The Anti-Catabolic and Anabolic Hormonal Profile of Eggs

tankasnowgod

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I recently came across a video series from "Golden Era Bookworm," who looks more in depth to the recommendations of the Golden Era Bodybuilders, especially names like Steve Reeves and Vince Gironda.

Gironda has been mentioned on this forum a few times, and one of his more controversial statements was that "Eating 36 Eggs a Day is equivalent to taking Dianabol." Obviously, eating that many would be a huge dose of cholesterol (about 7 grams a day), but this video does a dive into the hormones that you might also get-



He get's the values from this study-


Note it's from 2013, so the values are likely to still be relevant today, even with the current state of food production.

Here is a screenshot of his table for eating 36 eggs a day, and calculations-

Egg Andro.png


So, in a week of eating 36 eggs every day, Gironda or other bodybuilders would get about 50 mg of Testosterone, and 15 mg DHT. That's about endogenous levels of these hormones for a young man, maybe slightly higher. But check out progesterone.......... 1 week would be 3.5 GRAMS of P4! Huge! That would be massively anti-catabolic and anti-estrogen. It also fit's in line with what @haidut talked about using Progesterone with DHEA..... This would be a big dose of progesterone, balanced out with (comparatively little) doses of Test and DHT. It might also make the Androstenedione more likely to go down the Test or DHEA route, rather than Estrogen.

This is apparently a similar amount of eggs that helped treat severe burn patients and keep them in positive nitrogen balance- 35 Eggs per day in the treatment of severe burns

Obviously, eating 36 eggs a day is massive, and unrealistic for average people, even many bodybuilders. But even 36 eggs a week would give someone 540mg of P4, which is about 5 eggs a day. Still high, but fairly easy to hit.

There is the question if these hormones get absorbed, but it seems pretty likely based on some other studies that Haidut has posted.


This might be part of the reason the Seyle study found Egg Yolks themselves to be "catatoxic."

And, as Golden Era Bookworm points out, and steroids absorbed would be on top of the other muscle building properties of eggs, including cholesterol, AA profile, vitamins and minerals and such.
 

Nebula

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I recently came across a video series from "Golden Era Bookworm," who looks more in depth to the recommendations of the Golden Era Bodybuilders, especially names like Steve Reeves and Vince Gironda.

Gironda has been mentioned on this forum a few times, and one of his more controversial statements was that "Eating 36 Eggs a Day is equivalent to taking Dianabol." Obviously, eating that many would be a huge dose of cholesterol (about 7 grams a day), but this video does a dive into the hormones that you might also get-



He get's the values from this study-


Note it's from 2013, so the values are likely to still be relevant today, even with the current state of food production.

Here is a screenshot of his table for eating 36 eggs a day, and calculations-

View attachment 22314

So, in a week of eating 36 eggs every day, Gironda or other bodybuilders would get about 50 mg of Testosterone, and 15 mg DHT. That's about endogenous levels of these hormones for a young man, maybe slightly higher. But check out progesterone.......... 1 week would be 3.5 GRAMS of P4! Huge! That would be massively anti-catabolic and anti-estrogen. It also fit's in line with what @haidut talked about using Progesterone with DHEA..... This would be a big dose of progesterone, balanced out with (comparatively little) doses of Test and DHT. It might also make the Androstenedione more likely to go down the Test or DHEA route, rather than Estrogen.

This is apparently a similar amount of eggs that helped treat severe burn patients and keep them in positive nitrogen balance- 35 Eggs per day in the treatment of severe burns

Obviously, eating 36 eggs a day is massive, and unrealistic for average people, even many bodybuilders. But even 36 eggs a week would give someone 540mg of P4, which is about 5 eggs a day. Still high, but fairly easy to hit.

There is the question if these hormones get absorbed, but it seems pretty likely based on some other studies that Haidut has posted.


This might be part of the reason the Seyle study found Egg Yolks themselves to be "catatoxic."

And, as Golden Era Bookworm points out, and steroids absorbed would be on top of the other muscle building properties of eggs, including cholesterol, AA profile, vitamins and minerals and such.

