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Young men interested in bodybuilding often resort to a variety of supplements to enhance the muscle-building effects of weight training.

Although natural male hormones, such as testosterone, are legally available only with a doctor’s prescription, there are some substances, sold as dietary supplements, which promise to have the same effects. One such supplement is the hormone androstenedione.

New research reported in the Feb. 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association begins to clarify some of the results of androstenedione supplementation — at least on young men.

While marketers tout androstenedione (often advertised as “Andro”) as a “natural” bodybuilding aid, little solid scientific evidence exists to support either its effectiveness or its safety.

The adrenal glands, testes and ovaries produce androstenedione. The body can convert it to testosterone (the main male hormone), and also to the female hormones estrone and estradiol. It is the possibility of conversion to testosterone, responsible for men’s greater muscle mass, that is the basis for androstenedione’s use as a muscle-building, or anabolic, supplement.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester and University of California Los Angeles Medical School collaborated to investigate the effects of androstenedione supplementation on hormone levels of 42 young, healthy men (average age 26 to 32). The subjects were randomly assigned to receive either 100 milligrams or 300 milligrams of androstenedione daily for seven days. Another, matched group received no supplement.

Blood samples were drawn on the first day of the study before supplements were taken, and at intervals for up to eight hours later. The sampling was repeated on the last day of the seven-day study. The blood levels of several hormones were measured — androstenedione, testosterone, estradiol and estrone.

The investigators found that the androstenedione supplements, even when taken for only one week, did significantly increase levels of testosterone in the subjects’ blood, but only at the 300-milligram-per-day level. The level of the female hormone estradiol was also significantly higher in the supplemented groups of men — at both the 100-milligram and the 300-milligram dose. After seven days of supplementation, 12 of 15 subjects in the 100-milligram group, and 10 of 14 subjects in the 300-milligram group had estradiol levels that were above the upper normal limit for men.

The authors noted that because of these alterations in sex hormone levels, high-dose androstenedione supplementation could have feminizing effects in men, and possibly have masculinizing effects in women. They also suggested that in children such supplementation ” … could cause precocious puberty … thereby compromising final adult height.”

Dr. Benjamin Leder, lead author of the study, commented, “Androstenedione supplementation causes a variety of hormonal imbalances, and we don’t know what the health effects of these would be over the long term. There is certainly a potential for adverse effects.” He continued, “Until a long term clinical trial is completed, people who use these supplements should be aware that we have virtually no information about their future effects.”

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