Methylandrostenediol - Methandriol Profile

Methylandrostenediol/Methandriol Profile

Pharmaceutical Name: Methylandrostenediol
Chemical structure: 17a-Methyl-5-androstene-3B,17B-diol
Chemical Formula: C20 H32 O2
Molecular Weight: 304.4716
Chemical Formula: C20 H32 O2
Active life: less then 24 hours via intra-muscular injection
Anabolic/Androgenic ratio: 30-60/20-60



Methylandrostenediol is an anabolic steroid that gained popularity because of its reputation for putting on significant body mass to meat producing animals, with these results attempting to be reproduced by steroid users. The steroid utilizes 17 alpha alkylation as to better prepare the compound to resist being broken down by the liver when ingested orally. As stated, it is still primarily manufactured for use in veterinary medicine as a means to help increase weight gain in meat producing animals and was first marketed in the 1980s. For strength athletes and bodybuilders it is thought to produce weight gain in users when used in adequate doses, although these gains often result in both increases in muscle as well as water retention and body fat due to the unique characteristics of the compound.

Methylandrostenediol is simply the drug 5-androstenediol that has under gone 17 alpha alkylation so as to prevent, or at the very least reduce, breakdown in the liver. For the most part methylandrostenediol possesses extremely mild abilities to produce great gains in muscle size and/or strength. Obviously this is due to its low anabolic and androgenic properties. While it is likely that some muscular size and strength increases will be noted by the user, these will likely be far less then most other popular anabolic steroids. Even the gains that are made may be produced via different mechanisms however. For example, the additional water retention and body weight increase that a user of methylandrostenediol is likely to experience may just be as likely a cause of any increased strength as the low androgenic response produced by the compound would likely achieve. The same may also be true of the increase body weight that a user would put on during a cycle of the drug.

The reputation that methylandrostenediol gained amongst cattle, pig and other meat producing animal producers for these increases in body weight of their livestock may have been enhanced beyond its practical application for a number of reasons. Firstly, methylandrostenediol is rarely used alone in veterinary medicine. It is most often combined with other compounds, trenbolone being one, to produce the desired results. This combination of a major anabolic (trenbolone) with a mild anabolic with estrogenic properties (methylandrostenediol) would lead to major increases in both overall body weight as well as muscle mass in the treated animals. However while steroid users may be tempted to run such drug combinations themselves in an attempt to duplicate such results, as will be outlined below, the side effects associated with methylandrostenediol will likely make this practice impossible for most users.

So having noted these limitations of the drug, the major benefit of methylandrostenediol is its ability to inhibit the muscle wasting effects of glucocorticoid hormones (1). This muscle-sparing effect would obviously be beneficial to the user but its effects would not be overly dramatic. Some improvement in immune function could also be noted (2), but again this will likely be slight in the overall picture for the steroid user.


Use/Dosing


Due to the fact that methylandrostenediol is a 17 alpha alkylated steroid, it can be administered via intra-muscular injection or orally. The compound is an ester-less suspension in most cases, although some users may be able to find some tabs of the compound available. An esterified form of the compound, methylandrostenediol dipropionate, is also available in an injectable form. This allows for an extended active life. However this ester still is rather short so frequent doses would still be necessary. In its oral form its active life is still also relatively small so oral doses should take place at least once or twice daily to maintain blood levels of the drug in the system of the user, while injections of the esterless compound should also take place daily for the most beneficial results.

Recommended doses administered by users range from as low as 10 milligrams per day for women to 60 milligrams per day for first time male users. Of course like all drugs, many users will use dosages that exceed these limits with the risks of experiencing negative side effects increasing with these dosages.

It can be concluded that the best use for methylandrostenediol is short-term with most users preferring to use the product for between four to six weeks, although some will prolong the use with limited consequences to health, despite its strong hepatoxic effects. One would also want to be extremely hesitant to combine this compound with other 17 alpha alkylated steroids that are likely to add additional stress to liver function.

