After reading Lyle McDonald's book (Bromocriptine) I was intrigued by the possibilities of this dopamine agonist.
In short, the proposed effect (as it would interest a health/bodybuilding enthusiast) is this drug, and other like dopamine agonists, would mimic the effect of leptin in the brain, bypassing leptin resistance. The effect of this is what anyone searching for the pinnacle in metabolism would hope to achieve: being lean, insulin sensitive, high thyroid, high sex drive, etc. The drug is usually used in bodybuilding circles to prevent metabolic slowdown and maintain the maximum amount of muscle mass while cutting calories to lose fat. I.E. having your cake and eating it too.
The results so far have been quite favorable despite taking a very conservative dose. I've noticed:
- Favorable calorie partitioning.
- Increased drive, mental focus and endurance.
- Increased energy.
- Improved postprandial readings.
I am planning on cycling the drug 5 days on/ 2 days off to sidestep any potential receptor downregualtion. My plan is just to use it as a support while transitioning towards improved health.
I will be following your posts, sounds like with your last comment on 180, we have tried some things in common.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you thoughts on improving flora at this point?
That is a good question. The simple answer is removing what's not supposed to be there (parasites, fungi, pathogenic bacteria, etc) and replacing it with what should be there with probiotics and prebiotics. Sufficient stomach acid seems to play an important role in killing off parasites/bacteria in the stomach and small intestines.
ReplyDeleteThe issue gets complicated when doing all of this may simply not be enough. Probioitcs supplements might contain at most 10-15 strains (most formulas less). Fermented foods might help a little with diversity.. but I ran across a study somewhere where a single does of anti-biotics can permanently wipe out some of the 10's of thousands of species of bacteria in your gut. Also what if you were not breastfed? Luckily I was, but if you weren't that could further put strike against you. I've toyed with the idea of buying breast milk from a healthy woman.. not sure if it would really work though.
Then theres fecal transplant therapy which is something that's been in the back of my mind ever since I first heard about it. My plan is to exhaust current more mainstream approaches first since there is still many things I can try and diagnostics I need to get. I think typically you get a fecal transplant from a relative, but there are so few people with truly good health and good microfloras..
Thanks for the feedback. Not sure if you follow Ryan, but his next post will be on this topic:
ReplyDeletehttp://ryan-koch.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-intestinal-saga-part-6-its-all.html
I have been on too many antibiotics to count, over the last month I have been trying pre-biotics again to see what happens.
Been following the 180 approach for 1.5yrs, still having a stumbling block with low basal temp and skin issues. Otherwise all else is good.
But seems there is a catch22, in metabolism and flora like you mentioned... hopefully we'll have some breakthroughs eventually.
Do you have much weight to lose? What will happen when you go off it or do you have to stay on it for life?
ReplyDeletehi lynn. I'm relatively lean to begin with, so I'm doing it mostly for the metabolism increase.. muscle gain/fat loss is just a nice effect. My thinking is that the metabolism up-tick (from improved insulin sensitivity; this drug is also used to treat diabetes) will allow my body to heal metabolically more quickly (I am eating as well as possible).
ReplyDeleteBasically in my situation, and I think others, there is a catch-22 where you need to nourish your body to heal yourself, but because your digestive and metabolic functioning is broken it isn't able to take full advantage of the nutrition you're eating. So you get stuck in this vicious cycle. Somehow you have to break out.
I plan to be on it for as short a time as possible, maybe a few months at most. I'm hoping what I'm doing to improve my digestion will allow me to pass the torch off to my body's natural processes. Currently I am taking a very low dose, about 1/3-1/2 the low-end therapeutic dose. I haven't tried higher doses as I am already pleased with the effects.
As far as what happens when you go off, that is a good question. If you are overweight, the body composition changes may very well be mostly permanent, that is if you take advantage of the increased insulin sensitivity to build some lean mass. It seems like fat loss in itself also improves insulin sensitivity based on most fat loss trials, while increased muscle mass does as well. I think the key would probably be to make sure you are eating nutritionally dense foods and do some strength training now and then. While this drug allows me to pig out on ice cream without consequences, I am trying not to indulge that as much as possible. The way this drug works is it tells your brain/hypothalamus that "everything is good, full speed ahead". If the underlying nutritional reality does not support that, I think you run into trouble.
ReplyDeleteHow are you BG readings lynn? If you have a liberal doc you might be able to get an Rx for it.
I should also mention the reason I prefer bromo to T3 is that the T3 had more side effects. It also did not improve body composition (I think it made it worse because I would crave sugar and chocolate like crazy.. maybe to stimulate my adrenals ?).
Hi Yves
ReplyDeleteAfter three months of either high starch or high sucrose my BG readings are great. FBG is 75-85 and 2 hour PP is in the late 90s. 2 hour PPs are higher than on low carb though. I'm not sure what that means.
I live in a very medically conservative country. I had to fight like hell to get natural thyroid prescribed and they wouldn’t prescribe T3 at all. So no way would anyone prescribe Bromocriptine.
I felt great on T3 only until I crashed. I lost weight and finally had great temps. However, due to my low iron I crashed on it. I am working on getting my iron up now. Iron is important for transporting T3 to the cells.
I will be testing glucose and insulin levels at the end of April and will see how these markers are. Before increasing my carbs I had high insulin levels anyway.
lynn, sound like you are on the ball. thyroid is a tricky hormone to treat given it's interaction with other hormones/systems. I think the limiting factor for T3 treatment for me was not having strong enough adrenals. My natural t3 levels are actually fine, they're just blocked by Rt3. cheers
ReplyDeleteAh yes; weak adrenals and T3 = disaster. I couldn't even tolerate 1/4 of a grain of thyroid without hydrocortisone.
ReplyDelete