Two years ago liver doctors sounded the alarm about cases of liver damage
in users of Herbalife products. They were unable to say which component
in Herbalife products was causing the liver damage, but researchers at
the University of Bern made an attempt to do so in an article published
this year in the Journal of Hepatology. They found the bacteria Bacillus subtilis in Herbalife products.
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In the article the doctors discuss two cases of people who became ill
after using Herbalife products: a man aged 78 and a woman aged 50. The
man's urine
had turned dark brown, he had hepatitis and had been feeling unwell for
a couple of weeks. He had been using the Herbalife F1 Shake [Strawberry
and Cappuccino flavours] for three years on his daughter’s advice [she
was a Herbalife salesperson], as well as various other medicines.
According to the analyses, the man had a liver complaint. When the
doctors took him off the shake his blood values recovered, but they
deteriorated again later. The doctors gave the man corticosteroids and ursodeoxycholic acid, after which he recovered completely. You can see the fluctuations in the man’s blood values in the graph below.
The woman sold Herbalife supplements. She took half a dozen different
Herbalife supplements, including the Personalized Protein Powder Mix
Formula 3. She had stomach pain
and hepatitis and the doctors found signs of liver damage in her blood.
They got the woman to stop taking the supplements and the graph below
shows how the liver values in her blood improved.
The researchers examined samples from the livers of the man and the
woman and found signs of damage in both. The doctors turned the
supplements that the men and women had used inside out, but found no
contaminants: no heavy metals, no pesticides, no antibiotics, nothing.
But when they examined the Herbalife products for micro-organisms, they
did come across something. The meal substitutes the man and woman had
been using contained the bacteria
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Hmm.
Honestly speaking, we’re not sure what to make of this. As far as we know, B. Subtilis is found in pretty much everything, and it’s not particularly dangerous. [Wikipedia]
Some studies even regard it as a probiotic. It would seem pretty unlikely then that B. subtilis is the cause of such serious liver damage.
Source: J Hepatol. 2009 Jan;50(1):111-7.
Bodybuilder drugs his liver to oblivion – twice
A medical case study that will give you goose bumps, this report from
doctors at the US Massachusetts General Hospital. The article tells
the story of a 27-year-old competitive bodybuilder and part-time
policeman who turned up at the Emergency Department.
The man’s been using anabolics for five years, but now he's got stomach
pains and is nauseous. The doctors do blood tests and discover
that the man’s liver is no longer functioning properly. For a start, the
concentration of the enzyme ALT is 2457 units per litre: 35
is the healthy maximum. The bodybuilder’s blood is syrupy and his
haematocrit level is fifty percent.
The bodybuilder says he injects nandrolone and takes androstenedione.
The scan the doctors make of his liver shows a real mess, shown in
Picture A below. The light patches are swellings, the biggest of which
measures 10 x 10 cm.
The doctors operate and discover that the liver is in an even worse
state than they had feared. The organ contains swellings that are filled
with blood. Peliosis hepatis is the doctors’ diagnosis, the same
complaint as killed Andreas Muenzer.
The doctors also found a swelling with a diameter of 23 cm. This kind of
swelling doesn’t usually get bigger than 3 cm. The doctors decide
to amputate part of the liver.
After the operation the bodybuilder recovers and is allowed home. When
the doctors make another scan three months later they see that the
swellings
in the remaining part of the liver have shrunk by 40 percent, Picture B
above. The bodybuilder thinks it's time to start doping again, and says
he’s
going to start again with androstenedione.
After three years the bodybuilder returns to the doctors. Six weeks
previously he had treated himself to injections of a nandrolone
derivative.
And bingo, he’s got stomach pains again.
Three days after admission to the hospital, the bodybuilder’s heart rate
starts to increase. When the doctors make another scan – the picture
above on the right – they see that his liver is in a bad way again. The
swellings have started to grow again, and the liver has a protuberance
that has started to bleed.
The doctors discuss briefly whether they should give the guy a new
liver, but reject the idea. It would be a waste: he would only destroy
it again
with pills and injections. Alcoholics are not given a new liver either.
So they just stop the bleeding and send the bodybuilder home again.
Thinking about it, we find it difficult to believe that the bodybuilder
was only using deca and androstenedione. True, a number of cases have
been
published of bodybuilders who, as the result of a mild course of deca,
developed a blood clot the size of a brick in their stomach, or became
psychotic after one single deca injection. But to be honest, we don’t
believe those studies.
Moreover, neither androstenedione nor nandrolone is harmful to the
liver. Laboratory research on liver cells has shown this. And, by the
time the
doctors were seeing their patient, George Bush had already outlawed
androstenedione. Although androstenedione is still on the market,
bodybuilders
hardly ever use it. Why would they? In countries like the US there are
much more effective legal anabolic steroids available. But among these,
there are a number of substances that are notoriously bad for the liver.
