Chapter 1 The Dawn of the T-Booster Era
While I have been using natural testosterone therapies in my private practice for years, only recently has testosterone become part of mainstream medicine. Medical researchers have known for decades of the benefits of the hormone, but its powerful effects have scared many physicians. The fact that bodybuilders and athletes took matters into their own hands in the seventies and began using synthetic anabolic steroid drugs to boost testosterone levels further alienated the medical establishment from considering the benefits of testosterone therapies.
Then in 1994, despite much teeth gnashing from the American Medical Association and intense lobbying from the pharmaceutical industry, Congress enacted the Dietary, Supplement and Health Education Act. This groundbreaking legislation permitted the sale directly to the consumer of "natural" substances. If it was found in nature or the human body, the U.S. Government said it was legal to sell "over the counter," or without a prescription.
Although this landmark legislation may be news to you, you are probably familiar with its consequences. Melatonin and DHEA were among the first phase of products that were released under the new act. Now we are witnessing phase two: the release of testosterone prohormones, also known as T-boosters.
What is the power of T-boosters? Because they are almost identical in chemical structure to testosterone itself, they can alter the sexual hormone mix of the body. When used intelligently, T-boosters and their related biochemical kin can rekindle sexual drive. In fact, if you think that Viagra is the answer to all your sexual problems, by the time you've finished this book, you may conclude that T-boosters (which are available at a fraction of the cost of Viagra) are actually more effective.
If enhancing sexuality is not enough, T-boosters have the capacity to reverse the bane of almost all baby boomers -- middle-aged spread. Taken properly, they can safely and effectively reduce fat and increase muscle mass in a way that no diet by itself can. Finally, T-boosters can energize like coffee but without the jittery effects of caffeine. They can also increase physical endurance, which, when combined with a pro-testosterone diet and exercise, can be an effective tool in an overall antiaging health and fitness regimen.
Make no mistake: T-boosters are powerful supplements and must be used carefully. Our first rule is easy to remember: Start Low and Go Slow. That means always start with the lowest possible dosage of T-boosters and use them as infrequently as possible until an effective level is reached. You will receive guidelines in the upcoming pages concerning the beginning of this process, but it's incumbent on you as a good student of sex hormone physiology to read and understand the information presented here -- especially the precautions -- before taking any T-booster or other hormonal supplement.
The Search for the Miracle Hormone
Testosterone enhances sexual desire while burning fat and increasing muscle. Is there any wonder that it has been considered "the miracle hormone"? Surprisingly, not until 1935 when it was first isolated were scientists even sure that the hormone existed, although it had been the subject of speculation for centuries. History records that in 1400 B.C. in India, testicular extracts from animals were recommended for improving sexual performance in men. In 1792 an English scientist named John Hunter tried removing the testicles from cocks and transplanting them to hens, but this crude experiment was not successful. The German proto-endocrinologist Arnold Adolph Berthold began similar research in 1848 by transplanting rooster testicles into castrated roosters and observing their behavior. Berthold claimed the testicles made the castrated roosters more active and aggressive.
About fifty years later a French scientist named Charles-Edouard Brown-Séquard injected himself with a crude blend of guinea pig and dog testes. He swore that it gave him an amazing boost of energy, increased his sex drive, and, in medical science's first pissing contest, even increased the arc of his urinary stream. Brown-Séquard was actually a very well respected doctor and medical researcher responsible for several notable medical discoveries, but nonetheless he soon became the laughingstock of the scientific world.
In the 1920s, the first organized and sustained research to find this sex hormone began under the auspices of Squibb Pharmaceuticals at the University of Chicago. Led by Fred C. Koch, this team risked the same ridicule that Brown-Séquard endured for his efforts. A mixture made from bull testicles was injected into castrated roosters daily for two weeks. Lo and behold, this mixture proved effective at restoring some of the castrated roosters' manhood. The study was repeated with the same result, and thus it became the first scientifically verifiable study documenting the effects of a male sex hormone.
