In this time of war in the Middle East, when soldiers are returning with maimed or missing limbs, I was particularly moved by an article published in the Medical College of Georgia News titled “Myostatin Inhibitors May Improve Recovery of Wartime Limb Injuries.” The article discussed the idea that inhibiting myostatin may optimize recovery of injured soldiers. Apparently Dr. Mark Hamrick, bone biologist in the Medical College of Georgia Schools of Graduate Studies and Medicine, is studying myostatin inhibition in mice with limb injuries. Underscoring the importance of his work, Hamrick is quoted in the article as saying, “Fifty to 60 percent of the injuries occurring in Iraq are to the limbs, and the average injury requires five surgeries.” Hamrick believes that since myostatin inhibitors improve muscle regeneration, these inhibitors will result in a stronger, more rapid recovery for soldiers and other victims of traumatic limb injuries.
Hamrick goes even further in his belief that myostatin inhibition also heals bone injury. His lab found a myostatin receptor on bone-derived stem cells, which are required to repair bone fractures. It seems when myostatin is inhibited, more bone develops at the fracture site. When I read this it blew me away, and further solidified my commitment to this utterly profound approach. Hamrick’s extraordinary work adds yet another dimension of benefit of targeting myostatin, well beyond just building muscle for bodybuilders.
While the information gained about the benefits of inhibiting myostatin may be profound, the drugs being investigated may not hold much promise. Behind all this are my old colleague, Dr. Se-Jin Lee and his company MetaMorphix, Inc. of Beltsville, Maryland. I recall speaking at length with Dr. Lee back in 2005. We shared ideas and mutual enthusiasm for this awesome area of study. He knew I was committed to finding a natural answer, while I knew he was all about the drug side of things. Yet even back then, he acknowledged the pitfalls of the pharmaceutical approach. Vaccines produced in conjunction with Wyeth and others, as I predicted, failed miserably in research. Antibody approaches to myostatin, as well as subsequent vaccines, fell apart due to safety concerns related to what I predicted to be the irreversible product of complete myostatin blockage in otherwise-healthy individuals.
Now it seems they are at it again, with two new experimental myostatin-inhibitor drug approaches. The first involves using a decoy receptor, while the other uses a binding protein. MetaMorphix developed both drugs. Unfortunately for my old friend, I must again predict failure on these fronts for much the same reason of the irreversible nature and full blockage of these drugs.
While a mutant ‘myostatin-null’ animal or person may well be otherwise healthy and have a normal or even better lifespan, they are wired differently and in ways we cannot so easily define from the beginning. As a result, the permanent and complete lack of myostatin stimulation does not present a problem for them. In sharp contrast, when full-on and irreversible blocking of myostatin using these drug variations takes place, a permanence of condition is set up that may not be so conducive to health.
Let me give you a funny, theoretical example. Shaquille O’Neal, whom I know quite well, is almost 7’2″ tall and about 345 pounds. Such a frame necessitates unusually long legs to get around. Anything less on just one side would be ridiculous on his huge frame, and make walking or even standing next to impossible. Yet even more ridiculous would be to theoretically put one of his legs on an average-sized man and expect that he’ll be better for it, let alone simply be able to stand.
My views are the same for blocking myostatin. Regardless of the different approaches researchers keep trying, my pessimism centers on the fact that these investigational methods lead to permanent or semi-permanent complete blockage of the myostatin signal. In other words, nothing ever normalizes.
The beauty of MYO-T12™, whose customer orders have exploded ever since the website www.myot12.com went live, is the research that supports its use. When taken as directed in a single serving, we’ve shown in 10 subjects that MYO-T12™ unquestionably produces a profound yet temporary reduction of myostatin (by almost half) in 12-18 hours, with a complete normalization in 24-30 hours. This is not a complete block, nor did I ever want it to be. So many inquiries have been made, asking me if MYO-T12™ compares to the drugs in development. I tell everyone that it absolutely does not, nor should they want it to, if they have any knowledge whatsoever of what they are putting in their bodies. Again, my idea from the beginning was to identify something in nature that’s actually in our food supply that temporarily modulates myostatin while not blocking it completely. After a decade in the making, I finally came up with it in the form of MYO-T12™.
In the most recent study published on MYO-T12™ (“Effect on Serum Myostatin Levels of High-Grade Handled Fertile Egg Yolk Powder,” Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Volume 28, No.3, Abstract 47; October 2009), MYO-T12™ was tested in 10 healthy adult male humans, who were administered a single 10-gram serving (half the amount given to subjects in the last study). After baseline myostatin testing, subjects received a single serving bolus of 10 grams. Results showed an average baseline myostatin level of 27.5pg/ml, which was consistent with our established publications of average baseline myostatin levels for men aged 20-55.
