerings, and 10-15 IU's of the imports.
Of course there are so many other factors at work - your body's own metabolism, your own sensitivity to HGH, your own endogenous hormone levels, what other supplements and anabolics are a part of your program, your age ..... on and on it goes. It is almost impossible to make a blanket statement about what is going to work and what is not. I have seen many people take a couple of IU's of HGH a day and benefit. I have seen others that can take that same couple of IU's and see zero. I have seen people take big doses and suffer so bad from sides that they had to cease their cycles. I have seen others that tolerate it great. It truly is a personal venture, and will require some personal experimentation to dial in a program that works best for you.
Best of luck to you. Hopefully some of this rambling will be of benefit as your craft your cycle.
