Should/Could Clen or T3 be Incorporated Into a Cycle?

If you are bulking, then I see no need for T3...

As for clen, I would use it post cycle because of its anti-catabolic properties, as well as to be able to maintain a high intensity while training and eating hard...

that's just my opinion... and hey, I could be wrong...

I believe someone posted at elite that 12.5 mcg might be good for bulking for protein synthesis, but 50mcg would be overdoing it in my opinion.

Net protein synthesis is always a balance between the breakdown and accretion of muscle that is always occurring. t3 stimulates both, but in every study I have ever seen T3 administration either causes a net decrease in muscle mass, or no change.

One interesting thing about these studies is that the body seems to adapt to the T3. Initially there is net negative protein synthesis, but this tends toward baseline as the length of the study period increases. Here is a quote from one study that looked at this (they were using 50mcg/day)

"Frank hyperthyroidism is known to be associated with increased catabolism and loss of LBM (16). The present study suggests that the body may be able to partially compensate over time for the catabolic effects of more moderate increases in T3. Although both lean and fat mass were decreased by T3 treatment, as has been seen previously, N balance showed an initial decline, but returned to neutral and, in some individuals, even positive N balance by 9 weeks. This finding is similar to that of Wilson and Lamberts (17), who reported that T3 treatment in obese patients, while promoting weight loss, did not cause a deterioration in N balance. It is also similar to the few findings available from long term space flight, which suggest that astronauts partially compensate for the initial negative N balance in space (18)."

"During the first 3 weeks of T3 treatment, subjects exhibited a significantly negative N balance. Specifically, N balance during the second and third weeks of T3 treatment was significantly lower than the average baseline N balance (P < 0.05; Fig. 3). Subsequently, mean N balance tended to return toward zero, although five of the subjects remained in negative N balance for the duration of the study. There was a particularly large range of N balance values for the final week (week 9), with some individuals exhibiting quite negative (-37.8 g/day) and others quite positive (+11.1 g/day) N balance. Despite this variance, there was a significant difference between the pooled data from the second through fourth weeks of treatment compared to data from the fifth through ninth weeks (P = 0.002)."

"In summary, the present model of experimental hyperthyroidism indicates that healthy men are able to compensate over time for mild increases in serum T3 concentrations by decreasing N losses. There are persistent changes in lean and fat masses as well as measures of EE in this paradigm, however. The dose of thyroid hormone used did not produce clinically significant objective or subjective adverse effects in these young men despite accelerated catabolism."

J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1997 Mar;82(3):765-70

A paradigm of experimentally induced mild hyperthyroidism: effects on nitrogen balance, body composition, and energy expenditure in healthy young men.

Lovejoy JC, Smith SR, Bray GA, DeLany JP, Rood JC, Gouvier D, Windhauser M, Ryan DH, Macchiavelli R, Tulley R.

Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 70808, USA. [email protected]

Although T3 exerts major regulatory actions in both animals and humans, most clinical studies of T3 administration have been relatively short term. The present study examined the effects of more than 2 months (63 days) of low dose T3 treatment on nitrogen balance, body composition, 24-h energy expenditure (EE), and protein turnover in seven healthy men studied at an in-patient metabolic unit. Subjects were also randomly assigned to either high or low fat diets to determine the effects of diet composition. T3 treatment produced significant losses in both lean mass (1.5 +/- 0.3 kg) and fat mass (2.7 +/- 0.4 kg) by 6 weeks, with similar reductions in both at 9 weeks. The high fat diet somewhat attenuated the loss of body fat. Nitrogen balance was significantly negative for the first 3 weeks of T3 treatment, but tended to return to baseline thereafter. There were no significant effects of treatment on protein turnover at 9 weeks, although there was a slight increase in leucine oxidation (P = 0.07). Despite the apparent adaptation in nitrogen balance, total 24-h EE and sleeping EE were significantly increased at 9 weeks. We conclude that although healthy men are able to adapt to mild hyperthyroidism in terms of nitrogen balance, they exhibit significant and persistent changes in fat and fat-free mass as well as energy balance.

depending on the individual i have seen 12.5 and sometime up to 50mcg be a benefit to a bulking cycle---some seem best to stray particular obviously those with already fast metabilism who stay lean easily and can eat 'well' without fat accumulation being a problem when gaining

12.5 usually is adjunctive to endo as it likely will cause minimal inhibition

i like to go 12.5 to sometimes 25 -37.5

Nandi12 - hi mate, I was wondering if you've seen any studies on simultaneous administration of androgens and thyroid hormones? Would be interested to hear of any you've seen bro.

Bump. Anyone seen that sort of thing?

There is another study I like a lot; it took me a minute to dig the xerox copy out of my files. They looked at combinations of t3, T3 plus GH, and T3 plus Anavar on weight loss and nitrogen retention in several subjects. As an illustrative example, in their patient #4, for 12 days with a washout period between treatments, they gave either T3 (150 mcg/day); T3 plus GH (5 mg/day = 15 IU/day) or T3 plus anavar (10 mg/day)

The weight loss in gm/day was as follows:

T3: 513 gm/day; T3+GH: 107gm/day; T3+anavar: 100gm/day

The nitrogen excretion in gm/3days was:

T3: 37; T3+GH: 32; T3+anavar: 26; placebo: 32

So just like in the other study on combining T3 and GH, you can see that here the nitrogen excretion of the T3+GH was exactly the same as placebo. In other words, the T3 cancelled all anabolic benefit of the GH. Giving T3 and anavar @ 10mg/day gives almost the same weight loss as GH+T3, but preserves much more lean body mass.

It makes no sense to combime GH and T3. Combining T3 with a low dose of AAS is a much wiser strategy for losing weight and preserving muscle

J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1971 Aug;33(2):293-300

Effects of triiodothyronine, growth hormone and anabolic steroids on nitrogen excretion and oxygen consumption of obese patients.

Bray GA, Raben MS, Londono J, Gallagher TF Jr.

usually all 3 are used concurently so perhaops something different occurs with thaty scenario--a synergistic or altered result

There are a couple of things about the second study I find interesting. One is how much weight these obese patients were losing on the T3: over a pound a day.

The other thing is how the GH interfered with the weight loss. That is a feature of a number of other studies where large doses of GH were used; in this one 15 IU/day. Insulin resistance becomes an important factor hindering weight loss at those large GH doses. Normally the insulin like effect of IGF-1 helps by lowering the endogenous output of insulin to some degree. IGF-1 as the name implies has an insulin like effect on glucose metabolism, but without interfereing with lipolysis like insulin. So in the presence of elevated IGF-1, the body secretes less insulin, improving fat loss. The problem here I suspect is that by impairing bioavailability of IGF-1, as T3 has been shown to do, the T3 negated the fat burning effect of GH.

Water retention caused by GH is a big factor as well. This is an old study (1970) so when measuring weight loss during GH administration, they did not have access to the sophisticated equipment available today to accurately measure changes in muscle and fat mass. They probably just weighed the subjects and because of the GH induced water retention it looks like they were not losing as much fat as they possibly were.

Thanks Nandi, very interesting, especially the second one. The space-man one's pretty good too, although not too indicative of our lifestyles (hopefully!).

Do you know of any studies comparing androgen + thyroid vs. androgen with no thyroid?

Cheers mate.

Hey Nandi...

i understand all of the above.. but what if one were to run gh + Anavar + t3.. would the T3 still negate the fat burning of the gh or would the anavar kinda cancel that out??

thanks