Great find. I wonder if emulsifying hormones like T/DHT/progesterone along with T3 into raw egg yolks would make them more bioavailable orally too. It would be very interesting to see how that compares to other forms of hormone administration. It would be crazy if it’s comparable to daily injections. That would make TRT much more convenient and probably safer.
 
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hei

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Vince Gironda talked about "fertilised eggs" and likewise in the study the eggs must be fertilised because they are referring to male and female eggs. I wonder if that makes a difference to what the chicken puts into the egg.
Also that's like 28g of PUFA every day.
 

Mauritio

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I recently came across a video series from "Golden Era Bookworm," who looks more in depth to the recommendations of the Golden Era Bodybuilders, especially names like Steve Reeves and Vince Gironda.

Gironda has been mentioned on this forum a few times, and one of his more controversial statements was that "Eating 36 Eggs a Day is equivalent to taking Dianabol." Obviously, eating that many would be a huge dose of cholesterol (about 7 grams a day), but this video does a dive into the hormones that you might also get-



He get's the values from this study-


Note it's from 2013, so the values are likely to still be relevant today, even with the current state of food production.

Here is a screenshot of his table for eating 36 eggs a day, and calculations-

View attachment 22314

So, in a week of eating 36 eggs every day, Gironda or other bodybuilders would get about 50 mg of Testosterone, and 15 mg DHT. That's about endogenous levels of these hormones for a young man, maybe slightly higher. But check out progesterone.......... 1 week would be 3.5 GRAMS of P4! Huge! That would be massively anti-catabolic and anti-estrogen. It also fit's in line with what @haidut talked about using Progesterone with DHEA..... This would be a big dose of progesterone, balanced out with (comparatively little) doses of Test and DHT. It might also make the Androstenedione more likely to go down the Test or DHEA route, rather than Estrogen.

This is apparently a similar amount of eggs that helped treat severe burn patients and keep them in positive nitrogen balance- 35 Eggs per day in the treatment of severe burns

Obviously, eating 36 eggs a day is massive, and unrealistic for average people, even many bodybuilders. But even 36 eggs a week would give someone 540mg of P4, which is about 5 eggs a day. Still high, but fairly easy to hit.

There is the question if these hormones get absorbed, but it seems pretty likely based on some other studies that Haidut has posted.


This might be part of the reason the Seyle study found Egg Yolks themselves to be "catatoxic."

And, as Golden Era Bookworm points out, and steroids absorbed would be on top of the other muscle building properties of eggs, including cholesterol, AA profile, vitamins and minerals and such.

Firstly thanks for sharing !

2 eggs per day would still come down to 30mg of progesterone. That's still a big dose . At that dosage most males would get some sort of side effects like worse erections,puffiness. I never get those effects from eggs but I do from progesterone in much smaller doses, which doesn't make sense .
So either it doesnt get absorbed or it doesnt contain that much progesterone .
 
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tankasnowgod

tankasnowgod

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Vince Gironda talked about "fertilised eggs" and likewise in the study the eggs must be fertilised because they are referring to male and female eggs. I wonder if that makes a difference to what the chicken puts into the egg.
Also that's like 28g of PUFA every day.

"Fertilized" basically means that the chickens have access to a rooster, and you can even buy them in the store. The hormone profile of both male and female eggs were pretty similar, so it doesn't seem to. Although it's quite possible the quality of eggs goes up when there is a rooster around.

Yes, if using modern eggs, 36 eggs would get you in the 20s in PUFA. It's likely the PUFA content was lower in Gironda's day, as it depends on chicken feed quality. Still, there may be benefits to eating 5-10 eggs a day, despite the PUFA. It would still be far lower than average diets, and if offset with Stearic Acid and other SFAs (butter, coconut oil, HCO), it might still be worth considering.

I agree that the PUFA content is probably the biggest concern when eating eggs.
 
