Plant-Based Bodybuilding

"Plant-Based Bodybuilding" We know excess cellular growth isn’t
so good when we’re fully grown adults, since budding tumors may end up being
the main beneficiaries of higher levels of circulating growth hormones. But in some circumstances, a little
extra growth is sought after, particularly for men in this
culture — though not exclusively. The growth hormone IGF-1 is the
reason some dogs look like this, and others like this. What about those who strive
to be the big dog? Yes, lower circulating levels of IGF-1
in vegans lowers cancer risk, but might that interfere with their
accumulation of muscle mass? There certainly are lots of
plant-based body builders, but maybe they’re the exception.

To look like this, does one
have to risk looking like this? True or false: Lower IGF-1 levels
in vegans likely interferes with muscle accumulation. Is this fact, or is this fiction? Well, there’s a couple ways
you attack that question. For example, what’s the skeletal
muscle mass like in acromegaly? People afflicted with giantism — where
they have an IGF overload in the body. If IGF bulks up muscle, you’d think
they’d be musclebound; but no, they don’t have any more muscle,
on average, than anyone else. What if you inject people with IGF-1? They injected women for a year, and
found no increase in lean body mass or grip, bench or leg press strength. What about men? Basically, same thing. They had about a dozen 22-year-olds
flex for 15 weeks under different hormonal milieus, and concluded that
elevations in ostensibly anabolic hormones, like IGF-1,
with resistance exercise, enhances neither training-induced
muscle bulk, nor strength. "Thus it seems that outside of
[genetically engineered mice or a cell culture dish or other
animal models] that the search for the true role of the growth
potential for IGF-1 in adult muscle hypertrophy is a vain one." So, although it’s never been
directly tested, probably fiction.