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Definition: "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance "
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27.04.2010 |
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Wrong steroid in IBE's Epistane
There's something not quite right about IBE's designer supplement Epistane. According to an article by Japanese doping hunters working for Mitsubishi Chemical Medience Corporation, published in Drug Testing & Analysis, at least one batch of the preparation contains a different steroid from the one listed on the label.
When we looked it up in Julius Vida's steroids bible Androgens and Anabolic Agents (1969) we found impressive data based on animal studies, which you can see below. The upper steroid is methylepithiostanol, which is what Epistane is supposed to contain.
VP = effect on the prostate; SV = effect on the sperm vesicles; LA = effect on the sphincter muscle. VP and SV are markers for masculinising side effects; LA is a marker for the desired muscle building effect. The values are compared with methyl testosterone, which was adjusted to 100.
As you can see, methylepithiostanol is a fantastic oral steroid with few side effects and a huge anabolic effect. So it's a shame that it's not in Epistane. At least, it's not in Lot 105284 of IBE's Epistane. Instead, the researchers found 17-alpha-methyl-2-beta,3-beta-epithio-5-alpha-androstane-17-beta-ol in the capsules. The difference is in the spatial position of the sulphur atom: In the steroid that the researchers found the sulphur atom hangs at the bottom of the steroid skeleton. But Epistane should contain a compound in which the sulphur atom is at the top of the steroid skeleton.
The performance of the steroid in Epistane is shown in the second row of the table above, and it's not very impressive.
The researchers are not 100% sure of their case. They used NMR to find out whether they were dealing with 17-alpha-methyl-2-alpha,3-alpha-epithio-5-alpha-androstane-17beta-ol, or with 17-alpha-methyl-2-beta,3-beta-epithio-5-alpha-androstane-17-beta-ol. The Japanese used data from a 1975 study to interpret the results of their own measurements. But if the older study is not correct, the Japanese study isn't either.
What's more, the researchers found another substance in the capsules as well: the designer steroid 17-alpha-methyl-5-alpha-androst-2-en-17-beta-ol. You may know this steroid under another name: madol, DMT, desoxymethyl testosterone or PheraPlex. This steroid-s performance is shown at the bottom of the table above. It-s just as good as methylepithiostanol.
The researchers think that madol is produced when methylepithiostanol is manufactured. In the human body methylepithiostanol is converted into madol.
The researchers gave human subjects IBE's Epistane, and found no traces of methylepithiostanol in their urine – but they did find madol. [This conversion apparently did not go so well in rodents.] So the contamination isn't that bad.
According to the values from the table in Vida, it seems that madol may be even stronger than methylepithiostanol. So even if they take the wrong Epistane, users still stand to grow.
A discussion on the Japanese publication has arisen on bodybuilding.com. See here.
Whether the other Epistane products on the market, like Havoc, Epithin-E, Methyl-E, Hemaguno, Oxydrol, Kryptonite, Epidrol, Hemobolin, Epi-Max, Epiotren, CynergE, E-Stane, SuprEmacy, Jacked and Spawn, also contain the wrong methylepithiostanol it's not possible to say on the basis of this research.
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