Today we’re gonna cover a new, well not totally NEW supplement on the block
that has been making quite a lot of noise. A lot of you have been bugging me about this
like a bunch of fussy critters and… INSECTs, just insects. Don’t really have another pun.
The recent talk of the town is about the supplement known as turkesterone.
If you’re not familiar with it, turkesterone falls into a group called ecdysteroids,
which are natural steroid hormones deriving from plants and, as you might have guessed,
insects. Buggy, crittery insects. Regardless of its interesting source,
why do some think turkesterone might be the next big supplement?
Well, if we’re being completely honest, it’s probably entirely thanks to very
intense marketing, but that’s another story. In terms of proposed effects, it most likely stems
from the fact that ecdysteroids like turkesterone share a striking structural similarity to a
little human hormone we call testosterone. And the hormone testosterone is known for
its effects like hair growth and bone density. But perhaps most relevant to us here is its anabolic
effects like increased muscle growth and strength. Ecdysteroids are kinda like the plant and insect
variant of testosterone, beards and all. The big question is, if us humans were to
consume it, can ecdysteroids also act similarly to testosterone and help us with our beautiful gainz?
Well, one way to find out is to check out the research.
Huh… speaking of research, the amount we have on human trials…. kinda sucks.
Which is surprising considering that the exploration of ecdysteroids themselves is nothing
new. We can trace publications all the way back to 1968, where Japanese researchers found that
insect-moulting steroids, like ecdysteroids, had a positive impact on mouse liver protein synthesis.
But of course, mouse liver protein synthesis is far and away from human skeletal muscle growth.
Unfortunately, human trials remain stagnant for many years after.
Not only until 38 years later, in 2006, do we finally see our first relevant human trial.
And in this 8-week trial, when resistance trained subjects were given 200 milligrams
daily of ecdysterone, another ecdysteroid, there were no significant differences found
in all measured strength outcomes, in body fat percentage, nor fat-free mass.
In other words, ecdysterone had seemingly zero impact on performance and muscle growth.
That’s quite a dud of a finding after 38 years of waiting, which makes you think
that researchers long ago might have already knew it wasn’t worth the time.
Especially for something so readily available like ecdysteroids, if there were benefits, then
certainly cash grabbing supplement companies would have left no cricket nor snail shell unturned.
But let’s be fair, one study in 2006 is not enough for us to toss ecdysteroids aside just
yet. It will be nice to have more data. Luckily for us, 2019 called and threw
us a bit more to work with. And it’s probably this 2019
study that lead to the crazy popularity we see in ecdysteroids and turkesterone today.
Because unlike the 2006 study, there were some very interesting results.
This 2019 study also employed resistance-trained participants but had two ecdysterone groups this
time: one taking two capsules daily, which the label equates to 200 milligrams of ecdysterone
per day, and a high-dose group taking eight capsules, which should be 800 milligrams per day.
After 10 weeks of training, strength in the bench press 1 rep max and, to a lesser extent, the back
squat 1 rep max, significantly improved in both ecdysterone groups compared to a placebo group.
Weight gain was also significantly higher in the ecdysterone groups,
with a notable increase in the high-dose group. The same was found for muscle growth, where we see
big between the two intervention groups. Interestingly, the placebo group
actually lost muscle mass, which is quite unexpected since they did gain weight.
At worst, you would expect no muscle gain, but a loss is definitely a WTF moment,
at least in my opinion. However you cut it, though,
the gains made here were pretty substantial. But as we like to do around here, we have to look
at some potential limitations of the study. And HOHO, this one has quite a dilemma.
Let’s start with an ehh, not-that-bad type of limitation first, which is sample size.
With 46 subjects spread out into four groups, one control, one placebo, and the two intervention
groups, that’s 12 subjects for each group except for 10 in the higher dose ecdysterone group.
That’s not too much per group to strongly rule out statistical sampling errors and false positives.
