Is it true he used Nolvadex every day for about a year?
Found the reference, it's in "Body Opus". I'm going to post the long version -
Over 14 years ago, I postulated that one anti-estrogen, Nolvadex, might help prevent breast cancer. I was also alarmed (back in 1982) by the amount of estrogenic substances in common foods, like wheat germ oil. Now mainstream science has caught up to me; there are clinical trials using Nolvadex in women at a high risk for breast cancer. A recent study finally conceded that estrogenic compounds in common foods affect metabolism adversely in both men and women. Back in 1980, all of the doctors thought I was completely nuts to worry about estrogen in seemingly healthy male and female bodybuilders.
I believe that I was the first person to use anti-estrogens on bodybuilders, first with women and later with men. Back in 1981, I noticed that female bodybuilders were not successful at stripping away lower body fat. Now; we have a pretty good idea why women have trouble losing lower body fat, which you learned about in the last few chapters. Back then, I was still groping for an answer. I saw that it was women who had the lower fat problem, not men. I reasoned that it must be estrogen that caused the problem. Even today, many physicians hold this assumption.
I was able to persuade my female training partner to try Nolvadex, but I had a damned hard time trying to convince a physician to write a prescription for it. Back then, Nolvadex was only used on late-stage breast cancer tumors. The MDs had no idea what I was gibbering about. I persevered, and finally got a prescription through the shabbiest of methods, involving a gonzo male bodybuilder, a lonely doctor, and the ruse: "Doc! I gotta have cancer either in my testicles or my prostate and you gotta check it out ... " Need I elaborate?
Nolvadex was a good news/bad news kind of thing. When taking 40 mg of Nolvadex per day, we saw discernible overall fat loss, tightening of the physique and a small reduction in lower body fat. The bad news: it did not make a dramatic difference in the lower body It was, in my mind, a disappointment. Over the next few years women tried larger dosages (up to 60 mg a day) along with other anti-estrogens like Proviron. Although the anti-estrogens did make a difference in overall fat loss, the lower body fat problem did not get solved. Male bodybuilders started using Nolvadex and Proviron to combat the aromatization (estrogen conversion) of high dosages of anabolic steroids. Higher estrogen in males was claimed to promote gynecomastia, the creation of small benign tumors in the breast area, which is partially true. Estrogen was also being blamed for increased water retention and fat accumulation, which is also partially true. Men blamed estrogen completely because male bodybuilders are unusually sensitive about having any female hormones at all.
After 12 years, Nolvadex is still being used by both male and female bodybuilders. It must be working; bodybuilders will quickly abandon a drug if there is no bang for the buck. I've dieted with and without Nolvadex, and I lost fat faster with Nolvadex. Anti-estrogens are currently a matter of economics. You have encountered many more potent dieting drugs in this book. Clenbuterol and yohimbe are more cost-effective, too. However, anti-estrogens can be of value in some capacity: Let's discuss the popular ones in use in bodybuilding.
NOLVADEX (TAMOXIFEN CITRATE)
Both women and men use 20 to 40 mg per day while dieting. While Nolvadex is a prescription drug in America, it is over -the-counter in Mexico. Nolvadex works in both sexes, even if you aren't using anabolic steroids. It has a perceptible but not dramatic effect on fat loss. Some women have reported gains in strength and muscle preservation. Nolvadex works by binding the estrogen receptor so that the estrogen in the blood has no place to roost.
To a layperson, Nolvadex's effects are subtle, but many dieters swear by it; it has a cultish quality about it. High dosages {over 40 mg) haven't proven to work visibly better. Most female bodybuilders use it infrequently, so it doesn't cause any noticet'able bone density loss. But really, how could we tell? Although Nolvadex has been almost a dieting tradition in bodybuilding, I hope that Nolvadex use in women will decline now that yohimbe is recognized as a better way to reduce lower body fat. Women at very low body fat levels (under 10 percent)
Usually have a problem with maintaining facial fat, the old suck-face problem. Nolvadex exacerbates this effect. Besides, at very low body fat levels, women produce very little estrogen anyway Women who have a problem with excessive gauntness in the face would look better without Nolvadex. Women who have high body fat levels will find Nolvadex to be worthwhile.
I know it "works," and so do thousands of bodybuilders. But don't try to explain it to your doctor unless you enjoy the MD dangerous-ineffective-crazy song and dance. I've also found Nolvadex to be useful in women with systemic lupus. Is there any research on this? No, but my personal experience shows it to be true. Middle-aged men who have higher than normal estrogen from too much body fat or too little testosterone have found Nolvadex to be a good adjunct to Proscar (the prostate drug). Nolvadex may also help counteract the recent rise in environmental estrogens. Perhaps in another 12 years or so, mainstream doctors will get the message.
That Nolvadex does have a noticeable effect on dieting is a given in the bodybuilding world. Beyond the obvious effect, there's a lot of mystery about this drug. Bodybuilders have been using Nolvadex for 12 years, but nobody has adequately explained why it "works," myself included. Some postulate that it works by reducing the amount of thyroid-binding albumin associated with high estrogen levels. Nolvadex is also anti-catabolic, which is most noticeable in women who are not using steroids.
The nagging mystery in my mind is the relationship between estrogen and high amounts of A2 adrenoreceptors in lower body fat. It's given that women have more A2 receptors. The question in my mind is: when did this adrenoreceptor ratio start? Is it genetic, set before birth? Or does it start in puberty? Pre-adolescent girls have a fat distribution similar to boys the same age. Women who have Cushing's Syndrome (excess cortisol), have a curious migration of body fat from the lower body to the upper body. To make it more interesting, fat cells have almost no estrogen receptors, although they can convert androgens to estrogens. I don't yet have answers to these questions. All I can say is: I took 10 mg daily of Nolvadex for close to 2 years straight. I was significantly leaner, especially in the lower body. When I didn't use Nolvadex, I was fatter. Nolvadex didn't do a Svengali transformation, but good things happened.
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Poster's note - The book was from 1995/1996, so just a few years before he died. The bodybuilder and doctor were supposedly Grymkowski and Jekot, after Kerr turned them down. Duchaine named them by accident in a MM2K article. He didn't say anything too gay happened, so more a ruse than G4P.
Bruce Kneller and Michael Mooney were the proofreaders on the book.