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tankasnowgod

tankasnowgod

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2 eggs per day would still come down to 30mg of progesterone. That's still a big dose . At that dosage most males would get some sort of side effects like worse erections,puffiness. I never get those effects from eggs but I do from progesterone in much smaller doses, which doesn't make sense .

Maybe those effects from P4 are offset by the T, DHT, and Androstenedione, and the 400mg of cholesterol.
 

Mauritio

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Maybe those effects from P4 are offset by the T, DHT, and Androstenedione, and the 400mg of cholesterol.
Maybe . On the other hand the DHT would exacerbate the erection problems from progesterone for me,which doenst happen when I eat eggs.
2 eggs would still come down to more than 0.1 mg which is amount I've tried before (diluted 11ketodht to 0.1mg per drop) and I dont get any of the pheromone, confidence- effects etc that I get from real DHT from the eggs...
 

OccamzRazer

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Great stuff! Last year I was eating about a dozen eggs a day until I realized how much linoleic acid that added up to.

It would be interesting to test fat stores before and after a period of eating eggs fried in coconut oil, in order to see if all that PUFA could be displaced fast enough...

Anyways, those old-school bodybuilders did a lot of stuff right. They took desiccated liver too. You guys might like this article: Splendid Specimens: The History of Nutrition in Bodybuilding - The Weston A. Price Foundation
 

Nighteyes

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Great stuff! Last year I was eating about a dozen eggs a day until I realized how much linoleic acid that added up to.

It would be interesting to test fat stores before and after a period of eating eggs fried in coconut oil, in order to see if all that PUFA could be displaced fast enough...

Anyways, those old-school bodybuilders did a lot of stuff right. They took desiccated liver too. You guys might like this article: Splendid Specimens: The History of Nutrition in Bodybuilding - The Weston A. Price Foundation
I think a lot of it has to do with the ample amounts of calories these guys were/are getting. I mean they make sure their bodies have the necesarry building blocks at all times which benefit them in more areas than just their training. I Think it is very easy to undereat when getting too focused on what is correct to eat and thereby making oneself even more sensitive to everything you eat because the body does not have the necesarry energy to digest and renew cells etc. Healing takes place when enough energy is supplied in my experience. This is not to say time-restricted cannot be useful, especially with regards to circadian reset and the like but chronic undereating is such a big risk when one focuses on eating the perfect diet. It does not exist
 

OccamzRazer

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I think a lot of it has to do with the ample amounts of calories these guys were/are getting. I mean they make sure their bodies have the necesarry building blocks at all times which benefit them in more areas than just their training. I Think it is very easy to undereat when getting too focused on what is correct to eat and thereby making oneself even more sensitive to everything you eat because the body does not have the necesarry energy to digest and renew cells etc. Healing takes place when enough energy is supplied in my experience. This is not to say time-restricted cannot be useful, especially with regards to circadian reset and the like but chronic undereating is such a big risk when one focuses on eating the perfect diet. It does not exist
Totally agree! This has been my experience too, which is why I now eat 4-5000 calories a day, every day. Over time your body just gets used to it. Seems that many people do not give themselves enough time for thyroid hormones to ramp up, and thus never experience full healing.

On another note, pursuing a 'perfect' diet was surely easier back then...
 

CreakyJoints

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Does anyone have appropriate literature I could see on how those hormones degrade in contact with heat? I presume to get the same values one would have to exclusively eat them raw.

That's an awful lot - prohibitively expensive for some, I would imagine. I'm basing these prices on free-range eggs available where I live, but it would be something like £15 a day, £105 a week, or £5,475 annually. I presume the hormonal profile would be, to some extent, affected by the diet and living conditions of the chickens? Especially if just the weight of the chicken can affect the estradiol in the yolk.
 
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tankasnowgod

tankasnowgod

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Does anyone have appropriate literature I could see on how those hormones degrade in contact with heat? I presume to get the same values one would have to exclusively eat them raw.

That's an awful lot - prohibitively expensive for some, I would imagine. I'm basing these prices on free-range eggs available where I live, but it would be something like £15 a day, £105 a week, or £5,475 annually. I presume the hormonal profile would be, to some extent, affected by the diet and living conditions of the chickens? Especially if just the weight of the chicken can affect the estradiol in the yolk.

