(Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1) IGF-1 Introduction, History, and Overview IGF-1, also known as Somatomedin C, has fast become a very popular and widely talked-about compound within the mid-2000s up to the current year of 2017. It has been rumored that the first official use of IGF-1 as a performance enhancing drug was in the early 1990s by then-Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates, which at the time was considered an extremely rare and expensive drug to obtain, after which its use quickly spread among other professional bodybuilders. IGF-1 is not an anabolic steroid, but is rather a protein hormone (also known as a polypeptide – or simply a peptide – hormone) that is extremely similar in structure to the hormone insulin – another peptide/protein hormone. IGF-1 is endogenously, naturally manufactured and synthesized by the human body primarily in the liver. The production of IGF-1 by the liver is stimulated and triggered by Human Growth Hormone (HGH). Essentially, HGH is a prohormone for IGF-1, and the majority of HGH’s anabolic effects are actually the result of the downstream production of IGF-1. Although IGF-1 is very similar to insulin (hence the name Insulin-like Growth Factor 1), its role is slightly different. Like insulin, IGF-1 is a nutrient shuttling hormone that facilitates the shuttling of nutrients (such as amino acids as well as glucose) into muscle cells. The cells themselves can then utilize those nutrients in order to synthesize new muscle tissue. IGF-1 is also anabolic in bone, connective, and intestinal tissues. This differs from insulin, which is a nutrient shuttling hormone in a broader sense of the word in that insulin shuttles nutrients not only to muscle tissue, but many other tissues throughout the body. In other words, insulin is not as selective of a shuttling hormone as IGF-1 is. Additionally, IGF-1 plays a very unique and very specific number of roles in the human body, and its role changes throughout human developmental phases. For example, it is responsible for various important factors involved in growth during childhood, and also expresses anabolic effects in adults. Medically, its use is primarily for the treatment of growth failure, but as IGF-1 is a fairly recent discovery in medicine, its experimental use for the treatment of other conditions continues to broaden. Its medical use and clinical research extends into conditions such as: dwarfism, aging, neuropathy, cancer, and even stroke. Various variants of IGF-1 for exogenous administration in … Continue reading IGF-1