Carao - this stuff is freaky!

[SofaGeorge]

Has anyone here ever heard of an extract called Carao?

http://www.costa-rica-natural.com/

I got a couple bottles of the syrup a few months ago from a company in Costa Rica. There it is sort of a local health tonic used for "anemia."

I'd read a couple anecdotal accounts of it being an energizing and strength enhancing tonic used in a few areas of Central America... the primary scientific studies being on its use to enhance the size of cattle.

The results of using this stuff have been a little freaky. My muscles definitely look fuller, but I've been able to maintain a really low b/f while creeping my weight up a few pounds. I've also noticed that my lifts have gone up to all time highs in the last couple months... even though I stopped a fina/test cycle two months ago and am now just using low dose deca/EQ.

I wondered at first if the r-ALA and ALA experiments I had been doing had contributed to the unusual strength gains. (I not only broke my PR on dead-lift... the next week I repped that weight for 6 reps.) Now I am wondering if the Carao... or a combo of the Carao and the r-ALA led to the strength gain.

Has anyone else used Carao... specifically for power-lifting/strength gains or in combo with r-ALA?

 

[Hustler_dt]

hmm......i know nothing about this supplement (which is rare).

bump for more info

 

[Greek Freak]

I didnt see the stuff on that website, nor have I ever heard of it...but I am interested to see if anyone else has tried it. Those gains are very impressive.

 

[SofaGeorge]

I didnt see the stuff on that website, nor have I ever heard of it...but I am interested to see if anyone else has tried it. Those gains are very impressive.

They list it on the website as Mineral Magic. I had to hit the more info link to even get it named as carao extract. They describe it as an anemia tonic. I found their version of it by running web searches till I found a site that had carao. So far it is the only one I've found. (There may be others, but I suspect the sites will all be in Spanish... so I may not get them on searches.)

My weight gain hasn't been spectacular... inched up from 205lbs to 208lbs... but that was with no increase in b/f. The strength gains are what are really catching my attention. I'm 43... and at my age I do not expect to be breaking personal records.

I'm still trying to run searches to see if I can find out any indicators for why it might cause strength/size gains... unfortunately... my Spanish sucks. It seems like ALL of the research is in Spanish.

 

[SofaGeorge]

Bump... a ton of hits come up when I do searches on CARAO and ANEMIA. They seem like medical articles, but they are all in Spanish.

Could someone who is a Spanish speaker take a look at them and post a summary?

 

[MoreBeefPlease]

bump

 

[IronMonkey69]

SG try the elitefitness en espanol section or try google for your search they often give a site translation option not perfect but works enough.

 

[Greek Freak]

www.altavista.com has a translator on there that you could copy and paste into, it works pretty well.

 

[SofaGeorge]

www.altavista.com has a translator on there that you could copy and paste into, it works pretty well.

I've tried these before with scientific papers... not very good results. I've got an email in to a researcher friend who is fluent in Spanish. I'll post what she comes back with on the topic.

I'm just back from working legs... heat wave weather and I did 5 sets of 5 on deadlifts at my PR best... and flew through the rest of my workout with lots of energy.

I'd taken 25mg ephedrine, 1 NYC, 100mg r-ALA and one tablespoon carao extract pre-workout.

I think it was Macro or Fonz who had speculated that r-ALA may contribute to strength gains by shuttling nutrients to the muscle cells. I'm trying to find out now if carao has any synergistic action with r-ALA.

 

[drveejay11]

It's long and kind od boring but maybe it will help

http://www4.ncsu.edu:8030/~twallace/Lynch.PDF

(you need to have adobe acrobat reader installed on your PC.........if you don't let me know, I'll email the article to you----13 pages)

 

[SofaGeorge]

I pulled this one down. The translation is via the Google translator.



It demonstrates investigation of the School of Agriculture

Carao cures anemia in bull calves
--MARIA FLOWER PALM--
RIVAS


The results of an investigation that for three years have been coming making the students from the School the International of Agriculture and Cattle ranch of Rivas confirm once again that the Carao cures the anemia in the bull calves. Therefore, the advances obtained with this investigativa experience will be presented in III the Expo-science of the National Council of Unversidades (CNU) at the end of the present month.
A dósis of 150 grams of pulp of carao dissolved in 200 cc of water and applied every eight days during three weeks, increases until in 130 percents the hematocrito in the bull calves that have anemia. That is the premise of the investigation, that locates to this product as an alternative medicine for the cure of the anemia in bovines.

"From the beginning of the investigation for three years, carao has been showing to be an effective alternative medicine to control the anemia in the bull calves and throughout that time which we looked for was the dósis adapted for the control of the disease" explained Carlos Mairena, educational of EIAG and one of the pioneers in working this subject.

"In the first years of the investigation we worked of empirical way with small dósis of pulp of carao mixed with cow milk and although we obtained satisfactory results, we looked for to experiment with other dósis. In that same time we eliminated milk like application vehicle, by the water, since we considered the reduction of the costs of elaboration of this medicine "added.

Mairena continued, "now already we discovered that a dósis of 150 grams of carao dissolved in water increases the amount of hematocrito, such way, we entered the final phase of this process that consists of the diffusion and qualification on the results of the investigation to the small producers of the zone.

For the person in charge of the Department of Investigation of the School of Agriculture, professor Martín Jiménez, the results demonstrate the interest that has the EIAG to look for solution the problems that have the small producers, in Vista that with carao are avoided to buy some chemistry to cure the anemia to him to the bull calves and in addition they will be avoided to contaminate the medio.ambiente.

Jiménez emphasized that as much results of investigation on carao, as the one of use of plants medicinal to cure garrapatas in bovines - investigation that also will be presented/displayed in expo-science -, was validated some months ago by students of the School of Agricultura (ENA) of Honduras.

During the accomplishment of the Expo-science that for three years has been impelling the CNU with the purpose of promoting the participation and scientific research of the different universities agglutinated in the Council, the EIAG will present/display the results of three investigations. Two which they have to do with medicines in bovines and one on the feeding of lombrices from several estiércoles and applied in different parcels.

 

[juggernaut7]

bump

bump for a good post,more info perhaps,peace

namaste

 

[prime22]

Bump, this sounds like some interesting stuff. More info please.

 

[SofaGeorge]

bump. Come on... somebody else has to have tried this.