In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Russ H.) wrote:
> I'm not sure I can dig it up again Will.About 6 months ago a friend of mine
> was diagnosed with typeII diabetes and being the herbal nut that I am I
> started doing research on a natural remedy for her.
>
> I found cinnamon and bitter melon as two,but I also remember reading about
> the various types of ginsing and how they can help stabilize blood sugar
> levels.
Cool, but what does that have to do with IGF-1?
>I'll get back to this later.
OK.
>
> Several years ago,I spent a lot of time researching HGH and even used it
> for about a year+ (the type in a spray bottle).
Then it was not HGH.
> Anyway I started digging
> into supplements that could help the body stimulate it's own HGH,as it
> decreases as you get older.
Arg works well enough and is used to test for HGH, but actual effects in
body comp don't happen.
>
> What I found was that the pituatary gland secretes a hormone while you
> sleep that produces HGH and IGF-1.
>
> L-Carnitine,L-glutamine and alpha lipolic acid were 3 of the things I found
> that supposedly stimulated the body's production of HGH.
Hitting yourself on the head with a hammer increases HGH as does
standing in the cold, but neither appear to have any effects on what
matters: bodycomp.
>
> The reason for this history lesson is that when I was researching ginsing
> as it relates to diabetes,it stuck in my mind about the effect it has on
> balancing the various process that go on throughout our body.One of which
> mentioning the effect on the pituatary gland,HGH levels and the increase in
> sexual desire as well as mood improvement.
Data does not really support any of that. Most well done studies on
ginseng find some interesting effects, but it's no endocrine super
regulator. For example:
J Strength Cond Res. 2002 May;16(2):179-83.
Effects of ginseng ingestion on growth hormone, testosterone, cortisol,
and insulin-like growth factor 1 responses to acute resistance exercise.
Youl Kang H, Hwan Kim S, Jun Lee W, Byrne HK.
Department of Physical Education, Kyungpook National University, Taegu,
702-701, Korea.
Ginseng, an herbal plant, has been ingested by many athletes in Oriental
regions of the world in order to improve stamina and to facilitate rapid
recovery from injuries. However, adequate investigation has not been
conducted to examine the ergogenic effects of ginseng. To examine the
effects of ginseng supplements on hormonal status following acute
resistance exercise, eight male college students were randomly given
water (control; CON) or 20 g of ginseng root extract (GIN) treatment
immediately after a standardized exercise bout. Venous blood samples
were drawn before and immediately after exercise and at 4 time points
during a 2-hour recovery period. Human growth hormone, testosterone,
cortisol, and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) levels were
determined by radioimmunoassay. The responses of plasma hormones
following ginseng consumption were not significant between CON and GIN
treatments during the 2-hour recovery period. These results do not
support the use of ginseng to promote an anabolic hormonal status
following resistance exercise.
Life Sci. 2001 Dec 14;70(4):431-42.
The effects of Eleutherococcus senticosus and Panax ginseng on steroidal
hormone indices of stress and lymphocyte subset numbers in endurance
athletes.
Gaffney BT, Hugel HM, Rich PA.
School of Nursing. Faculty of Nursing and Health, Griffith University,
Meadowbrook, Queensland, Australia.
[email protected]
A clinical trial was undertaken to investigate the effects of
Eleutherococcus senticosus (ES) and Panax ginseng (PG) on competitive
club-level endurance athletes engaged in their normal in-season
training. Participants were matched for training stress and received a
33% ethanolic extract (8 mL/day) containing either ES, PG (equivalent to
4 g and 2 g/day of dried root, respectively), or a placebo. A pre-test
and post-test were used to evaluate the effects of six weeks of
supplementation on cortisol, testosterone, and testosterone to cortisol
ratio (TCR) as well as circulating numbers of total T-cells, T-helper
cells (CD4), T-suppressor cells (CD8), CD4 to CD8 ratio, natural killer
cells, and B lymphocytes. None of the immune system variables changed
significantly nor showed any clear trend from pre to post test in any of
the treatment groups. No significant change in testosterone, cortisol or
TCR was observed in the PG group. In the ES group, however, TCR
decreased by 28.7% from 0.0464 to 0.0331 (P=0.03). The main contribution
to this decrease appeared to be a non-significant (P= 0.07) 31% trend
towards increased cortisol rather than a very small non-significant (P =
0.36) 7% decrease in the calculated mean for testosterone. This result
suggested that contrary to initial expectation, ES increased rather than
decreased hormonal indices of stress, which may be consistent with
animal research suggesting a threshold of stress below which ES
increases the stress response and above which ES decreases the stress
response.
--
Will Brink @
http://www.brinkzone.com/
