I cruise bodybuilding sites, so I see a lot of supplement ads. Lately I've noticed a bunch for Anagen, which is an anabolic marketed by SciVation. One of the key ingredients in Anagen is the latest wonder hormone, called 20-Hydroxyecdysterone, or "Ecdy". At the bottom of one product blurb for Ecdy is this text:
Ecdy administration has not been shown to induce any side effects and have no toxic response in animals (Slama & Lafont 1995). ECDY will not lead to suppression of natural testosterone production as it does not bind to steroid hormone receptors (Dinan 2001)
Wow! No side effects have been shown! That would count for more if I also hadn't found this page, which concludes that there's been very little in the way of published research regarding human side effects.
Ecdysterone was shown to improve the learning and memory of the rats and increase the expression of c-fos. Very little human research has been published regarding ecdysterone. Therefore little is known about the full benefits and side effects of ecdysterone.
Rats of known species, in case you weren't aware, have a lifespan of between 18 months and four years. So in terms of potential long term damage, they're not really the best test subjects.
You know, if I was dying of a disease and there was some largely untested potential cure, I would probably take it. To experiment with ingesting some unknown compound solely for the sake of vanity, however, is insane. So many bodybuilders talk a good game about eating clean and living a healthy lifestyle, but then consume mystery substances without any idea of what the long term consequences might be. The hypocrisy would be funny if the potential consequences weren't so tragic.