The most dangerous is Superdrol, an anabolic that was developed at the
end of the fifties by Syntex. Doctors have recorded damaged livers and
destroyed kidneys in users of Superdrol more than once.
This is what makes us suspect that the bodybuilder in this case study
used stronger stuff than androstenedione and deca. Bodybuilders are
often
not entirely honest about what they have been using when they visit a
doctor about medical problems. Even when being honest could have saved
their
life.
Sources:
World J Gastroenterol. 2008 Jul 28;14(28):4573-5.
Bodybuilder gets jaundice from creatine and protein supplements
A healthy man of 27, a fanatical bodybuilder, developed liver damage and jaundice after using sports supplements
containing creatine and whey protein. Liver specialists at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York describe the
case in Seminars in Liver Disease.
The man in the case study had no pain and did not feel unwell, but because he showed signs of jaundice he went to
hospital. There the doctors discovered that his blood contained high levels of bilirubin, a substance that should
have been removed by the liver. The man’s blood also contained high amounts of the enzyme alkaline phosphatase and
creatinine. The first substance can be an indication of liver malfunction. The second is a waste product of
creatine.
In people with jaundice, the skin and whites of the eyes turn yellow [see pic below], but this is not necessarily
cause for alarm. Bilirubin is not a dangerous substance, and may even be an endogenous antioxidant. But jaundice is a
sign that something is wrong with the liver, and it therefore needs to be taken seriously.
When the doctors examined the bodybuilder’s liver they saw that the organ was no longer removing bile. The ducts that
should have been doing so were blocked. The scientific term for this is cholestasis.
The bodybuilder had been taking creatine for nine months and whey protein for one month. The doctors thought that this
might be responsible for his condition. When the man stopped taking the supplements, his liver returned to normal and
the jaundice disappeared. If doctors come across healthy athletes with an abnormal liver, the researchers write, then
they should ask whether the athletes are using potentially 'dangerous' supplements like whey protein and creatine.
We put ‘dangerous’ in quotes advisedly. We don’t actually believe that healthy people can get jaundice from creatine and
proteins. We agree with the opinion of a blogger – who by the way also works at Gaspari Nutrition – at bodybuilding.com
who suspects that the bodybuilder in question was also using steroids, and developed jaundice as a result of these.
[bodybuilding.com 2008/05/23]
It wouldn’t be the first time that bodybuilders have run into trouble for using hardcore doping materials, go to a doctor
and then don’t tell the whole truth about what they are using. In the past we have written about a bodybuilder who had
taken an overdose of DNP, got sick and went to hospital – where he died because he didn’t
dare to say what he had been using. In another article a bodybuilder almost lost a testicle because
at first he didn’t tell the doctors that he had been using Pregnyl.
There are plenty of reports in the medical literature of the side-effects supplements or low doses of doping drugs, which
should be enough to make the readers’ hair stand on end. But these reports are probably the result of silent use of
forbidden substances – and in high quantities. For example, there was the bodybuilder who said he had developed gyno from
using Tribulus terrestris supplements.
[Breast. 2004 Oct;13(5):428-30.] Other bodybuilders have said
that they got liver damage from androstenedione and a blood clot the size of a brick from
taking deca and proviron.
[N Engl J Med. 1999 Apr 8;340(14):1123-4.]
Sources:
Semin Liver Dis. 2008 May;28(2):226-31.
Supplement protects steroids users’ livers
A preparation made by Natterman, which supposedly protects the liver and which chemical athletes are using more and more
often: Greek researchers refer to it in their study as compound N. The researchers, at Thessaly University, set up an
experiment to determine whether compound N really works.
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After a bit of surfing we worked out that Compound N is Essentiale forte.
[Google]
A packet contains a couple of dozen capsules, each of which contains 300 mg of polyene phosphatidylcholine. This is
choline-phosphoric acid with two unsaturated fatty acids attached, usually linoleic acid. It probably resembles the
phosphatidylcholine found in soya.
In addition, each capsule contains 6 mg of vitamin B1, 6 mg of vitamin B2, 6 mg of vitamin B6, 6 mcg of vitamin B12,
30 mg of nicotinamide and 6 mg of vitamin E.
The Greeks, who by the way have also done research on the psychological effects of anabolic steroids, did an experiment
with three hundred and twenty athletes. Half of them, one hundred and sixty athletes, used steroids. Of these chemical
athletes, the researchers gave forty Essentiale forte: two capsules a day taken with food.
All of the chemical athletes took steroids and the researchers monitored them for eight weeks. The list below gives you
an idea of what the Greek bodybuilders were using.
Yes, the list puzzled us too. Quinbolone? [An enol-ether of boldenone – Ed.] Oxabolone? [Nandrolone with a hydroxyl
group on C4 – Ed.] Are these products still on the market? And where are the 'new' designer steroids? Surely athletes
in Greece use products like 1-Test and Madol too?
Still.
