Did UDCA/TUDCA hinder your gains from oral AAS?

[TheRoid]

I'm seeing a growing number of reports for decreased oral AAS efficacy when used alongside UDCA/TUDCA, even from fairly experienced and educated members.
I can't find much about UDCA's effect on orally administered steroids metabolism, besides this study on oral contraceptives that actually shows slightly enhanced bioavailability:

Ursodeoxycholic acid does not affect ethinylestradiol bioavailability in women taking oral contraceptives - PubMed

Co-administration with UDCA does not affect the bioavailability of EE2 in healthy volunteers, indicating that contraceptive efficacy is not affected.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Please post your anectodal experience (this should go without saying: only if you can compare pretty much identical cycles with/without UDCA) and other relevant studies on the matter.

 

[Virtuous]

TUDCA has been shown to exacerbate liver damage, not reverse it, when administered contemporaneously with alcohol.

I’d imagine there’s a bit of a similar effect with orals.

When I use them, I’ll dose orals early AM and TUDCA in the afternoon, around 12 hours apart. Never had Tudca impact efficacy.

 

[Love_to_Bodybuild]

There's been debate on this for a while. Take tudca with oral aas or wait untill later. I've tried both ways and can say with oral dbol, the dbol still worked, just don't know about liver values.

I used a certain brand tudca 750 mgs and milk thistle for a month and my ast and alt were in 80s and both went down to 40 and 50s. This was an alt and AST liver enzyme experiment only I did for a month after my doctor, who passed, wouldn't take no for an answer that resistance exercise elevates AST and alt. So to make him happy I did this and it worked.

There's really only one study I know of with alcohol , referenced. The oral aas would be pretty much out of system twelve hours later so I've been taking the chance dosing tudca and milk thistle with it ,then eight to twelve hours again.

From my current understanding tudca only needs to be used on an aas oral dosing day. It has other effects and not worth the money used ,unless your really set on getting AST and alt down for a test.

 

[TheRoid]

@Type-IIx

 

[Swifto]

TUDCA has been shown to exacerbate liver damage, not reverse it, when administered contemporaneously with alcohol.

I’d imagine there’s a bit of a similar effect with orals.

When I use them, I’ll dose orals early AM and TUDCA in the afternoon, around 12 hours apart. Never had Tudca impact efficacy.

Source please sir?

 

[Alan1]

Source please sir?

From Examine:

"TUDCA, and its taurine-free conjugate UDCA, have been shown to attenuate the reduction of bioenergetics in a liver cell after incubation with acetaldehyde (metabolite of alcohol that does the damage) as well as significantly reduce cell death induced by ethanol when TUDCA is at 0.1mM concentration and UDCA at 0.01mM.[65] Concentrations of 0.5mM of both have shown similar mechanistic protection but slightly weaker,[66] but dose-response is not present as higher concentrations (>0.1mM) were reported to induce cell death.[65] TUDCA appeared to be geared towards preserving membrane function while UDCA was more potent at preserving mitochondrial function.[65]

Most critically, these benefits were seen with co-incubation or adminstration of them both at the same time.[66][65] When pre-loaded before ethanolic insult, they have been shown to exacerbate damage to liver cells.[65] These effects may be secondary to alterations in the lipid membrane of cells with TUDCA/UDCA exposure.[67"

Studies referenced:

65.^Henzel K, Thorborg C, Hofmann M, Zimmer G, Leuschner UToxicity of ethanol and acetaldehyde in hepatocytes treated with ursodeoxycholic or tauroursodeoxycholic acidBiochim Biophys Acta.(2004 Feb 2)

66.^Neuman MG, Cameron RG, Shear NH, Bellentani S, Tiribelli CEffect of tauroursodeoxycholic and ursodeoxycholic acid on ethanol-induced cell injuries in the human Hep G2 cell lineGastroenterology.(1995 Aug)

67.^Leuschner U, Guldutuna S, Bhatti S, Elze A, Imhof M, You T, Zimmer GTUDCA and UDCA are incorporated into hepatocyte membranes: different sites, but similar effectsItal J Gastroenterol.(1995 Sep)

 

[whacked]

Re: Harmful to the liver? Mehh.

It’s just a simple bile acid (we produce these as well) and these have been studied for many years to reduce
both cholestasis and hepatocellular damage in patients with liver disease.

The notion that these would confer deleterious effects on the liver don’t make much sense here.

Can’t speak to the other assertion that these decrease effects of orals. No idea.

FWIW. I will say that a less-stressed “healthier” liver leads to increased insulin sensitivity levels and thus m, naturally beneficial for anabolism.

 

[Alan1]

Also, just to add to the topic of it affecting oral AAS, I had posted this in another thread a while back, a quote from the guy whose company came out with the Ultradrol pro-steroid years back:

"From Jake: "Take Aegis and Talos along with Mechabol (*another of their methylated pro-steroids), and with meals. You can take milk thistle and NAC at the same time, if you'd like. Dietary fats, in
large enough quantities, can dramatically improve the gastrointestinal
absorption of lipophilic supplement ingredients.... like mechabol,
resveratrol, CoQ10, silybin (to some degree), and many others.

Liver supports won't decrease & should even increase absorption. (TUDCA
and sodium taurocholate are actually 'oral penetration enhancers' of a
sort -- they can solubilize lipophilic/poorly-bioavailable ingredients & increase the extent and rate of their absorption. And PPC is, pound for
pound, better than dietary fats.)
...That said, there's some alarming data re: milk thistle decreasing androgen receptor function, but I don't think that it's 'clinically relevant', so I see no harm in taking milk thistle..."

 

[3clipseGT]

I’ve seen the studies about taking it prior to alcohol having a negative impact but havnt seen anything on taking it with orals. I havnt used oral AAS in a long time so I have nothing to speak on in terms of that.

