Lost amongst the hoopla surrounding Marion Jones’ semi-admission of guilt with regard to her taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) were reports that Jones was on a Balco Labs drug regimen that had her using insulin and testosterone cream. Body builders, and athletes have long used – are still using – insulin because it is the most potent muscle building substance available.
In the current era of the “advanced” performance-enhancing drugs, athletes are still using insulin to get bigger and stronger. Insulin is the “old school” hormone that athletes use to assist steroids, the modern designer steroids and hormones. Without getting into the details of the science, insulin is responsible for kicking off a series of cellular events that are ultimately responsible for insulin’s anabolic effect (development of muscle).
If you delve into the world of the body builders – the real world lab where anabolic agents are studied – you will find that for years these guinea pigs have found that the proper combination of diet and insulin administration can be quite effective in building muscle. Of course using insulin for non-medical purposes is incredibly dangerous, but risk has never been a deterrent to those folks who are looking to get an edge, or to just get bigger.
Google “insulin” and “body builders” and you will find ample evidence that people are – and have been – using this hormone to “improve” their physique. You need to remember that these kinds of people will believe anything, and try anything, when it comes to getting bigger, so the warnings issued by scientists in lab coats fall on deaf ears.
When the legit scientific community says that steroids or insulin or human growth hormone doesn’t work, the chemical underground laughs and continues to experiment. These walking lab rats have used these drugs in ways that members of the legit scientific community can’t even dream about, and due to ethical constraints couldn’t study. And before we go any further, let’s all agree that non-medical insulin use is extremely risky and that anyone who uses it to improve performance or to just get bigger is most likely insane.
The purpose of this piece certainly isn’t to endorse performance-enhancing insulin use; recognition and discussion of this situation is simply an attempt to educate. Unlike the articles on body building sites that actually reveal how these substances can be used illicitly, this item deals with the issue in broad strokes.
Body builders’ contribution to the world of real sport has been to determine what drugs to use and for what purpose. They have figured out dosages and combinations. In the case of insulin, body builders have determined the proper diet to use in conjunction with non-medical insulin administration, as well as figuring out what drugs – specifically testosterone – and supplements to use with insulin.
Those who are expert at this dangerous dosage dance are able to keep their insulin levels from rising too high and result in increased body fat from excess glucose, which would not be a good thing for body builders or most athletes. Even though insulin is a banned substance, there isn’t a drug test that can detect insulin supplementation, and in many states there are not laws against the use of insulin by non-diabetics.
Since traditional syringes aren’t needed to administer this hormone, you don’t need a prescription in many states and its relative low cost it’s no wonder insulin is a popular PED. And if anyone thinks I’m crazy or making any of this up, just check the Internet and not only will you find that I speak truth, you’ll also likely be amazed at what you find out.
Before the issue of PEDs can be discussed in a rational manner people need to understand the depth of the problem and the extreme behaviors that people are willing to engage in to get an edge.
Any drug used to ‘enhance’ your performance is just a bad idea. Play and work as hard as your body tells you you can.Anything after that and you just risked your health and that is pretty dumb.