During the eight-week period the researchers measured the athletes’ concentrations of the following enzymes: aspartate
aminotransferase (AST/SGOT), alanine aminotransferase (ALT/SGPT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), alkaline phosphatase (ALP),
gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (gamma-GT) and creatine kinase (CK).
The more enzymes in the blood, the harder a time the liver is having.
The figure below shows what happened to the liver enzyme concentrations. Group A = chemical athletes who took
Essentiale forte as well. Group B = chemical athletes who did not take a liver-protection supplement. Group C =
‘natural’ athletes.
The researchers are not sure how phosphatidylcholine and vitamins protect steroids users’ livers. They suspect that
the mixture strengthens the membranes of the liver cells. The livers of steroids users have to work hard to break down
all the extra substances they are subjected to. And as a result the liver cells ‘cut down’ on metabolising fats. The
liver gets fattier because the liver cells are no longer burning fat well [beta-oxidation – Ed.] and maintenance of
the cell membranes made up of fatty acid chains gets neglected. The supplement helps the liver cells to perform these
functions.
Sounds attractive, but to be honest we find it difficult to believe that simply taking vitamin B pills and lecithin
capsules can protect steroids users’ livers. And we’re probably not the only ones who are sceptical. Reading between
the lines you can also see that the Greeks had trouble getting their study published.
That’s why they use long-winded sentences like: "the results from our cohort of similarly exercising individuals suggest
that polyunsaturated phospholipids in combination with vitamins of the B complex protect hepatic cells from AAS-induced
damage." According to the Greeks Compound N is not a supplement but "a controlled pharmaceutical agent".
But still. It’s not totally impossible that the Greeks have discovered something that will enable thousands of steroids
users to juice more safely.
More damaged livers from superdrol and madol
Liver specialists at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit have reported another three cases of bodybuilders who
developed liver damage as a result of using designer supplements. The men used Anabolic Xtreme’s
Superdrol or BMF Hardcore’s M-Test 2, a product containing the steroid
madol.
The Superdrol user was 21. He was nauseous, had stopped eating, had jaundice and itched all over. He’d been using
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When the symptoms had got worse after two weeks, the doctors gave him prednisone. The anti-inflammatory worked and
after another six weeks, he'd made a pretty good recovery.
Superdrol is a steroid whose structure and synthesis resemble those of
oxymetholone. It was also developed and tested
in the late fifties by the makers of oxymetholone, the American pharmaceutical company Syntex. Although superdrol
[see structural formula below] looked like a promising anabolic steroid in animal tests, in subsequent tests potential
side effects showed up.
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The effects of this move are clearly seen in the medical journals. In 2006 doctors in Phoenix, Arizona published an
article on the case of bodybuilder who became fatally ill after using superdrol.
[Am J Gastroenterol. 2006 Nov;101(11):2659-62.]
A few months later doctors at Johns Hopkins University published another case and a case in which another designer steroid
– Halodrol – had caused liver damage.
[Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2007 Jul;5(7):809-12.]
And another few months after that, doctors from Burlington wrote about five more bodybuilders who had developed
liver problems as a result of superdrol. [Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2008 Feb;6(2):255-8.]
What patient 2 used was not clear, but it contained at least DHEA. Of the three men referred to in the study, number 2
got off the most lightly. He recovered spontaneously a couple of weeks after he had stopped using the supplement.
Patient 3 used M-Test 2, a designer supplement containing the steroid madol. [Structural formula shown below.] Madol was
rediscovered by Patrick Arnold, who produced it as an invisible steroid for Balco, but it was picked up later by designer
supplement manufacturers. Madol was also developed by Syntex, a manufacturer that carried out promising animal tests on it
in the sixties.
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Not much is known about the side-effects of madol. It is not carcinogenic, say German researchers. But they did discover that
it enlarged the heart muscle in animal tests. The enlargement itself was not dangerous, but the researchers were not entirely
convinced. In the bodybuilding circuit however there are few stories around of users who have developed liver problems as a
result of using madol.
The sick madol user had to be given prednisone in the end, after which he recovered.
The doctors did not test the preparation the patient had used. And we
wonder quite honestly if it only contained madol. According
to the study, the bodybuilder became ill after he had taken 57 capsules
over a period of a few weeks. That would be impossible with
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BMF Hardcore, the maker of M-Test, has heavier oral designer supplements
among its products. The Canadian government has issued
warnings about these. Maybe something went wrong during the production
of M-Test 2. Or perhaps the doctors got it wrong that Patient
3 used the BMF product.
The doctors also read a couple of articles written by colleagues and
summarized the information they found. This resulted in the
table you see here below.
Liver specialists should get extra training on designer supplements that
contain oral anabolic steroids, the article concludes.
"The rapid reporting of several cases of AAS-induced liver injury from
dietary supplements emphasizes the growing emergence and
importance of this condition and the need for clinicians to become aware
of the sequelae of jaundice and renal failure, especially
among young men who are unknowingly consuming hepatotoxic agents."
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