Blog Entry #113
By Admin – Steroidal.com
Calcium is a mineral that’s essential to bone, teeth, heart, nerve health and is also imperative to blood-clotting systems in the body. Calcium is also important in muscle contractions, the transportation of amino acids and creatine. It also lowers blood pressure, improves sleep and the right amounts will lower cholesterol. Put simply, calcium should be part of an athletes or bodybuilders diet.
Although calcium should be used for the above health benefits, there isn’t a ton of research on it enhancing performance, but lets not get confused here. Calcium is a mineral and found in foods, such as diary, kale, broccoli and canned fish products with bones. Its not touted as the next best herbal product to hit the market, is patent pending and will add 20lbs of solid muscle or enhance fat loss dramatically.
Today we’re going to look at the effects of calcium on testosterone levels in untrained and trained athletes.
In 2008 Turkish scientists at the Selcuk University, wanted to see the effects of calcium gluconate on the testosterone levels of, untrained and trained subjects. The subjects were split into three groups. Group 1 was given 35mg/kg of bodyweight calcium gluconate for four weeks and did no training. Group 2 were given calcium gluconate at the same dose and trained five days per week for an hour a time, and Group 3 took no supplements.
Before the experiment started the researchers recorded all subjects total testosterone level [RBS]. Testosterone levels were again checked after the experiment had finished [RAS]. All subjects were made to train for an hour and their testosterone levels were checked [EBS]. And finally, the subjects were told to exercise at the end of the experiment only and had their testosterone concentrations tested once more [EAS]. The effect of the calcium gluconate on total testosterone was – zero.
However, when the sports scientist looks at free testosterone levels and not total testosterone levels, they did see a difference between groups. Group 2, who were given calcium gluconate and trained five times per week, had a higher free testosterone level than both other groups. Free testosterone is testosterone available to be used for muscle growth and not bound by sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG).
Its not fully understood how calcium increased the free testosterone level, but it may be due to sensitising the testes to second messenger hormones, LH and FSH, or reducing SHBG freeing more testosterone for use.
“Our results show that training results in increased testosterone levels in athletes and that the increase is greater if accompanied by calcium supplementation, which may be useful for increasing overall athletic performance”, the Turkish sports scientists write.
Diary intake can cause a number of side effects, but if you do consume dairy at all, go for unpasteurised organic cows milk (raw milk). Avoiding the pasteurisation procedure means its full of natural vitamins, minerals and protein.
References:
Biol Trace Elem Res. 2008 Dec 20. [Epub ahead of print].
