A small group of doping users combine antioxidants such as vitamin C and E with their anabolic steroids. The idea behind this supplementation is that the antioxidants protect the testes while steroids are being taken, helping the body’s own testosterone to kick in faster at the end of the course. Not such a crazy idea, according to the results of an animal study that researchers at the Comenius University in the Slovak Republic.
When athletes put anabolic steroids into their body, they reduce their natural Testosterone production. When done in an intelligent way, the effect is temporary. Long-term use of high doses without breaks is another matter… and not intelligent.
Endocrinologists regularly see older men who have become infertile after years of using steroids, or whose testosterone production has become exceedingly low, despite the improved post-cycle therapy forms now popular in the steroids scene.
The researchers at Comenius University performed experiments with rats to try and better understand what happens in the testes during a course of androgen supplementation. They gave a group of rats an injection containing 5 mg testosterone isobutyrate per kg bodyweight every other day.
Other groups of rats were given injections containing the anti-androgen cyproterone or injections containing both testosterone isobutyrate and cyproterone, or injections containing no active ingredients at all.
After two weeks the researchers analysed the rats’ testes. As you’d expect, the rats that had been given testosterone isobutyrate produced less of their own testosterone.
Administering testosterone, with or without cyproterone, boosted the concentration of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances in the testes. These are released when aggressive molecules attack unsaturated fatty acids in cell membranes.
At the same time, the total amount of antioxidants in the testes of the rats that had been given testosterone had decreased, and the amount of advanced glycation end products had increased.
Advanced glycation end products are created when glucose attaches itself to amino acids, forming inactive complexes. The tissues are often incapable of clearing up the AGEs, and as a result the AGEs impede the tissues’ functioning. This effect may have something to do with the lasting negative long-term effects of steroids use we mentioned above. We’re just hazarding a guess here.
The notion of consuming vitamin C and E antioxidants or super foods with a high ORAC value during a course of steroids isn’t such a strange idea at all after reading the Slovakian study. What’s more, you wonder to what extent a low-carb diet might also protect anabolic steroids users’ testes.
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