Using ALA to go into hypolgycemia post workout to stim. GH release???

[Frackal]

In sk*'s insulin thread nandi mentioned he uses insulin post workout to go into hypo to stimulate a pulse of growth hormone. Now of course this wouldnt work as WELL as using insulin but it would be safer....Would taking a large dose of ALA post workout, letting yourself go into hypo and then waiting a bit to consume your shake stimulate a similiar GH pulse? Also would r-ala be better because it doesnt increase plasma insulin or would reg ALA be better because it DOES increase PI?

 

[Frackal]

come on people, this is interesting! Huck, fonz, macro? Nandi??

 

[Fonz]

In sk*'s insulin thread nandi mentioned he uses insulin post workout to go into hypo to stimulate a pulse of growth hormone. Now of course this wouldnt work as WELL as using insulin but it would be safer....Would taking a large dose of ALA post workout, letting yourself go into hypo and then waiting a bit to consume your shake stimulate a similiar GH pulse? Also would r-ala be better because it doesnt increase plasma insulin or would reg ALA be better because it DOES increase PI?

No offense to Nandi but thats insane........

I've tried 6000mgs normal ALA at once when doing CKD's, but it took roughly 12hrs to get below 60mg/dl.

Below 60mg/dl is considered a ketogenic state and GH would
go up.

Fonz

 

[argent]

I'd like to hear the answer as well.

 

[nandi12]

Insulin is quicker and can induce as much hypoglycemia as you want, but if safety is a concern (as it should be) and you can induce hypoglycemia with ALA, there might be an advantage to the latter.

It is paradoxical that while insulin induced hypoglycemia has been shown conclusively to elevate GH, insulin itself suppresses GH. I think I cited this study in the other thread:

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/82/7/2239

Insulin blunts the GH that is normally released from the pituitary in response to the GHRH (Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone) signal from the hypothalamus. There is a lot of evidence on the other hand that GH released in response to hypoglycemia is not controlled by GHRH, but rather by one of the other peptide hormones that modulate GH , like leptin, ghrelin, or galanin. Ghrelin, which has been in the news a lot lately in the context of weight control, is a likely candidate.

So insulin suppresses GHRH induced GH release, and the resulting hypoglycemia stimulates ghrelin induced GH release. One can't help but wonder whether hypoglycemia induced by something other than insulin (ALA for example) would give an even bigger spike than with insulin because there is no inhibitory effect. This is just speculation on my part.