Testosterone Discovered
Now the race was on to actually isolate the substance. A group of German scientists led by Adolf Butenandt was determined to find the male hormone. This involved a number of comical approaches, including the distillation of twenty-five thousand liters of policemen's urine and mashing up two thousand pounds of bull testicles. But these extraordinary methods finally paid off in 1935 when a group of Dutch scientists isolated testosterone from mice testes. Later that year the German research team successfully synthesized testosterone, winning Adolf Butenandt a Nobel Prize for his work.
Since 1935, testosterone's notoriety has increased tremendously. The Nazis during World War II were thought to have experimented with testosterone on soldiers of the Third Reich to make them more aggressive. Testosterone was tested in the 1940s for a wide variety of uses: to treat impotence, anemia, and low libido, and even to prevent muscle loss during dieting.
The first book on testosterone, entitled The Male Hormone, was published in 1945. This groundbreaking work was written by Paul de Kruif, a reporter with previous medical training. He described the prevailing unease that the medical community had with testosterone as "medical dynamite" and "sexual TNT." He argued that the strong sexual effects of testosterone on both men and women made many doctors nervous and prevented the medical community from taking the science of testosterone seriously. De Kruif himself was an avid testosterone user when he wrote:
Now I'm fifty-four years old, and there's much left to do. I've grown old much too quickly....Meanwhile I'll keep taking the methyl testosterone that now gives me the total vitality to go on working.
De Kruif was also one of the first to suggest testosterone as a performance enhancer for athletes:
We know how both the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns have won championships, super-charged by vitamins. It would be interesting to watch the productive power of an industry or a professional group that would try a systematic supercharge with testosterone.
Advent of Anabolic Steroids
In 1956 a doctor named John Ziegler attended the World Games in Moscow and discovered that Russian athletes were using testosterone. Impressed by their success, he was determined to give American athletes the same advantage. His concerns over the many side effects of testosterone were alleviated when CIBA pharmaceuticals developed Dianabol, a synthetic drug closely related in its molecular structure to testosterone. Taken in pill form, Dianabol did produce rapid muscle gain in athletes and had fewer side effects than testosterone. Another advantage over testosterone was that it did not have to be injected. Word spread quickly among the athletic community, and soon Dianabol was nicknamed the "Breakfast of Champions."
Shortly after the development of Dianabol, pharmaceutical companies began to develop even more sophisticated derivatives of testosterone. A flood of new synthetic anabolic hormone steroids such as Deca Durabolin, Anavar, and Primabolan hit the medical market. These new drugs were studied for many medical uses, including treatment for underweight patients, for osteoporosis, for growth-deficient children, and for anemia. And as with Dianabol, the use of these new drugs spread rapidly among athletes.
Synthetic anabolic hormone steroids -- or "steroids," as they would become known (somewhat inaccurately) -- were used not only by Russian weight lifters but by every country's athletes and in every sport. The biggest users were weight lifters, track and field athletes, and football players. By one estimate, one-third of the U.S. track and field team used steroids in preparation for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.
By the late 1960s sports governing bodies succeeded in banning anabolic steroid use from most international sports competition. The one exception was the growing and unconventional sport of bodybuilding. Despite the official ban, a huge percentage of these Olympic and professional athletes were believed to use them regularly. Indeed, it is thought that many world records set in the early seventies that have yet to be broken were achieved with the influence of anabolic steroids.
In the 1970s many in the medical community sought to prove the toxicity and ineffectiveness of anabolic steroids. At the 1976 American College of Sports Medicine meeting, studies were presented that showed a lack of effect of anabolic steroids. Many of these studies were poorly designed and would later be discredited, but the prevailing mood in the medical community at this time was strongly "antisteroid."
Crude techniques for testing athletes for steroid use were first used in 1976, and some -- but not all -- steroid-using athletes were disqualified from international competition as a result. By 1983 extremely sensitive equipment for drug testing was developed, and when it was used for the first time in the Pan ...
