Study: Deca Durabolin for Muscle Wasting

Posted February 23, 2016 by Ben Jordan in AAS/PEDs 1 0

Study: Deca Durabolin for Muscle Wasting

Muscle wasting is common when a patient is immobilized from illness or injury. With the muscles not stimulated by normal activities and load, catabolic (tissue deconstructive) processes dominate. This may result in a significant loss of muscle protein, which is both rapid and pronounced. In some cases this can turn into a serious added complication, interfering with the individual’s recovery and mobility. Over there years, many strategies have been devised and implemented to counter muscle wasting.

However, and oddly so in spite of their known tissue building and preserving properties, anabolic steroids are not widely used for this purpose. Studies continue to investigate such applications though, suggesting we may see such medical applications open up again.

One such paper was recently published in PlosOne, finding notable benefit with nandrolone decanoate (1). This paper involves a study on rats. In this case the animals were subject to a procedure called hindlimb unloading, where the back legs are elevated to prevent them from bearing weight. This simulates weightlessness or inactivity in the muscles, which results in atrophy. In this study, one group of rats was also given nandrolone decanoate. This group noticed a significant retention of muscle protein and weight. As such, the group did have the same muscle wasting as those subjected to the procedure and not given the anabolic steroid. As the authors summarized, “…through stimulation of protein synthesis, ND [nandrolone decanoate] preserves protein content and muscle weight, which may result advantageous to the affected skeletal muscle for functional recovery.”

While I suspect that we are far from a day that nandrolone would be considered a standard treatment option for such cases, it is good to see research in this area continue, and felt it good to pass along. The summary here pertains to the most obvious finding of the study. There is much more to the paper, which is actually an extensive investigation into not only the obvious effects of nandrolone decanoate on muscle disuse atrophy, but also the underlying mechanisms involved. A link to the full article is below for those interested in studying the deeper science of AAS biochemistry and muscle atrophy. It is definitely worth a read.

Posted by William Llewellyn