Supplement Judge Unbiased Supplement Reviews – Do they really work??
In previous posts we had a look at the roles of increased Human Growth Hormones (HGH) levels along with other hormones and how they could influence the cellular activity. We also emphasised that it’s illegal to supplement it for most competitive sports governed by a professional body. But what if you could naturally boost these levels naturally? Just enough to give you a competitive edge without violating any rules or regulations? Now everyone would be a winner!
Not many people are aware of the chemical dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which is a chemical naturally produced by the brain. It’s used to transmit messages between nerves. One cannot ingest pure dopamine, so has to look at taking it in a pre-cursor form, something that would be metabolised by the body to convert it to dopamine. The best dopamine pre-cursor is the amino acid l-dopa which is naturally occurs in Vicia Faba, or to you and I more commonly knows as broad-beans! The l-dope content of 100g of broad-beans has been shown to be 250mg which is high enough for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
An Australian research published by the Monash Medical Centre has shown that:
“Vicia faba meals produced comparable L-dopa blood levels to fasting standard tablet doses and recovery studies yielded 0.25% L-dopa per weight of bean pod mixture. Vicia faba contains sufficient L-dopa to be pharmacologically active in patients with Parkinson’s disease and can potentially be incorporated into dietary strategies to manage Parkinsonian motor oscillations.”1
So in summary, eating broad-beans will help your body make more dopamine, which is a beta-2 agonist meaning it has the capability of building muscle and burning fat quickly. (Direct beta-2 agonist supplementation is both dangerous to the heart and also illegal). It must also be noted that dopamine is one of the most strongest HGH release stimulator which in turn causes the release of IGF-1, testosterone, and insulin.
In essence, broad-beans indirectly cause the release of 4 very anabolic hormones without the associated dangers of illegally supplementing them.
If you decide to incorporate broad-beads within your daily diet, it’s best to have them about an hour before training. Why not have it as a snack in the form of a soup an hour before training causing all these hormones to be rushing around your body by the time you’re in the weights room!
References:
1- Motor effects of broad beans (Vicia faba) in Parkinson’s disease: single dose studies. PA Kempster1,2 MD, Z Bogetic2 MD, JW Secombei3 BApplSc, HD Martin3 Bsc, NDH Balazs3 Bsc and ML Wahlqvist2 MD. Departments of Neurosciences1, Medicine2 and Biochemistry3, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
2- http://ironpowerblog.blogspot.com/2004/11/naturally-boost-hgh-igf-1-testosterone.html.