Due to the characteristics of the compound, users are most likely to stack methylandrostenediol with other compounds. Testosterone is an obvious choice due to the estrogenic side effects that can result from its use, i.e. diminished sex drive. However because of these estrogenic side effects users will also want to take precautions when choosing other compounds to run along with it that they do not create new problems or exacerbate the ones already brought on by methylandrostenediol. For example, a user may want to avoid a compound such as methandrostenolone which often results in a great deal of water retention due to the effect that methylandrostenediol has on a user’s blood pressure and the bloat that it also produces in many users.


Risks/Side Effects

Methylandrostenediol is a 17 alpha alkylated compound and includes the usual associated risks and stresses that those compounds place on the liver. Seemingly as long as extremely high doses of the drug are not utilized by users no significant damage should occur. With moderate dosing and cycle lengths hepatoxicity should not be an issue for most healthy individuals.

For male users, the androgenic side effects should be minimal. Negative androgenic responses to the drug such as hair loss, prostate difficulties, and other problems should not occur in the vast majority of users. However methylandrostenediol can cause of a myriad of problems in relation to the estrogenic side effects it is capable of producing. 5-androstenediol itself acts upon the estrogen receptor and therefore can help to produce estrogenic side effects such as fat retention/gain, water retention and gynecomastia, among others (3). This direct action upon the estrogen receptor poses a unique problem for users as the use of aromatase inhibitors would for the most part be far less useful in treating side effects related to this drug as the aromatize enzyme is not a factor in creating these side effects. This potential lack of easily combated estrogen-related side effects should be a major consideration when users are debating on whether the costs outweigh the benefits of administering this drug.

One unique aspect of methylandrostenediol is its effect on blood pressure. In some cases it appears that the drug can lead to dramatic rises in blood pressure is some users (4, 5). While this is not necessarily unique amongst most anabolic steroids, the level to which the blood pressure of a user rises, the duration that this rise lasts, and the amount of time it takes for it to normalize after the administration of the drug is completed are quite different then most other anabolic steroids. In one study it was demonstrated that in rats methylandrostenediol caused a permanent rate of hypertension in some of the treated animals (6). While no similar findings have been made in humans, this information regarding the effect of the drug on blood pressure may be of some concern for users that have pre-existing conditions and should of course be noted when deciding whether to run this particular drug.

In terms of use of the drug by female athletes, due to the limited androgenic nature of methylandrostenediol there is little likelihood of virilizing effects in women. Of course this would be both cycle duration and dose dependent. As well, in an animal study it appeared that the drug had no effect on the reproductive ability of those female animals given the drug when the dosage was kept to moderate levels. However, even when given relatively large doses, any inhibition of reproductive ability dissipated within one month of cessation of the drug (7). No data exists using human subjects in this related area of research.



References

1. Salehian, B. and Kejriwal, K. Glucocorticoid-induced muscle atrophy: mechanisms and therapeutic strategies. Endocr Pract. 1999; 5(5):277-81. Androstenediol stimulates myelopoiesis and enhances resistance to infection in gamma-irradiated mice. Int J Immunopharmacol. 2000 Jan;22(1):1-14.

2. Whitnall MH, Elliott TB, Harding RA, Inal CE, Landauer MR, Wilhelmsen CL, McKinney L, Miner VL, Jackson WE3rd, Loria RM, Ledney GD, Seed TM.

3. Purohit A, Woo LW, Chander SK, Newman SP, Ireson C, Ho Y, Grasso A, Leese MP, Potter BV, Reed MJ. Steroid sulphatase inhibitors for breast cancer therapy. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2003 Sep;86(3-5):423-32.

4. McCall AL, Stern J, Dale SL, Melby JC. Adrenal steroidogenesis in methylandrostenediol-induced hypertension. Endocrinology. 1978 Jul;103(1):1-5.

5. Molteni A, Colby HD, Skelton FR, Brownie AC. Prevention of methylandrostenediol, methyltestosterone and testosterone-induced hypertension in the rat by hypophysectomy. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1972 Dec;141(3):936-9.

6. Molteni A, Brownie AC, Nickerson PA, Skelton FR. Irreversibility of methylandrostenediol-induced hypertension in the rat after suspension of the androgen treatment. Am J Pathol. 1972 Oct;69(1):179-94.

7. Turner JE, Irvine CH. Effect of prolonged administration of anabolic and androgenic steroids on reproductive function in the mare. J Reprod Fertil Suppl. 1982;32:213-8.