Acne vulgaris (AV) is an incredibly annoying chronic skin disease. Teenagers around the globe are tormented by it, although most grow over it. Nevertheless, it's quite common in adults too. And if you've grown over it, you can still be struck by it when you start using anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS). …
Endocrine treatment of gynecomastia
Gynecomastia is the benign enlargement of breast tissue in men. Estrogens play a pivotal role in its development and endocrine treatment can help counteract it. …
Vitamin D absorption and supplementation recommendations
Vitamin D plays an important role in bone homeostasis and has been associated with countless diseases. Many people are vitamin D deficient. in this article I briefly discuss dietary vitamin D sources, its absorption and supplementation recommendations. …
The HAARLEM study suggests post-cycle therapy (PCT) doesn't work
Post-cycle therapy (PCT) is commonly employed by anabolic steroid users to speed up recovery of testosterone production after a cycle. A new study, called the HAARLEM study, suggests this practice might not work. …
What causes gynecomastia?
Gynecomastia is the benign enlargement of breast tissue in men. Androgens and estrogens play a pivotal role in its development. But what about prolactin and progesterone, are they also involved? …
The efficacy of aromatase inhibitors in men
Aromatase inhibitors can lower estrogen in the body. They do so by inhibiting the enzyme aromatase. But how effective are they at lowering estrogen in men? And is there a difference in efficacy when administering exogeneous testosterone? …
Clinical evidence indicates that DHT's muscle-building potency is relatively low
Recently, Victor Black made a post on Instagram touting that “DHT as shown here is a most capable Anabolic Agent” and purportedly refuting my claim that DHT's effect in muscle is dramatically diminished by its breakdown there. However, if anything, the study perfectly supports my position. …
Deepening of the voice in women using anabolic steroids
Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) can have virilizing effects on women. Certain characteristics shift towards that of a mans biology. One of them is deepening of the voice, or dysphonia. This is sometimes pretty evident with AAS-using female bodybuilders. In this post I discuss what is known about it in the scientific literature. …
The journey of writing Book on Steroids
It was March 2017 when I decided to start writing my first English book. This was right after I had finished writing my (Dutch) book on sports supplements, named Bonds voedingssupplementen. This book wouldn't be released until two months later in May, and, there I was, already underway with my third book. …
Research pick: “Effects of testosterone supplementation on body composition (...)"
For this research pick I’ll be addressing a recent paper by Pasiakos and colleagues. In this study they evaluated the effect of 200 mg testosterone enanthate weekly for a period of 4 weeks during a diet- and exercise-induced energy deficit of 55%. …
Energy surplus and muscle hypertrophy
Alan Aragon and Brad Schoenfeld reviewed the literature to delineate the role of energy intake in muscle hypertrophy. Let's see what they found! …
How well do anabolic steroids work?
In this article I will dive in some of the trials which have used dosages of testosterone enanthate up to 600 mg weekly. With and without concurrent resistance training. The results might surprise some of you. …
The effects of anabolic steroids on blood lipids
Anabolic steroids (AAS) can (negatively) affect blood lipids. In turn, this might affect cardiovascular disease risk. This article will discuss the effect of AAS on LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, apolipoprotein A1 and lipoprotein(a). …