News for December 15, 1997

Contracts and Transfers

Longo wins an "All-Male" Award

Ravels, Belgium, Cyclo Cross, 3rd Cat, December 13, 1997

 1. A. Daelmans (Bel)
 2. A. Moonen (Bel)
 3. D. Willemsens (Bel)
 4. P. Willemsens (Bel)
 5. Danny de Bie (Bel)
 6. K. De Roose (Bel)

Our ongoing research effort

"I have been interested in following the drug stories of the last couple of weeks. When you got into androstenedione and the "net" and the availability in the USA I thought I would conduct a little experiment. On my way home from work tonight I visited my local "natural vitamin" store. .On display on the shelves were two companies selling androstenedione. Both suggested taking it just prior to exercise and had a couple of disclaimers about heart problems and pregnant women. One company was MD labs selling a product called ANDROS-D. Their WWW page is at http://www.mdlabs.com - you might wants to take a look. As you said the other day, they are banned for the competitor but not for the average Joe. I live in a small rural town, Roseburg, in western Oregon - not a huge city where you might expect that anything is available."

Okay, so I took a look. The site introduces the company's mission statement which says that "Our goal is to give consumers products that will accelerate their progress as much as possible. We are dedicated to the drug free enhancement of all athletic endeavors."

Then I went to the training tips page expecting a pretty rigorous schedule to be outlined with daily training of 3-4 hours and lots of interval and hill work. You know what it takes to ride a bike fast and get good legs.

The page was simple. Had I missed the training tips page? No, I double checked. These guys prescribe 5 Tips for Success.

  
 1. Stick to the above 10 exercises and track weight and repition [(sic) - they
    can't spell] increases from workout to workout.  

 2. Total training time per session should never exceed 60 minutes.  

 3. Keep repetitions on exercises between 6 and 10. The magic number
    probably being 8.  

 4. Sets may vary between 1 and 4 depending on the exercise and amount
    of training time.  

 5. Limit your weekly training time to one, two or (at the most) three times
    weekly sessions of approximately 60 minutes per workout.  

Well now, no wonder you are going to have to take some drugs, sorry "high quality effective sports nutrition". So I thought I better check out their products. In the products page are a number of drugs and one with a familiar name, Andros-D, which is available in two formats 100mg and 50mg and sells for $US44.95 and $US34.95, respectively.

They describe the drugs, oops "high quality effective sports nutrition" as "Andros-D is a combination of Androstenedione (4-androstene 3, 17-dione), Zinc and Bioperine. Andros-D is the only pure Micronized Androstenedione offered on the market making it more easily absorbed by the body. Androstenedione is a natural steroid hormone found in all animals (meat) as well as some plants (extracts). Androstenedione is the intermediate hormone between DHEA and testosterone (direct precusor). It has shown the ability to raise testosterone levels within the body, with the liver containing the necessary enzyme for conversion. According to the East German Patent, Androstenedione has been shown to increase blood levels of both Androstenedione and Testosterone. Results from 100mg. oral dosages have shown increased plasma testosterone levels from 211% to 337%. Blood levels start to increase within 15 minutes of oral ingestion and stay elevated for up to 3 hours. Reported effects of Androstenedione supplementation have also been increased energy, enhanced recovery and growth from anaerobic exercise, and heightened sexual arousal and function. Androstenedione occurs naturally in the human body and increases testosterone without altering the body's natural production cycle."