I’ve been taking one capsule of an Ephedra based supplement called Thermochrome 5000 in the morning and it usually quenches my appetite all the way up to dinnertime. Ephedra works for me as a very effective appetite supressant and I recognize that it does this because it is essentially a natural “speed” that works (like other amphetamine like drugs) mainly by releasing sugars stored in the liver and quenching hunger pangs, and also kicking the metabolism and heart rate up a notch.
In weighing the known dangers between being overweight vs the dangers of an amphetamine like herb, it basically comes down to the fact that losing weight without the hunger quenching effects of ephedra to to assist me would be very difficult. In this context I have tried to find hard data about the dangers of ephedra, but most of the horror stories seem to be for people that were taking larger doses of it and had other serious health problems.
Is ephedra really that dangerous taken in moderation? I would think that being overweight poses a substantially greater danger to your cardiovascular health than a mild speed, but this is just a supposition on my part.
My SO used to take it, and abused it. It started with one in the morning, then two, then finally, she was so cranked up by the end of the day, she was unbearable.
And she’s not even “fat”. Just took it for the energetic effects.
IANAD. You should definitely talk this over with yours.
In my opinion, I think this is probably a very individualized health situation. Some people could handle it just fine; for others, it could be deadly.
I have just recently discovered that I have an electrical problem with my heart which makes it overly sensitive to substances that can cause an arryhthmia. Just a sudden change in my adrenaline level, such as when I step out of an aerobics class for a moment to get a drink of water, can send me into a bout of ventricular tachycardia.
You may be thinking “Yeah, but I don’t have that problem.” Sure of that? Two years ago, I would have said the same thing. I was certain that I had a kick-ass heart, and nothing would really bother it — but that was before I started having these near-fainting spells occasionally after working out. Incidentally, at the time this first started, I had been taking OTC Actifed (Tripolidine and pseudoephedrine) for allergies once or twice a day for over a year. I haven’t been told that I caused my own problem, but I sort of wonder sometimes if the constant use of the stuff helped over-sensitize me to pro-arrhythmics.
Another very important thing to note is that Ephedra products are typically considered supplements rather than drugs, so that they don’t receive the stringent attention that prescription drugs do. It is common knowledge in that in the supplements industry, what you see on the label is not necessarily what you get. That is, the label may say that you’re getting 500 mg of something, but testing by qualified labs may indicate that you’re getting either a fraction of that amount — or several times that amount.
I sympathize with you on the weight issues. (Why do you think I work out so much?) However, as a YMCA instructor, I will say that we have been urged to counsel students against taking supplements taking ephedra.
Give it some serious thought, and talk it over with your doc.
Ephedra is more similar to COFFEE than it is to SPEED!
Ephedra is like my coffee, but without the calories and bad breath!
My ephedra pills have 8mg of ephedrine, the directions say to take 1-3 pills per day. If you max out the daily suggested amount, that’s only 24mg per day. Check out the following for a comparison:
Reason #3285 not to listen to the “EPHEDRA KILLS!” media headlines.
Let me give you the cliff notes of a big long article (And I won’t leave out what contradicts my point of view, also known as I won’t be biased).
-2 billion doses of ephedra based products each year consumed
-800 AER’s filed (adverse event reports - reports of individuals who have had any type of adverse health reaction while consuming a particular product)
-800/2,000,000,000 = 0.0000004%
-in a random sampling of 92 out of 864 AERs that the FDA had compiled:
39 percent lacked information on the amount of product (ephedra) consumed, 41 percent lacked information of the frequency of use and 28 percent lacked information as to the length of time the product was used. Additionally, a total of 45 percent of the AERs lacked information on either dose, frequency, or duration of use and 24 percent lacked information in all three categories. A whopping 62 percent of the AERs randomly sampled by the GAO did not contain medical records, which are vital in determining potential underlying conditions that might have caused the adverse reaction (rather than just assuming ingestion of dietary supplements containing ephedrine alkaloids caused the problem).
Invalid comparison. Those meds contain pseudoephedrine, not ephedrine. Different molecules, similar actions. You cannot compare mg to mg. Pseudoephedrine is much less of a stimulant. Even it gets abused by some, though.
There are no free lunches. Whether the trade off is worth it depends on your degree of obesity and how bad the comorbid conditions are. Your doctor can help, maybe. Have you tried blood sugar stabilizing “diets?” There are a few dumbed down versions of The Zone which are easy to follow and when combined with exercise can work wonders.
Stop lying to people. Those refer to amounts of pseudephedrine, not to ephedrine. They are different molecules with different activity. The jiggerup of ephedrine doesn’t occur for pseudephedrine, at least not for sane doses of the medications you mention.
I say this:
If you can’t get through the day without a chemical jumpstart, go see a doctor and find out why you’re in such miserable health instead of feeding the quacks.
If you want to lose weight, try exercising a litle willpower and finding an activity you enjoy. If you are really in such a miserable state of compulsive overeating or morbid obesity that this is impossible, consult a real physician instead of buying quackery.
actually ephedrine does not so much release sugar into your blood, as it releases fat by stimulating lipolysis. i started with 10 mg before workout and now i do 50 mg before workout the problem is that you get tolerance and 50 mg for me is at best as strong as 10 mg used to be. so its a good idea to cycle the stuff in general.
i dont think you should compare ephedrine to caffeine. while ephedra can be stacked with caffeine for synergistic effect i have never heard of anybody taking caffeine by itself for weight loss.p
for staying awake i do have Caffeine Annhydrous pills as well ( prolab brand ) nice and white, no yellow teeth, no sugar as you say.
as for weight loss, another thing you should try is Yohimbine HCL. it works similarly to ephedrine and if taken together its a synergistic stack.
currently out of stock, but thats the only place i know that sells Yohimbine HCL as opposed to Yohimbe extract. again synthetic pure yohimbine is better cuz it more pure.
as for what is more dangerous, ephedra or obesity ? i would have to admit that you don’t need ANY supplements to lose weight. the reason i use Ephedrine and Yohimbine is because they selectively target adipose tissue while sparing the muscle. caloric restriction alone would cause you to lose both fat and muscle ( though mostly it will be fat, unless you crash diet ).
the problem is that you get tolerance and 50 mg for me is at best as strong as 10 mg used to be. so its a good idea to cycle the stuff in general.