posted Fri, 04/20/2012 - 06:20
13608
Anavar and Birth control pill
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Right after years of training my partner is very fit and has a great physique and after lots of reading and discussion she is going to start an 8 week cycle of anavar at 10mg per day. Training and diet is nailed our question is she is on birth control and will stop it when she starts her cycle as she does not want the hormones "clashing" as it seems counter productive to be taking both. She does not want to come on her period so can she stop the bcp one day and then the day after start the anavar and pray she doesn't come on, we know anavar doesn't guarantee you to stop the period but it seems highly likely it will. Hope that makes sense!!
Cheers guys.
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She has decided after reading on many sites and articles, that her contraceptive pill will hinder her gains slightly, so at the moment has decided to come off birth control for the cycle, but she will carry on researching before she commits and starts. Cheers for the interesting read guys, seems there are a few differing opinions. And we appreciate the help.
I cannot site studies or provide articles to you but I can share my own experience as a competitor and say that I stopped my bc years ago because it was effecting my ability to drop weight. Since discontinuing my bc my ability to drop the weight and see more definition has improved. In fact most of the competitors I know do not take bc, now whether they are cycling anything I cannot answer...not something that is openly discussed...just my two cents...
AnonShe can take both the bcp and var there is no INTERACTION there.. If she stops taking her pill she may very well get pregnant.. it is quite likely her period will stop.
Im not sure what you mean by no interaction.
From a biochemistry point of view, synthetic estrogens raise SHBG quite signficantly, and so from that point of view will reduce the amount of bioavailable var, they also increase cortisol which promotes the breakdown of muscle. For women taking hormonal birth control there is a peer-reviewed link that shows LBM increase is significantly less for women taking combined estrogen/progesterone birth control. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090417084014.htm
Yes they dont interact in terms of a contraindication, but if you want the most out of a cycle, I would recommend dropping the b/c
Edit: The adrogenicity of the progestin will also play a role as well, if the progestin interacts strongly with the androgen receptor, it will not ellicit an increased protein synthesis response, whereas anabolic hormones will - so the progestins competing for receptors will also reduce the efficacy of the var
AnonYou've got some big IF's in there on your edit.. not to mention that is only one study ... show me some real studies on women who are body building, on bc, AND USING GEAR PLEASE.. with a number that is so small as to not be able to be applied to general population of wome and not only that without further studies they can't assign a causal relationship. Furthermore, the majority of the pros and women competing seem to gain quite a bit of muscle mass while remaining on birth control.
You wont see any studies with women using gear and birth control because it wont pass any ethics committee sadly.
I am just explaining the physiological effects of birth control on the body, and how it would reduce the effects of the anabolics. I'm not suggesting that exogenous estrogen/progestins will negate all the benefits of anabolics, just pointing out that it will reduce the efficacy of them. By how much? who knows. Maybe 10mg anavar with b/c would be equivalent to 8mg anavar without, it is likely only a small percentage. It is unlikely any scientific study will be done because of ethics. In this game, everyone is striving for the edge, the extra 2% benefit.
Interestingly birth control administration may have the benefit of reducing some of the virilising effects, but I have not read much about this. Some women use birth control for medical reasons, and stopping would not be ideal. I wasnt trying to attack your post, Im sorry if it came off that way, I was just wanting to share my knowledge on this subject.
The progestin interactions with androgen receptors is real, and some (drosperinone in Yaz) are actually anti-adrogenic further reducing the ability to grow muscle. Im not at work today so I don't have my journal subscriptions handy, but this website has a listing of androgenicity of common progestins.
http://www.wdxcyber.com/ncontr13.htm
AnonI understand you were sharing knowledge and I am not knocking you for it.. I guess my point was that the particular study was small and not able to show a causal relationship.. Anyway, the real truth is that the only real data we have to go on is the experiements we end up doing on ourselves.. I don't think bc significantly decreases the affects of AAS so much so that going off isn't advisable. Given that the women who are building real significant amounts of muslce continue to utilize their bc I would have to say that staying on or going off isn't going to make that much of a difference....
I would certainly be interested in some of your journal articles if you are willing/able to share.
I had a gf a year ago and I got her right into weight training, so spent a lot of time researching the effects of b/c on hormonal markers. Every drug trial for b/c includes measures of SHBG, Free T/Total T, DHEAS, and other relevent anabolic markers. I have a few of them saved on my work PC.
The main negative effects of the b/c are the increase in SHBG (which will bind free androgens/anavar) and stop them interracting with the receptors. The increase in cortisol (most anabolics reduce cortisol so it probably cancels out the effect) and in the case of progestins, competitive binding to the androgen receptors. I think women who are using a lot of gear (big cycles, var, primo combined, etc) have so much anabolic hormone cycling around that it makes the slight increase of SHBG negligible, and the competitive binding of the progestins almost nonexistant.
For women taking no anabolics, b/c is a huge impedement to muscle growth, their already low free test/dhea levels are reduced further (by about 50% from memory), and what little T is present is inhibited by progestin binding at the androgen receptor. My personal experience with my ex on Yaz (the anti-androgen b/c) was her strength actually dropped in the two months she was on it, despite no change in diet/training, that was what prompted the research in the first place.
There is no doubt that anabolics will work with b/c, I would guess that light cycles (e.g. 5mg var/day) would be effected by b/c much more than stronger cycles with multiple anabolics. But a girl who is training on b/c in the first place will love having more anabolic hormones, as they are used to being at levels lower than usual. None of this is in any papers or textbooks to my knowledge, its just my own inferences from my readings over the years. Its become a hobby of sorts for me.