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 Diet Discussion Board
 ECA causes muscle wasting..
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| Author | Topic: ECA causes muscle wasting.. | ||
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Cool Novice 
Posts: 22 |
Its total supplemt company BS that ECA preserves muscle while dieting, as i remember reading that ECA puts your body in "fight or flight" mode , i then read in another article that cortisol is released when your body is in "fight or flight" (that little phrase again)- its true that ECA releases epinephrine which preserves muscle, but if it also increase cortisol we have a big problem. So in other words ephedrine preserves muscle , but it subsequently causes a rise in cortisol which destroys muscle - convient how supplement companies leave this part of.    | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder 
Posts: 190 |
That's interesting. I'm not surprised though. I wonder if there's a way to counteract this. I've noticed it's difficult the increase strength while on ECA, however I assumed it was because I was losing fat and weight. I think the illusion is that when you cut, (on ECA) your muscles show more, so sometimes you look bigger. The companies use this to their advantage. Anyone have other experiences with this? Anyone had size and strength gains on ECA?  | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder
Posts: 70 |
adrenaline and cortisol are both released during figh or flight, but for different reasons, and theyre antagonists... ECA raises adrenalin and lowers cortisol | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder
Posts: 184 |
Through proper diet and exercise I have gained muscle while losing fat on ECA. | ||
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Cool Novice
Posts: 22 |
Why when you present nothing but facts do people always have to disagree with you, so once again here i go and i quote : www.victoriasvitamins.com/musclemass.html "Once in the blood, epinephrine stimulates the release of ACTH in the brain. As we know from above, ACTH causes the release of cortisol." | ||
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Cool Novice
Posts: 22 |
Why when you present nothing but facts do people always have to disagree with you, so once again here i go and i quote : www.victoriasvitamins.com/musclemass.html "Once in the blood, epinephrine stimulates the release of ACTH in the brain. As we know from above, ACTH causes the release of cortisol." | ||
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Elite Bodybuilder 
Posts: 1183 |
I can see you don't like ECA, therefore don't use it. But in the same paragraph you just quoted it also says "The long and the short of this whole process is: glucagon and epinephrine combine to make energy available at the expense of stored carbohydrates and fat. Glucagon and epinephrine both act to free carbohydrates, and later fat, from the insides of cells." This is the purpose of ECA, but if your diet, training and rest are not perfect you will also lose some muscle. If you really lost 4lbs muscle and 2 lbs of fat in 5 weeks, I don't think you have a good case to blame the ECA. Hundreds of thousands of people, including bodybuilders such as myself, have used ECA and lost fat without such dramatic muscle loss. | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder
Posts: 184 |
This is the only thing on that page I could find. Epinephrine and Norepinephrine Once in the blood, epinephrine stimulates the release of ACTH in the brain. As we know from above, ACTH causes the release of cortisol. Epinephrine also stimulates the pancreas to release glucagon, while at the same time suppressing pancreatic insulin release. The long and the short of this whole process is: glucagon and epinephrine combine to make energy available at the expense of stored carbohydrates and fat. Glucagon and epinephrine both act to free carbohydrates, and later fat, from the insides of cells. They are catabolic, much like cortisol. Understanding how catabolic hormones (cortisol, specifically) and catecholamines (nor- and epinephrine) influence the body is the first step in examining the detrimental effects of training stress. Only in the past ten or so years has the concept of limiting muscle breakdown become an important clause in the contract of training progress. What research has unveiled is that training, as a form of stress, stimulates epinephrine, and then cortisol, to liberate fuel sources from muscles. It's scary to think training causes your body to break down � scary enough to motivate deep concern about how to reduce cortisol output during exercise. It doesn't even talk about ECA. | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder
Posts: 184 |
This is the only thing on that page I could find. Epinephrine and Norepinephrine Once in the blood, epinephrine stimulates the release of ACTH in the brain. As we know from above, ACTH causes the release of cortisol. Epinephrine also stimulates the pancreas to release glucagon, while at the same time suppressing pancreatic insulin release. The long and the short of this whole process is: glucagon and epinephrine combine to make energy available at the expense of stored carbohydrates and fat. Glucagon and epinephrine both act to free carbohydrates, and later fat, from the insides of cells. They are catabolic, much like cortisol. Understanding how catabolic hormones (cortisol, specifically) and catecholamines (nor- and epinephrine) influence the body is the first step in examining the detrimental effects of training stress. Only in the past ten or so years has the concept of limiting muscle breakdown become an important clause in the contract of training progress. What research has unveiled is that training, as a form of stress, stimulates epinephrine, and then cortisol, to liberate fuel sources from muscles. It's scary to think training causes your body to break down � scary enough to motivate deep concern about how to reduce cortisol output during exercise. It doesn't even talk about ECA. | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder
Posts: 73 |
ya, so what if cortisol is released.. we dont know how much could be negligible compared to the preservence of muscle that we wouldnt have gotten without the ECA, where cortisol levels are high all the time | ||
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Cool Novice
Posts: 38 |
People can write all the fancy little articles they want... I stack pretty hard and lose weight and gain musle. I am the first to admin my cutting is going faster than my muscle gains... but what good is muscle wrapped in fat? Fat sucks. Take your shirt off every now and then to see yourself and make sure you are burning the candle from both ends. Being strong and fat isn't very impressive to most people. | ||
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Novice 
Posts: 4 |
Big Andy, buddy, You have a point. And we all know that you don't like eca. But don't say it doesn't work. You can say it doesn't work for you. But you really can't tell me it doesn't work for other people. I believe there have been studies cited where weight loss was greater with an eca stack vs. placebo. And it was also found that with eca 90% of the weight lost was fat. Yes, 10% was muscle. But I'll trade 1 lb of muscle for a 9lb fat loss any day. Yes, these studies are used in advertisements. But this is one case where the research is done by actual research scientists and not paid supplement company goonies. To see the studies and to read up on why eca preserves muscle while dieting go to mesomorphosis.com and do a search for ephedrine read the pharmacology article in the results. Good luck, Andy. Stay strong. Jethro Tull | ||
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Cool Novice
Posts: 22 |
Don't get me wrong i never said ECA doesn't burn a ton of fat in the process. All im saying is that once your body is in "fight or flight" mode it doesnt say to itself ill spare muscle and use fat for energy, so ill be ripped once im out of this stressful situation . Instead it says fuck that shit im in danger and ill use whatever i can as energy(including a significant amount of muscle). | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder
Posts: 223 |
then why do studies show that the eca groups preserve significally more lean muscle than non-eca groups ,both who diet and excercise | ||
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Elite Bodybuilder
Posts: 1183 |
Well I'm not gonna quote off a commercial vitamin website, nor am I going to draw my own erroneous conclusions about what I might have read there (even though it never mentions ECA). What I WILL do is present some clinically important abstracts, 2 which show muscle sparing and fat-burning properties of EC, and one which shows no difference between EC and placebo groups. But NOWHERE in a peer-reviewed article could I find any evidence of EC causing muscle loss. And all these subjects were on 1000 cals per day diets for up to 24 weeks, which is extreme by bodybuilding standards.
Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord � Volume 17 Suppl 1 Abstract Pharmacology of thermogenic drugs. Abstract Abstract | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder
Posts: 223 |
i dont know,but still the majority of the studies show that EC preserves more muscle than placbo groups,maybe EC peak effects occur more after the 8th week,i remember someone saying that before,but im not sure if its true or i misread it | ||
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Elite Bodybuilder
Posts: 1183 |
Yeah, I know what you're saying chillin. And I agree with you. I will be the first to admit to some shortcomings in those studies. First, they were done on clinically obese women, and they were not doing any additional exercise. Dieting when you have lots of bodyfat is quite different to dieting when you're already lean because your body is MUCH more likely to burn fat when it's got lots of it to burn. And if you're lean AND weight training AND dieting, you're putting a triple catabolic burden on your body. So I would expect a lean(ish) bodybuilder to experience a higher percentage of LBM loss when dieting (with or without EC). I don't know of any scientifically controlled studies of EC in dieting athletes, so I can't make any absolute statement. Only that I haven't seen EC CAUSE muscle loss in any of the trials that have been done so far. That and the fact that sooooo many bodybuilders have used this supplement with great success makes me believe that BigAndy probably had something else going on to cause such a rapid loss of muscle mass. For BigAndy's benefit, I will speculate: 1) Overtraining/overdieting. This is the MOST common cause of mass loss in dieting BB, especially novices. It takes lots of practice, refinement and listening to your body to diet for optimal fat loss. 2) Errors in measuring %bf. This is probably the second most common cause of mass-loss. I don't know of ANY method of measuring %bf that is accurate enough or meaningful enough to allow a dieter to be sure of how much fat or muscle they're losing. Ultimately you have to just rely on the skin-folds decreasing (as measured by a highly competent person) while you still look good in the mirror. 3) Fluid loss. You can easily lose 4 lbs of fluid by changes in diet, training and fluid intake. This fluid loss will not significantly affect your skinfolds, but will dramatically affect your weightloss. Without any means of measuring total hydration, this can appear to be muscle loss. It is important to realize that EC is a diuretic, and it takes a lot more water intake to balance this diuretic effect. I'm sure some of the other board members can come up with other ideas. [This message has been edited by MS (edited January 29, 2001).] |
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posted January 24, 2001 03:51 AM