If you look at Gironda's protocol, even he wasn't doing this forever. It was basically an 8 week program, where he ramped egg consumption up, and then back down. So, similar to a steroid cycle.
 

CreakyJoints

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If you look at Gironda's protocol, even he wasn't doing this forever. It was basically an 8 week program, where he ramped egg consumption up, and then back down. So, similar to a steroid cycle.

Oh right. I apologise, I read the abstract for the study, but did not pay as much attention to the video - I'll go back through it.
 

YourUniverse

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This is awesome.

Over cooking the yolk is thought to destroy the choline, so keeping them runny is thought to be healthier. Would over cooking destroy these hormones?
 

baccheion

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Wasn't there a miscalculation? The units were off IIRC.

Adding egg shell calcium to maintain calcium:magnesium ratio from yolks and electrolyte water to mimic egg whites (if allergic) would likely make eggs sustainable. I keep thinking they (with calcium) are the best way to go through growth years. The true modern marvel (ready/bulk availability), if all the details of sourcing and avoiding salmonella could be sorted out.
 

OccamzRazer

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What do you eat to reach that many calories? I always seem to get quite a bit of inflammation when I try to eat that much.
Coconut oil (in coffee)
Fatty bone broth
2 pounds beef
Ice cream w/ homemade magic shell (mostly just coconut oil)
Carrots/shrooms fried in suet
Occasional dark chocolate
Occasional eggs
Occasional liver/oysters/other organs

Keep in mind I built up from ~2,500 calories to 4,000+ over the course of a few years.

What do you mean by inflammation, in this case?
 
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tankasnowgod

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Wasn't there a miscalculation? The units were off IIRC.

Ah, you are correct. Just saw he had an updated video-



Micrograms instead of milligrams. Welp, that would take things down quite a bit. P4 would be the only one to get into the milligram dosages for the week, at 3.5 mg. Wish I could go back and edit the original post.

That would again make cholesterol the likely source of any gains, by converting to downstream steroids.
 
B

Blaze

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I recently came across a video series from "Golden Era Bookworm," who looks more in depth to the recommendations of the Golden Era Bodybuilders, especially names like Steve Reeves and Vince Gironda.

Gironda has been mentioned on this forum a few times, and one of his more controversial statements was that "Eating 36 Eggs a Day is equivalent to taking Dianabol." Obviously, eating that many would be a huge dose of cholesterol (about 7 grams a day), but this video does a dive into the hormones that you might also get-



Note it's from 2013, so the values are likely to still be relevant today, even with the current state of food production.

Here is a screenshot of his table for eating 36 eggs a day, and calculations-

View attachment 22314

So, in a week of eating 36 eggs every day, Gironda or other bodybuilders would get about 50 mg of Testosterone, and 15 mg DHT. That's about endogenous levels of these hormones for a young man, maybe slightly higher. But check out progesterone.......... 1 week would be 3.5 GRAMS of P4! Huge! That would be massively anti-catabolic and anti-estrogen. It also fit's in line with what @haidut talked about using Progesterone with DHEA..... This would be a big dose of progesterone, balanced out with (comparatively little) doses of Test and DHT. It might also make the Androstenedione more likely to go down the Test or DHEA route, rather than Estrogen.

This is apparently a similar amount of eggs that helped treat severe burn patients and keep them in positive nitrogen balance- 35 Eggs per day in the treatment of severe burns

Obviously, eating 36 eggs a day is massive, and unrealistic for average people, even many bodybuilders. But even 36 eggs a week would give someone 540mg of P4, which is about 5 eggs a day. Still high, but fairly easy to hit.

This might be part of the reason the Seyle study found Egg Yolks themselves to be "catatoxic."

And, as Golden Era Bookworm points out, and steroids absorbed would be on top of the other muscle building properties of eggs, including cholesterol, AA profile, vitamins and minerals and such.

Thanks for putting this info up here. A very interesting post. Appreciate it.
 

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