Description
Ursodeoxycholic acid
By far the most effective liver support compound available, TUDCA and UDCA are compounds that serve to speed up the metabolic transition of toxic bile acids to less toxic bile acids, and they also serve to increase the manufacture of non-toxic bile acids from cholesterol.[5] The result is a decrease in the toxicity of the bile pool. Remember when I mentioned above that liver toxicity from oral anabolic steroids (in the really bad stages) results in bile building up in the hepatocytes (liver cells) until they rupture and bile spills out onto other cells killing them? Well, the bile being spilled out consists of mostly toxic bile salts. TUDCA and UDCA are beneficial non-toxic bile salts that will essentially balance out the toxicity of the bile pool and serve to neutralize the toxicity making it less toxic to the surrounding resident liver cells. TUDCA and UDCA have also shown to increase amounts of the bile salt export pump (a transporter protein) in the liver cells, thus increasing the flow of bile as a result.[6] What this means is that they will facilitate the flow of bile in the liver so that the bile pool will not remain stagnant damage the surrounding liver cells. A good analogy to explain this is using the ‘hot potato’ analogy where a group of people in a circle are throwing a hot potato around from person to person fairly quickly. As long as the hot potato is passed around at a constant pace, no single person’s hand will get burned, but if the hot potato is to remain in one person’s hand for too long, they will end up doing damage to their hands by being burned (which is much like a stagnant bile pool in the liver damaging the surrounding cells). These compounds have also demonstrated to serve as antiapoptotics in liver cells, which means they effectively block the transcription factor known as AP-1, which is activated during cholestasis due to various toxic bile salts that will activate death receptors on liver cells.[7]
TUDCA and UDCA are by far the best quintessential treatments for both the prevention of cholestasis, as well as the recovery from it. They are, quite literally, the compounds specific to the treatment and mitigation of oral C17-alpha alkylated anabolic steroid liver toxicity – this cannot be said of any other liver support supplement/compound. In addition to treating cholestasis very effectively, it has demonstrated in studies to also reduce the risk of hepatitis B, where they had significantly decreased the risk of having abnormal serum alanine aminotransferase activity at the end of treatment compared to the beginning.[8] Other studies have also shown that UDCA and TUDCA are beneficial in the treatment necroinflammatory liver disease, such as (and especially for) hepatitis C-related chronic hepatitis in which bile duct damage and some degree of cholestasis are frequently seen at histology, and the study had observed that TUDCA had significantly improved the biochemical expression of chronic hepatitis.[9] In general, TUDCA seems to prevent hepatic cell death.[10]
Dosing of TUDCA and UDCA: 500-1000mg daily for the maintenance of healthy liver function during the use of a C17aa oral during a cycle. 1,000mg or higher daily for the purpose of repairing the liver following heavy hepatotoxicity and hepatocyte damage from cholestasis (and/or for individuals with serious liver disorders).
IMPORTANT: Do not exceed 8 weeks of TUDCA/UDCA use, as it can increase negative cholesterol values and decrease HDL. It is recommended to use these bile salts only during a cycle of oral C17aa anabolic steroids, or for the purpose of liver repair following periods of significant hepatotoxicity from the use of these compounds. Other compounds should be sought after for general year-round liver support.
