Growth hormone is considered every bodybuilder’s friend. In the world of fitness everybody wants to take a sip from the well of its incredible abilities to support building lean muscles, often seeking them in banned stimulants like injections of HGH or peptides that increase somatotropin secretion.
Supplement manufacturers constantly search for substances that would efficiently increase growth hormone levels naturally and safely, drawing many clients ready to pay a lot in order to be able to benefit from the hormone’s magical properties. Among the desired effects of GH are its great ability to reduce fatty tissue, improve the condition of skin, hair and nails, speed up tissue regeneration, indirectly affect building muscle mass, as well as general properties that make your body younger.
The supplement market has seen many products that were advertised as revolutionary in that respect but didn’t meet customers’ expectations in practice. Among them you could find arginine, often accompanied by ornithine and lysine, and GABA products, characterised by rather weak absorbability.
But there’s new light of hope on the horizon. There is a supplement that can significantly increase GH levels without the necessity to reach for a syringe. That revolutionary agent is the popular choline in its best assimilable form – glycerophosphocholine, also known as Alpha GPC.
Alpha GPC and Growth Hormone - clinical study
Alpha GPC's interesting effects were noticed by Kawamura in his study of 2012. He checked the effects of administering 1000 mg of Alpha GPC to young healthy men by taking blood samples after 60 and 120 minutes from distributing the supplement, and measuring the levels of choline, growth hormone, free fatty acids, acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate. It is worth mentioning that the test was designed diligently, with a placebo group and blinding taken into account.
After 60 minutes, the group who received Alpha GPC exhibited 19 times greater concentration of GH! Many users of injection hormones would be very glad with a result as high as that, or even half of it.
Apart from that, such effects were noted as an increase in free fatty acids, acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate (ketones), which means that somatotropin not only increases itself, but also ensures greater fat metabolism.
The weakness of every supplement intended to increase GH is its quick drop right after reaching its top concentration. That’s also the case of Alpha GPC, as after 120 minutes from administration, GH levels fall. But is it a reason to worry? As it turns out, not at all! When you take a look at the area under the line showing GH concentration on a graph, you can see that during two hours 6.88 times more hormone was produced than in the case of placebo. It’s an impressive result.
You’re probably wondering how choline can induce such an effect on GH. A potential mechanism that can be responsible for it is the influence of acetylcholine (produced from GPC) on blocking the activity of the factors that reduce somatotropin secretion in the hypothalamus.
Alpha GPC and training
It means that Alpha GPC administered before workout can fantastically improve training efficiency. Growth hormone can stimulate the lipolytic effect of catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline) whose levels rise naturally during heavy physical work. That translates into more effective fat burning caused by workout.
Is Alpha GPC only boosting GH level?
No!
Alpha GPC is famous for a completely different mechanism, that is increasing acetylcholine levels in the brain. That makes it particularly recommended for people who want to increase their mental capacity by improving memory and concentration. There’s no denying that the swift functioning of the nervous system and the clarity of mind are very helpful during workout, as they let you focus completely on the work and improve the mind-muscle connection.
It’s also worth mentioning that by activating nicotinic receptors in skeletal muscles, acetylcholine participates in the act of a muscle contraction, and its right level is important for maintaining the efficient activity of muscle fibres, which can be then activated with the greatest efficiency possible.
Surely, nobody would like to deprive themselves from the benefits brought by Alpha GPC supplementation by oversight. That’s why you shouldn’t mix it with substances that block alpha-adrenergic receptors, out of which yohimbine is the most popular, as they can reduce natural somatotropin production by increasing somatostatin levels.
To sum up, Alpha GPC is a revelation and a revolution at the same time for people who want to enjoy high GH levels without the need to use stimulants. It can also bring side benefits in the form of greater mental capacity and more intensive fat metabolism.
