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Tocotrienols — Testosterone Booster

I just ordered this:
Toco-8.
Tocotrienols Testosterone Booster

As I mentioned in an earlier post, in addition to all the great things it does for our arteries and hair, it also reportedly boosts testosterone. I decided to plunk down the $29 bucks to give this a try. I should have it in a few days. It’s a powder and I heard it tastes delicious.
Admittedly, I should have done a little more research into exactly how it might work for testosterone production and I wanted to look at the studies a little more closely as well. Pub Med didn’t turn up anything obvious, so I’m a little skeptical. Stay posted and please comment with your thoughts and experiences!

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Tocotrienols–Better Hair Stronger Arteries!

There’s a new buzz around Vitamin E.  For many years there seemed to be positive health benefits for Vitamin E such as improved circulation, lower cholesterol, strong antioxidant, male virility and anti-imflammatory. However, the research just didn’t quite prove it. Over time we learned that there wasn’t just Vitamin E, there were different types of Vitamin E like Gamma, Delta, etc.   A Greek alphabet’s worth of granularity! Well, it gets worse! Now we have tocotrienols.

The good news is, these tocotrienols promise to finally vindicate Vitamin E!
Did you know that tocotrienols might grow hair on bald heads?
Check this out!
Vitamin E grows hair.
I believe Tocotrienols increase Nitric Oxide which accounts for the hair growth and the positive effect on our arteries. It may even really boost Testosterone!
Click here to read about tocotrienols and LH for Virility.
So what are you waiting for? Get this now!

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GPLC — The Next Hottest Supplement

Ok, I call this one first.  GPLC or glycine propionyl l-carnitine will be the next hottest supplement.  However, be prepared to pay some money for this one.  Apparently, Sigma-tau, the company that produces this has an exclusive global patent.  That means prices for the supplement are pretty consistent and it’s hard to find bargains on the net. If anyone can find a bulk powder cheap, please let me know.

Now why is this one good?  Rumor has it that it is the only supplement that actually has a good scientific study proving it raises nitric oxide levels.  Read my nitric oxide blog entry to learn why this is important.

There are a whole bunch of products coming out for bodybuilders and those with heart disease and other nitric oxide deficient conditions (diabetes, ED, PAD, hairloss.).  Check out http://www.glycocarn.com/

and check it frequently for new products.

Read this when you have some time: http://www.glycocarn.com/whitepapers/pat-jacobs-whitepaper.pdf

I’m slightly skeptical because of the strong marketing effort, but I’ll certainly be testing this one out. I can say after only 1 week, I feel GREAT on this. I’m going to skip weekends so I don’t build up a tolerance.

Let me know what you think about this one.

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Gray Hair Experiment

One of my all time favorite tonics is something called ‘shou wu chih‘ and it’s found in any chinese herbal shop or asian grocery. It looks like this:

The main ingredient in Shou Wu Chih is an herb called polygonum multiflorum. There’s a raw version of this herb that is sold in many herbal tablets for hair loss and graying.. However, traditionally, the raw herb is specially prepared by boiling it in a broth made primarily of black soy beans and then carefully dried. Many people don’t know this, but if you’re interested in this herb for it’s reported hair benefits, you want the prepared herb, not the raw version.
This herb is also called FoTi and He Shou Wu. You’ll probably encounter just as many spellings and pronunciations as you can imagine. You’ll also find countless variations of the legend that states a person who was gray haired and really old, ate this herb and became young again with dark black hair. I’m told in chinese, he shou wu means something like ‘mr. he black hair’.
Many people familiar with Chinese Medicine take this tonic everyday in hopes it will either darken their hair or keep it from turning gray. There is another benefit–this is also a very good overall tonic that is supposed to benefit the ‘Jing‘ if you are depleting your energy from stress or other activities (read my post on Jing-Chi-Shen).  It’s purported to be a reliable youth tonic and powerful libido enhancer.  I really like the taste of this one.  There are two versions–one made with alcohol (it’s labeled ‘cooking wine’ in some stores) and one made with water.

I could go into all the other ingredients, but you could google it. There’s a wealth of information on it.

The Experiment

So, I’m not happy that I sprouted some gray hair on my temples and scattered throughout what used to be very black hair.  I’m going to take this everyday and report on results after a few months.  If I see some gray hair with dark roots coming in, I will claim this a success.

I’m thinking about picking this up as well:

Shou Wu Extract
Shou Wu Extract

Shou Wu Pian is a concentrated version of the single herb in a small black pill.  It’s supposed to be taken for a long period of time to see results.  I think I may add this to the regimen.

The products are in my amazon store on this page.  Your best bet if you live near a metropolitan area or asian community is to buy it yourself.  These products are inexpensive.  Try my links or search the web for a better deal.  In the future, I may setup a store.  Let’s see…

 

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Alopecia Areata Cured!

Although it’s not a life threatening condition, Alopecia Areata (patchy baldness) can cause sufferers much anguish and distress. I first noticed a golf ball size bald patch on the back of my otherwise thick hair when I was about 17. The doctor said it was stress related and gave me some cortisone shots in the area. A couple months later, the hair grew back in quickly.

I wish that was the end of the story. In retrospect, I was lucky. Many people with alopecia areata lose all their hair all over their body. I just had one bald spot and it grew back.  A year or two later, I got another spot and then a couple other smaller ones.  Back to the dermatologist for shots.  However, this time the hair started to take some time to grow back.  In my twenties, I got new bald spots in different areas just about every year.  I had odd thin patches that came and went as well.  Sometimes the spots would not fill back in after the cortisone shots.  My last dermatologist wanted to take a biopsy but I refused.  I had every blood test imaginable taken.

Everytime I went to a new barber, he/she would remark that the last barber butchered my hair.  “No, ” I would sigh, “that’s how it grows.”  I started to go to one barber who specialized in cutting the thicker areas shorter than the others.

I also suffered from canker sores pretty regularly.  I was heavily involved in martial arts and whenever I recieved a cut inside my mouth, I’d get a painful canker for about 10 days.

When I had my last bout about 4 years ago, I broke down and bought a product to hide the spots.  It was a black powder that worked pretty well except it would rub off on anything I happen to brush my head against, like a head rest or pillow.  However, this product, Dermatch from Dermatch Inc. was a life saver.

Believe me when I tried almost everything — i tried chili peppers, topical steroid gels–I can’t even remember everything, but if it’s out there, I’m sure I tried it.

But something did work — for me.  I completely cut gluten out of my diet.  Yes..no bread, no pasta, no Pizza!  It’s one of the hardest things I had to do, but it seems to be working.  4 years and not one bald spot.  All the thin spots filled in (which never happened for over 20 years).  My better half says my hair is like a ‘carpet’.

And guess what?  I never get canker sores either.

There is one more thing I added, which I feel is related.  I started taking a Fish Oil supplement morning and evening religiously exactly when I stopped the gluten.

This is the one I take:

I know this is not scientific, since I did both things at the same time.  But I’m not willing to test stopping the fish oil to know for sure.  In my mind, if you suffer from this problem, try the gluten-free diet and the fish oil together.  An added benefit is that the fish oil helped improve my lipid profile immensely.  I’ll go over that detail in a future post.

Let me know what you think.