IGF-1
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..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
How Plant-Based to Lower IGF-1?
“How Plant-Based to Lower IGF-1?” Just a few days of walking
and eating whole healthy plant foods, and our IGF-1 levels drop low enough
to reverse cancer cell growth. What if we stick with it? Going to some Pritikin spa and getting
healthy for two weeks is one thing, but what about long-term? Does your IGF-1 start to creep back up
to standard American diet levels again? No. Here’s after 11 days,
and it just gets better. People eating plant-based diets for 14
years have half the IGF-1 in their bodies, and more than twice the amount of
IGF-binding protein than those on the Standard American Diet. We know decreasing animal product
consumption decreases our IGF-1 levels, but how low do you got to go? How plant-based does our diet need to get? Well, let’s look at IGF-1 levels
in meat-eaters, versus vegetarians, versus vegans.
The aim of this study was to determine
whether a plant-based diet is associated with a lower circulating level of IGF-1,
compared with a meat-eating or lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet. And this is what they found. Only the vegans had
significantly lower levels. And the same relationship
found with IGF-1 binding capacity. Only the vegans were significantly
more able to bind up excess IGF-1 in their bloodstreams. This was a study on women. What about vegan men? They found the same thing. So, even though vegan men tend to have
significantly higher testosterone levels than both vegetarians and meat-eaters— which can be a risk factor
for prostate cancer, the reason plant-based diets appear to
reverse the progression of prostate cancer may be due to how low
their IGF-1 levels drop. So, more testosterone, but less cancer. The bottom line is that male or female, just eating vegetarian
did not seem to cut it.
It looks like to get a significant drop
in cancer-promoting growth hormone levels, one apparently has to eliminate
animal products altogether. The good news is that, given what we now know about IGF-1, we can predict that “a low-fat vegan diet
may be profoundly protective with respect to [for example] risk for
postmenopausal breast cancer.”.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
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.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