I will say though that I use TUDCA daily for its insulin sensitizing effects and it’s ability to ensure proper protein folding which can be an issue with AAS use.

 

[lifter]

Never heard this before OP.

 

[pistonpump]

I'm using tudca 7am and 10pm, while using oral 17aa aas in between those times. I have no bloods to reference liver values but I will say I have not loss appetite and i feel the oral are working at the dose the same as I've used in the past with little sides. I do think it helps with absorption and passing the compounds.

 

[TheRoid]

Gents let me remind you that this thread has nothing to do with increased/decreased toxicity.
It's about first hand anectodal experience since no study ever looked into AAS bioavailability when co-administedred with UDCA/TUDCA.

 

[KillerStack]

Alex Kikel said you would see increased gains from orals by eating an egg and taking TUDCA each time you dosed. He makes a lot of assumptions on little data so I don't know if there is merit to this.

He mentioned this Tudca and protein folding thing which I'm not familiar with. Anyone care to explain it briefly?

 

[KillerStack]

Also, just to add to the topic of it affecting oral AAS, I had posted this in another thread a while back, a quote from the guy whose company came out with the Ultradrol pro-steroid years back:

"From Jake: "Take Aegis and Talos along with Mechabol (*another of their methylated pro-steroids), and with meals. You can take milk thistle and NAC at the same time, if you'd like. Dietary fats, in
large enough quantities, can dramatically improve the gastrointestinal
absorption of lipophilic supplement ingredients.... like mechabol,
resveratrol, CoQ10, silybin (to some degree), and many others.

Liver supports won't decrease & should even increase absorption. (TUDCA
and sodium taurocholate are actually 'oral penetration enhancers' of a
sort -- they can solubilize lipophilic/poorly-bioavailable ingredients & increase the extent and rate of their absorption. And PPC is, pound for
pound, better than dietary fats.)
...That said, there's some alarming data re: milk thistle decreasing androgen receptor function, but I don't think that it's 'clinically relevant', so I see no harm in taking milk thistle..."

This company, Antaeus Labs seems a bit mysterious and it doesn't seem active now. But appeared to have uncommon ingredients and formulations. Patrick Arnold said he knew the guys behind Antaeus and they knew what they were doing. Perhaps it was a side gig for Pat?

Anyway, I thought the TUDCA looked low dosed, since the common single dose was 500mg at the time. Maybe it can or should be dosed lower than is common.
Polyenylphosphatidylcholine, is it the same as phosphatidylcholine or the stuff in Essentiale Forte? Might be a semi-worthwhile liver protector on cycle?

 

[Alan1]

This company, Antaeus Labs seems a bit mysterious and it doesn't seem active now. But appeared to have uncommon ingredients and formulations. Patrick Arnold said he knew the guys behind Antaeus and they knew what they were doing. Perhaps it was a side gig for Pat?

Anyway, I thought the TUDCA looked low dosed, since the common single dose was 500mg at the time. Maybe it can or should be dosed lower than is common.
Polyenylphosphatidylcholine, is it the same as phosphatidylcholine or the stuff in Essentiale Forte? Might be a semi-worthwhile liver protector on cycle?

Yeah, not sure what all has happened with Antaeus the past few years. Jake used to post here and there (and I recall he maintained a blog and would always post testing results when they would synthesize new batches of Ultradrol). I've used lots of their products and had great results with their pro-steroids.

And yeah, PPC is what's in Essentiale Forte. Personally I take Life Extension Hepatopro which is 900mg PPC per cap.

 

[KillerStack]

Yeah, not sure what all has happened with Antaeus the past few years. Jake used to post here and there (and I recall he maintained a blog and would always post testing results when they would synthesize new batches of Ultradrol). I've used lots of their products and had great results with their pro-steroids.

And yeah, PPC is what's in Essentiale Forte. Personally I take Life Extension Hepatopro which is 900mg PPC per cap.

Lol just ordered a bottle of HepatoPro which I found half-off. Will do 250mg TUDCA with it plus a couple of Liv52. I don't know if I need it but hey, can't hurt probably.

 

[Love_to_Bodybuild]

Lol just ordered a bottle of HepatoPro which I found half-off. Will do 250mg TUDCA with it plus a couple of Liv52. I don't know if I need it but hey, can't hurt probably.

Same here, I may not need it. But over the years my alt and ast has slowly risen from 60s, 70's 80's , 90's , maybe even up in the 100's , I forget, and it cant hurt. Taking care of the little things can encourage the bigger issues to stay away.

 

[Hatchet]

F**K, no wonder I dont look like Nick Walker, damn TUDCA is killing my gainz BRAH!

 

[whacked]

Same here, I may not need it. But over the years my alt and ast has slowly risen from 60s, 70's 80's , 90's , maybe even up in the 100's , I forget, and it cant hurt. Taking care of the little things can encourage the bigger issues to stay away.

Assuming these assays are not performed within 24-36 hours of a hard workout (as harmless elevations of these liver biomarkers will occur)….

It might be a good idea to get a GGT instead to rule out liver pathology…

As well as a fasted insulin sensitivity test to assess insulin resistance; especially if your diet consists of a lot of processed carbs and moreover, fructose, to rule out NAFLD - much more common than people think - especially if you’re not cardiovascularly fit. Even lean bodybuilders cannot rule this out.

*FBG and A1C are not adequate tests for assessing insulin resistance.

 

[whacked]

Regarding PPC….

PPC craps all over PC for liver protection and brain health as well.

Think - filet mignon compared to a cheeseburger. It’s also much more expensive. Unfortunately, this is one of those times where you get what you pay for.

As an aside, NAC is underrated for liver protection.