Following up these subjects, after 12-18 hours the average serum myostatin declined to 12.6pg/ml— with every subject responding positively. There was a staggering 46 percent drop in myostatin from baseline across all 10 subjects. Finally, at the 24-30 hour time point with a mean value of 28.1pg/ml, the average myostatin level completely normalized. As a result of this study, I finally had the results that proved once and for all that my method was more effective than anything of its kind seen to date— and far more appropriate for human consumption.
Again, I want to underscore the complete normalization of myostatin levels in test subjects after 24 hours. It’s nice to know that should you decide to not take a subsequent serving of the product, you can expect your levels to return to what they were within a matter of hours. Keep in mind that this is in sharp contrast to the pharmacokinetic investigational drugs, which completely and irreversibly block or shut off myostatin stimulation.
What still gets me is that there are so many guys who just don’t get the idea of not abusing the product, and use it simply to give their bodies a ‘leg up.’ They are the abusers, and rather than using MYO-T12™ to naturally give them the edge they always wanted, they are abusing it like they do the drugs. The other day I was at a show and a monster bodybuilder fan of mine came up to me (a fan I recognized). In addition to being almost 75 pounds bigger than the last time I saw him, he was overjoyed to see me and couldn’t stop showering me with praises both for myself and for MYO-T12™. This actually bothered the crap out of me and here’s why: this was a guy whom I remember from a book signing about a year ago. Back then he was about 6 feet tall and 230 pounds, but juiced to the gills. His was a typical story of abuse, whereby he would not just settle for taking as much testosterone as he needed to make some reasonable albeit unnatural gains and leave it at that. Instead, he tested the limits and was taking as much as his body could handle.
The problem was that he suffered side effects including liver dysfunction and gynecomastia (bitch tits), and was in effect destroying his body. Unfortunately, this story was and is all-too-common. Needless to say, my advice to him at the time was to try and quit or at least cut back. He did neither. Instead, when MYO-T12™ became available, he was one of the first in line and loaded up on it— in addition to what he was already sticking into his juice-filled body. It came as no surprise that instead of taking the one serving as directed, thus allowing the myostatin to ebb and flow with a 24-hour modulation after being halved, he was taking two scoops twice daily. As a result, he bulked way beyond even the outer limits of his reckless steroid abuse. The problem is that he was probably ostensibly blocking his myostatin in total or near total, much like the developmental drugs that have been littered with peril. So this was no cause for celebration. If the idea was to show me how well MYO-T12™ works, I know that already, and most certainly do not need a monster maniac juicehead to wolf down MYO-T12™ in a not-as-directed fashion to confirm it.
The fact is that MYO-T12™ has so much more to offer. It’s not just about piling on slabs of beef, and that’s because the approach of myostatin inhibition can be used as an amazing strategy for fat loss. Myostatin is linked to fat deposition. So inhibiting it obviously has its advantages. Personally, that’s my own strategy for using MYO-T12™.
With my best bodybuilding years behind me and now much more deeply into MMA training, turning 44 gave me the realization that I’ve built enough muscle mass over decades of training and thus, there is no real utility to building more. In fact, it was time to get a bit smaller by dieting consistently. The problem is that when you diet, you lose muscle mass along with the fat. I wanted to drop the flab but keep some slabs. Plus I still wanted a lean, functional and well-healed body with just enough muscle mass to stay looking good. As a result, I combined and continue to combine daily MYO-T12™ with low carbohydrate intake and good meal cadence as I outline in my book, Extreme Muscle Enhancement. The only modification I’ve made from the guidelines in my book is that I have cut back sharply on overall calories. While this modification of my usual and well-publicized mass-building strategy is not a method I would suggest for someone trying to build big slabs of muscle, for someone in my shoes, it’s perfect, given the considerations I’ve mentioned.
My personal results have been amazing, as I have achieved a body fat of around 5 percent while keeping my weight around 215. The real beauty here is that this was all achieved without a ton of bodybuilding training. In fact, bodybuilding only occupies a few hours of my routine each week. The rest is all MMA conditioning and sparring, plus structured cardio. To be this lean yet still carry noticeable mass at my age is astounding.
Finally, coming full circle back to my original point, myostatin inhibition heals the body. We know this not only from the compelling research of Hamrick and associates, but also from the work of numerous others. If this approach can truly help soldiers heal from limb injuries, then the possibilities are almost endless. In this vein, it is reasonable to surmise that MYO-T12™ may naturally support healing in a way we have never before seen. Applications of this approach go beyond bodybuilders and athletes looking for a recuperative and strength edge, and cross over into the realm of the physically suffering. This excites me as I dream of the possibilities.
I look back with the perspective of years of being bent on helping people heal and ease their suffering. That’s why I went into medicine and became a doctor in the first place. Yet it is with this same commitment, coupled with unbridled enthusiasm, that I look to the future of MYO-T12™ and what it could do for so many.
source:musculardevelopment.com
