Steroidal supplements

What are steroidal supplements?

Steroidal supplements can be converted into testosterone or a similar compound in the body. Testosterone an important male sex hormone. Testosterone is the primary muscle building hormone in man, and as such makes an excellent target for supplementation. The typically thought about testosterone is that it is a bulking steroid. It is an excellent builder of muscle tissue, but due to its ready conversion to estradiol (an estrogen) this gain may be accompanied by water and fat retention (heightened estrogen levels tend to increase the storage of same side effects as anabolic steroids.

The user often endures this in light of the end result, as these products do appear to be the strongest for overall muscle growth. We cannot ignore the possible development of gynecomastia with testosterone prohormones however (particularly with heavy use), a very unwanted side effect in men characterized by the development of female breast tissue. Currently three testosterone precursors are available on the supplement market: androstenedione, 4-androstenediol and 5-androstenediol.

Androstenedione

The first compound marketed as a testosterone precursor, or a prohormone for that matter, was androstenedione. To spite the fact that prohormone technology has advanced quite a bit since its inception this compound remains to be a popular seller, no doubt in part due to the extensive media attention given to it in the past. Androstenedione does raise testosterone levels with use, so in this regard it is an effective supplement. However it has also been demonstrated to raise estrogen levels even more significantly, due to the fact that androstenedione may also be directly converted to estrone (an estrogen) in the body. It is therefore an effective supplement, but also seems to be the prohormone most capable of inducing gynecomastia.

4-androstenediol

Like androstenedione, 4-androstenediol is an efficient precursor to testosterone. In fact it appears comparatively much more so, as it utilizes a more active enzyme in its biotransformation to testosterone. Rough estimates are the 2 to 3 times more prohormone is needed for the same testosterone elevation with the preceding product. 4-androstenediol also avoids the direct path of metabolism to estrogen we see with androstenedione, as its diol structure resists interaction with the enzyme responsible for this conversion. Clearly this represents a further improvement, making this compound the most effective choice in this category.

5-androstenediol

5-androstenediol is technically a testosterone precursor. Realistically methandriol is not an extremely potent compound in muscle building terms, and may additionally display some ability to act as an estrogen in the human body (a trait shared by 5androstenediol). Although there has been a lot of hype about 5-androstenediol, there seems to be much less in terms of a solid positive response from users compared to the previously mentioned testosterone precursors.

Nandrolone Precursors

Nandrolone (19-nortestosterone) is another target in the realm of the prohormone, and interestingly is the active steroid used to make the popular anabolic steroid Deca-Durabolin@. Structurally this steroid is identical to testosterone, except for the fact that it lacks a carbon atom at the 19th position (hence the name nortestosterone). Although these two steroids appear similar, they differ in action quite notably. The most striking contrasts are seen in the fact that nandrolone is much less inclined to convert to estrogen in the body (though it does aromatize to a low degree), and is also much less androgenic in nature than testosterone. Its mild character is preferred over testosterone in many cases, and nandrolone is likewise considered more of a steroid for promoting lean muscularity (quality mass) than raw bulk. Currently three nandrolone precursors are available on the supplement market: 19-norandrostenedione, 19-nor 4-androstenediol and 19-nor 5-androstenediol.