Especially with the 2006 study showing vastly different results, this only calls for more
data to really figure out what’s going on. The next limitation is the whole strange
gain in weight but loss in muscle mass thing we saw in the placebo group. It really doesn’t make
sense but it might be explained by HOW the researchers measured muscle mass, which was
through bioelectrical impedance analysis, or BIA. You might be familiar with BIA if you ever had a
fitness analysis at your school or clinic where they had you hold one of those
handlebar-looking things and told you not to move for 15 seconds but it felt like 15 hours.
BIA unfortunately has a bit of reputation for not being entirely accurate in measuring
body composition, especially with detecting small, incremental increases in muscle mass.
The researchers did use a fancier multipoint BIA device, though, but accuracy is still a
question mark here. It would again be nice to see more data in the future.
But perhaps the most eye-catching problem was not with stats or measurements,
but with the actual supplements. This thing! These supplements advertised to contain
100 milligrams of ecdysterone per capsule. But, when the researchers actually analyzed
the capsules in a lab, they found that the ecdysterone concentration was not 100 milligrams,
not 75, not 50, not even 30 milligrams. It was 6 milligrams of actual ecdysterone
per capsule. Ehh, only off about 94%! Supplements containing lower-than-advertised
concentrations are nothing new, but this much of a discrepancy is probably… ehh a bit too much.
But now, are we saying that not 200 milligrams of ecdysterone, but only 12, remember the low-dose
group took two capsules, is enough to elicit such significant increases in strength and mass?
Or, could there have been something more potent in the pills that lead to
the results? The researchers did perform a urine analysis on the subjects and did
not detect any other enhancing drugs, so we might be able to rule that out to an extent.
But 6 milligrams instead of a hundred, really, that’s something we can’t just
ignore and another perfect reason why more data would be very very appreciated.
Data please, help usout. But for now, that’s the data we have,
but there’s one more thing we should talk about With something like testosterone, we know how
it works, its mechanism. Testosterone and other androgenic hormones like DHT
activates its anabolic effects by interacting with androgen receptors.
One way for ecdysteroids to also have anabolic effects is to interact with
these same androgen receptors, but based on what we know, it doesn’t.
We actually don’t really know much of ecdysteroids’ mechanisms at all.
The little that we do know is that it seems to interact with
a receptor called estrogen receptor beta. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that activation
of estrogen receptor beta through other more potent substances, like estradiol, have yet to
show any direct impact on performance or muscle growth outside of cell and animal studies.
Interesting fact though: Another plant-based compound known as isoflavones also interact
with estrogen receptor beta. And, the most common plant that contains isoflavones is… soy.
And, it’s this interaction with estrogen receptors promoting estrogen-like effects
that perpetuated the testosterone killing myth about soy in which we disparagingly
charge any consumer of soy as… soy boys. Wouldn’t it be quite a turn of events if
turkesterone, which is heavily marketed to our testosterone loving friends to act
no better than soy? Instead of being a soy boy,
you may very well become a turk… jerk? Sorry I couldn’t think of a better rhyme for that,
but if you did, please share it in the comments! Luckily, again, the whole thing about soy is a
total myth, so don’t worry turkey jerkies. And we still have yet to discovery exactly
how ecdysteroids work. Estrogen receptor beta is only one path.
If more information pops up in the future, I’ll be sure to share it with ll of you beautiful people.
For now though, if you’re on the fence about taking turkesterone,
I say save your money for things that we already know works. Sure, some people, maybe yourself,
have anecdotes about it being super helpful, but hey, as great anecdotes can be, we can’t
really rely on it to give full recommendations, or else I’d be recommending a digital pen if
you want to get an amazing taper like mine. Until we get more information, turk jerking
definitely won’t be part of my daily regimen, but I won’t judge you if it’s part of yours.
I wanted to give a shoutout to Ben Esgro of SuppSci. It was his presentation of ecdysteroids
on the Iron Culture podcast that really helped me dive into the topic of ecdysteroid mechanisms.
I highly recommend anyone of you interested in a more in-depth dive into turkesterone
and ecdysteroids to check out that Iron Culture podcast episode, which I’ll link
in the description. Other than that:
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As always, thank you for watching and don’t forget to get your PROTEIN.