I'm gonna try the stuff within a month, we'll see what happens...

Like I said its a shame cuz it was working good too. I've tried everything except dymetadrine extreme,adipo, and triax.

I guess I'll start another post and see what everyones favorites are. First I'll do a search.

I was doing a lot of cardio over the summer (roller blading) and was taking ECA and creatine, and developed terrible itching and bumps. These have recurred from time to time and I've never felt quite right since. I wonder if it is some supplement I am taking.

I'm off the creatine now.

Some of you may remember a genius named Dan Duchaine. He was absolutely brilliant when it came to "figuring out" which supplements were most effective for certain things. He had an obvious dark side. He did promote steroid use. He gave directions for "safe use". He also was in favor of judicious use of DNP...which is pretty harsh stuff. He was the one who has been credited with linking the effects of sodium usniate with DNP...by category only, not by pharmacokinetic or dynamic interaction in humans. That's where his work on it ended. By this time he wanted out of the supplement, steroid and bodybuilding industry. He wanted to move on to new things. Unfortunately, he died of a type of polycystic kidney disease (genetic) before he could retire to other things. He acknowledged some of the guys (who would later form the online magazine testosterone) as having helped him get back on his feet after a massive stroke. However, he had made some of them very angry with debates and information-based opinions and that anger perhaps burned some of them deeply. Perhaps he was not as recognizing of those same peoples' efforts to help his return as they had wished. Perhaps they had been embarrassed or angry at him for knowing so much without having to continually keep abreast of research and educational knowledge (I've heard he would get his ideas from divining---sort of like deep meditation). At any rate, the anger against him from those guys has lived on. However, usnic acid is not his only contribution...he was the one who said whey protein would be the way to living a longer life, that whey protein was the best protein for building muscle (he apparently divined this information too, since the science on whey protein wasn't even around at the time he suggested it). Years later, research is still confirming that whey protein is a life extension substance. Duchaine is also credited with having discovered ephedra and it's application to bodybuilding and fat loss (I'm still trying to figure out how he stumbled on that one). He also developed "Ultimate Orange", the best energy drink ever produced (something about it is not the same anymore...I think they changed up the original formula, cause it no longer gives me much pep like the original). I remember buying a new can which was on sale when I still had a nearly full can of the original formula...the new didn't seem like the same and didn't give me much energy...so I went back to the old can to see if I had simply adapted to the use...voila! there was the energy again. At any rate, he did a boatload for the supplementation aspect of bodybuilding that we should all appreciate. I've only mentioned a few.

Getting back to what the hell this has to do with usnic acid...

Enter Derek Cornelius (Syntrax Innovations). He's young, rich and eager to carry on Duchaine's work. One big problem...he doesn't divine his answers (only Duchaine did that). However, Cornelius began producing many of the supplements that Duchaine promoted and believed in. He also did his own work and initially put theophylline in adipokinetix(when they took it out, bam! formula not as good). Cornelius believed in Duchaine's theories and used them to build Syntrax. He was the first to use the "Scmitz-Kneller Stack which is the combination of caffeine, aspirin, yohimbine, norephedrine and the now banned theophlline. It blew the market away. Testosterone (Biotest) succinctly marketed its own version (MD6). They attacked Cornelius for having theophylline in it as a marketing ploy to divert customers to Biotest---"the safer and more effective alternative to Adipokinetix". As soon as Lipokinetix came out, they found a nice little foreign research article full of holes to back up their claim that usnic acid is evil. I'm not sure if their hatred of Derek Cornelius is exactly related to their disagreements with Duchaine, but remember that line from The Godfather: "the friend of my enemy is my enemy"? I wonder if it rings true. At any rate, Cornelius has dropped the ball in countering their attacks with funded high-tech research to disprove their claims.
The guys at testosterone jumped on the thread that usnic acid is dangerous solely because of a flawed singular study that usnic acid induces mitochondrial uncoupling...a process that is in no way evil, but rather a natural fact of life. Yes, it was once used for the removal of genital warts (condyloma acuminata). Yes, it has been implicated in hives (urticarial wheals). That does not make it the most dangerous supplement ever. Have their been any confirming tests to show that it is dangerous...no. Have their been any studies to show that it causes cellular death prematurely or may have carcinogenic potential? No! In fact, there's research that is actually may be useful in treating some forms of cancer. Yet on the basis of one study they make their assumptions that "you'll get cancer or have your arm amputated 10 years from now" if you use it. This is putting the cart before the horse! And it sickens me to see this sort of hype over a substance that has been used by native people for maybe a thousand years as a healing remedy.

Here's a little test for those of you who have read this far: read the following known side effects and tell me the order of what is worse.

Substance A--- may cause gastrointestinal ulcerations, may cause excessive bleeding due to anti-platelet aggregation activity, may cause irreversible liver and kidney damage, may be implicated in cerebral strokes, etc.

Substance B--- may cause hyperexcitability, tachycardia and heart dysrhthmias, irritation of breast tissue (linked to certain breast cancers), irritation to prostate in males (strongly linked to prostate hypertrophy and possibly cancer), adrenal hyperfunction, nervousness, fainting, seizures, etc.

Substance C--- may cause skin hives, may cause mild weight loss, may cause hyperexcitability, may cause deceleration of normal cellular energy production pathways, etc.

Which of these sounds scariest? A is the risks associated with aspirin! B is the risks associated with caffeine intake! C is what we know about...usnic acid!

And yet we formulate opinions based on the work of a few individuals who may have ulterior motivations for what they print.

I'm not saying that usnic acid is totally safe. I don't take it...but that's because I don't have any fat to lose. If I needed to lose weight, I might take this product.

Think about it this way...people have been using Old Man's Bearded Lichen for centuries...they eat this plant which contains large amounts of Usnic acid...yet we don't see them dying early or having their "arms amputated". They seem to me to be the initial proof that we need to show that although it should probably be used sparingly and periodically at most, that it is NOT the most dangerous supplement ever.

Started taking 2 a day the first two days, and felt nothing. on the third day I started taking 4 a day, then I began to feel slighly nauseous. I continued anyway, on the fifth day I took 6 and I felt like total crap that whole day, splitting headache, nauseousness, and my arms started having a pins and needles sensation that would not go away all day long. That night I got no sleep whatsoever. Stupidly I continued to use it, next day I took 3 caps. I did not feel as bad as the day before, but I wasn't getting any of the benefits. No increased fat burning, no fevers, no noticeable temperature rise. Just a feeling of nausea and muscle pain.

after 2 weeks on I quit, I hadn't lost a single lb of fat, and now I was worried that I had caused some permanent damage to myself.

I'm still not sure if I have or haven't. Sometimes I have this dull stinging pain in my quads, I don't know why. All I know is I ain't touching that stuff again. Maybe this is a very unique experience, anyway, if you like the stuff I want to sell, I have an opened bottle, and a new one, anyone want to buy them?? I'm in Canada, so E-mail me, 'cause I'm not using this stuff again, it's too harsh for me...

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"Mr. Phillips, are you honestly telling me that people are really going to believe that I'm the 'before,' and he's the 'after'?"