Dante also made this post as well...
1) From about 1990 to about 2009 I was known as one of the guys to go to ...to put put on size at the fastest rate possible. I stopped training people in 2009 and sadly Ive now become one of the guys to go to when bodybuilders mess up their health badly and they are at a dire decision making point in their lives. I dont mind helping people at all, not at all but ....and this is not embellishing at all...this is the straight out truth....in the last 3 years Ive come across about 22-27 bodybuilders asking for my advice because they are in kidney failure or fast approaching kidney failure.
This was kind of unheard of back in the 90's...I can remember hearing about 2-3 guys total that I heard about in the 90's (a high ranking NPC competitor from Indiana, and a few other high echelon guys and that was about it), it got more prevalent in the 2000's as the drug dosages (and diuretics) went up, and nowadays its becoming SADLY a regular occurrence (in the offseason). Im dumbfounded by the whole "out of sight out of mind" mentality of people in this sport who take their advice from people who espouse "dont worry nothing is going to happen to you, you can take all these grams of stuff and you will be perfectly fine".....Just in the last month there have been 3 guys Im trying to help out here with severe kidney problems and Im starting to get kind of pissed at the whole "dont worry you can abuse yourself and be perfectly fine" crew just as much as im getting pissed at guys who have abused themselves to the ninth degree and think there will be no consequences.
Some of these guys come to me and i have to be straight up honest with them and say "why werent you taking my advice when i was talking preventative methods for the last decade and a half online"? "Now you are presenting me with a problem that I cannot really get you out of, there is no miracle happening when your creatinine is 5 times plus over normal, and your GFR is below 20...its wishful thinking but im sorry the truth is you are going to go into dialysis and there is nothing i can recommend to you at this point that is going to prevent that.
I know alot of you guys who have asked for my advice, Ive given it to you on what i would do if i was you at this point....but do you know what you could do for me? Ill tell you. TELL YOUR STORY. TELL IT. Tell these guys in the sport the mistakes you made, how you got to this point, and where you are right now. Why? Because that story will stick with some (some not all) of these guys in the sport WAY BETTER than Dante Trudel's rant today about this problem that is becoming way too common now in today's sport. People are using 3x the weekly testosterone dosages that were being used in the 1990's, 3x the weekly dosages of tren and virtually everything else, 3-5x times the dosages of GH, its gotten ridiculous. The physique guys because they have to look rock hard year round for appearances are using orals and harsh androgens year round which again is exacerbating the above problem (nevermind 99% of you would faint at your lipid bloodwork if you actually got bloodwork smack dab in the middle of this harsh usage).
The science community and others used to worry greatly about liver problems in the sport back in the old days. Stick that in the garbage bin to be honest with you....dire liver problems are few and far between. Raised enzymes...so common its like clockwork and pretty easily fixed, but the truth of the matter is unless you are abusing high dosage orals for lengthy amounts of time (whereas adenomas are what needs to be worried about in that case) liver problems are minute in the sport.
I used to feel the main health problem bodybuilders needed to worry about due to their drug abuse was cardiomyopathy and atherosclerosis (especially cardiomyopathy). Seeing all the kidney problems there are that are happening left and right now has skewered my thinking and this is now tied or kidney problems rate an incredibly close second place. Ive said time and time again that any bodybuilder really pushing the ergo aids should be on curcumin, ubiquinol and arjuna to prevent cardiomyopathy. Those three compounds will put you in the best position to prevent heart enlargement and have been shown to remodel heart tissue. (I know ive not been talking about BP in this post but cmon if you reading this right now dont know the importance of getting that down and keeping that down thru supplements, BP meds, and exercise whathaveyou....then I probably had already lost you by the 2nd sentence of this post and you skipped to the next post on your timeline.)
I really hate writing on facebook because what i write ends up disappearing and cannot be referenced again (like it can on blogs or message boards)....but I was inclined to write this post because these constant PM's concerning NPC competitors and IFBB pros with kidney problems is really getting to me. I need to sit down and write a long post about preventative measures here (obviously acceptable BP ......thats been repeated ad nauseum), mainly about one compound that every single bodybuilder in this sport who is using ergo aids should be using.
Astragalus. I promise when i get the time i will write it all out but do me a favor and add that compound to your daily supplement stack as a favor for me ok. There is some benefit to be said in this area with grape seed extract and pycogenol but astragalus is virtually the only compound that research shows regeneration of kidneys and a raising of GFR (which is virtually nonexistant with any other compound or drug out there). Ive previously put up a wealth of information on Astragalus before on GU'd up newsgroup and people got hooked on one study that showed (going by memory here, id have to look it up again) someone who was in kidney failure that reversed that kidney failure totally by using 18-30 grams of astragalus a day. Leave it to bodybuilders to go to the extreme and deem something unworthy unless they use the exact dosage of someone that was in kidney failure. Are you in kidney failure right now? NO? Then why would you need to take 18-30 grams a day? Im talking a preventative maintenance dosage of 2 to 5 grams a day split in a morning and nite dosage. Thats pretty easy with 500mg capsules. Four caps morn and four caps nite give you 4 grams astragalus a day.
Your job as a bodybuilder isnt always about gaining muscle mass. You should put the same amount of thought process and effort in maintaining your health. So again ASTRAGALUS....take it, split dosages morning and nite. PS: I wanted to also go into telomerase production, DNA strands, Astragaloside IV, length and health of telomeres, anti cancer etc etc etc....but i thought man if you want to lose the crowd that will do it.....so I will leave you with this, besides the implications this compound has for kidney health, one search by you on astragalus and telomerase+anti aging+ longevity will shock you on what the science community is finding out about this ingredient and telomerase. The 23 and me crowd who gets geeked out on this topic....take a close look at Astragalus and telomeres in a search. The rest of you, bodybuilding brethren, it makes me feel awful getting these PM's, I dont want anyone to go thru dialysis if they can prevent it from happening, please look into adding Astragalus to your mix of things. (PS I dont sell astragalus or curcumin or arjuna....or 99% of the things I recommend strongly for bbers health....this is an Amazon buy for you)
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#2
Just some interesting tidbits for you. Ive been on your guys for years to add the compound Astragalus to your regimen. Ive seen this all in the last 30 days or so
Bodybuilder 1: GFR down in the mid thirties, creatinine raising steadily over time...(advice on what to do asked at this time)... slight changes and of course Astragalus added in a good dose morning and night. Six weeks later GFR is at 58 and rising.
Bodybuilder 2: June his creatinine was 1.70, his GFR was 50, this bodybuilder is very respectable with his health and he got on to it pronto. I told him what i would do if I was him but he really got after it and changed his diet up, got very educated about all this, made the changes needed and added astragalus at a few grams of it a day and here we are in October and Creatinine is 1.08 and GFR is up at 90!! Huge change
Bodybuilder 3: Came to me for advice because he received very bad bloodwork. I asked him all the particulars like I ask everyone. Wow GFR was 16. Creatinine was 8.3. I gave him as much advice as I could but I knew there was nothing miraculous that was going to happen at this point. You cannot drive something that far gone and come back from it....there isnt a path. He is now on dialysis and I wish him the very best.
People in this endeavor are sometimes so driven they go about everything with blinders on, and its an out of sight out of mind mentality until its too late. You ABSOLUTELY have to get on top of some of this stuff or there is no coming back from it. Personally I am always here to help but you have to give me a plateau and some breathing room in which i can help you on