Criminal minds create new supplement
by TJ Quinn
New York Daily News
Sunday, June 3rd 2007
In almost any other business, the idea of three
criminals contributing to one product might be a bad
thing, but not in the world of diet supplements:
Witness Instone's muscle-building product "Forza-T."
The company's owner is Sylvester Stallone, who
recently pleaded guilty to bringing human growth
hormone into Australia. One of Forza-T's two main
ingredients is 6-OXO, a legal testosterone-enhancer
created by Patrick Arnold, the man who invented the
stealth drug "THG," also known as "the clear." Arnold
did three months in prison for that effort. The other
ingredient Instone decided to purchase for its product
is ZMA, a popular and legal zinc-magnesium compound
created by BALCO founder Victor Conte. He did four
months for his part in the BALCO affair.
Arnold's company, ErgoPharm, is also marketing its own
6-OXO/ZMA product called "6-OXO Extreme." One ad
describes it as "maximum testosterone production FOR
HARDCORE USERS ONLY."
That should be ample warning to anyone worried about
failing a steroid test, but 6-OXO is a tricky product.
It is not considered a prohormone like DHEA, which
converts into testosterone in the body, and is legal
to buy over-the-counter. It was one of several
muscle-enhancing products hailed by bodybuilders in
2005 as a replacement for the recently banned
prohormones such as andro.
If you look on any sport's banned substances list, you
won't find 6-OXO, although it is classified as an
"aromatase inhibitor," a drug that blocks estrogen and
increases testosterone production. And aromatase
inhibitors as a group are barred by the World and U.S.
anti-doping agencies. USADA also considers it a
steroid.
So when U.S. hammer thrower Scott Boothby took it last
year, 6-OXO and one of its metabolites showed up in
his urine, and USADA suspended him for having failed a
steroid test. Normally, that would have meant a
two-year ban from competition, but he also tested
positive for Finasteride, a drug used by cheaters as a
masking agent, but which is also common in
anti-balding products. The combination of two failed
tests would have meant a lifetime ban, but because
USADA did not believe Boothby was trying to cheat, he
was given an eight-year ban instead.
Messages left at Boothby's home and with his attorney
were not returned.
Both 6-OXO and Conte's ZMA, which has made him
millions, are sold as their own labels, although other
companies buy the products wholesale and repackage
them as they see fit. The fact that Stallone's and
Arnold's companies decided to combine 6-OXO and ZMA is
coincidence, Conte says.
"Many companies combine ZMA with other ingredients to
differentiate themselves in the market place. It was
entirely ErgoPharm's idea to combine 6-OXO and ZMA in
their new 6-OXO Extreme product," Conte said in an
E-mail. "Do I think that the names of the two creators
of ZMA and 6-OXO might turn some heads? Probably."
