Dianabol®  history – use and dosages

Most articles about steroids start with the use of Dianabol at the end of the 1950’s or 1960 in  bodybuilding. Most of these articles also claim that Dr Ziegler  (on the picture on the left) alone or in concert with CIBA, developed 1-dehydro-17α -methyl-testosterone methandrostenolone Dianabol®  Let us review the facts briefly and see what it learns us.

But..Dr.John Ziegler was not the inventor of Dianabol  You can find it anywhere on the web, if you search for information about the history of Dianabol or methandrostenolone. That one sentence. "Methandrostenolone was originally developed by John Ziegler and released in the U.S. in 1956 by Ciba."  It is even in the lemma about Dianabol in Wikipedia.

An article states : “Ziegler discovered a kinder  gentler testosterone, according to sources, he submitted his discovery to the Ciba Pharmaceutical company and they agreed to purchase the formula. He was paid $100."

A nice story, but it is not true. Ziegler had nothing to do with the invention of dianabol. Ziegler was a doctor, not a chemist. You can follow the development of Dianabol in the patent literature of the fifties. In these patentapplications you will never find the name of John Bosley Ziegler. What John Ziegler did was researching the effects of these new means “in vivo” on the York weightlifters.

Ziegler worked with seriously ill and disabled people, and maintained contacts with CIBA. CIBA worked on steroids, and provided Ziegler  with research literature of Nazi scientists who had been researching for performance-enhancing drugs.Ciba also gave Ziegler, early in the fifties, testosterone compounds.

All reliable sources - publications by Terry Todd, John Fair, Randy Roach, Bill Starr, etc, as well as interviews and letters from John Ziegler, John Grimek, Bill March, etc - indicate that experimentation with testosterone for athletic purposes began in the U.S. sometime in either late 1954 or 1955.

"Ziegler’s first application, according to Grimek, was on an appendectomy patient. Then he treated a burn victim and even administered doses to himself. By the time Grimek met him, Ziegler was giving testosterone injections to fellow trainees in Silver Spring."
Ziegler convinced York affiliated lifters John Grimek, Jim Park and Yaz Kuzahara to be test subjects and receive testosterone injections. By Grimek's account, the results were disappointing. In a private letter, dated at the time, Grimek spoke of seeing nothing in the way of gains and quiting the injections because he felt he was actually regressing. Jim Park received only one injection which he claimed did nothing for him physically, but made him incredibly horny. It is unclear as to Kuzahara's experience. And no further experimentation with testosterone was tried by the York (U.S.) Weightlifting team for the duration of the 1950s.

Now we know that its not the testosterone as a cristalene implant or the testosterone propionate injection or the methyl-testosterone that doesn’t work its just that Ziegler was unaware of the right application, the cycling and dosing

This was not the end of Ziegler's involvement with steroids, however. Ziegler began work with CIBA Pharmaceuticals in 1955 to develop a testosterone derivative that would carry the anabolic properties of testosterone without the undesirable side effects. Preliminary results began coming in by 1956, and Dianabol was released to the U.S. prescription drug market in 1958 for use in wasting conditions. CIBA's competitor, Searle, beat them to the market, however, and introduced Nilevar, the first synthetic anabolic/androgenic steroid, to the prescription drug market in 1956 (used as a polio treatment).

What drugs Grimek was also receiving from Ziegler remains unknown, but Grimek was soon the recipient of the latest of his laboratory concoctions. He recalls that CIBA asked Ziegler if he wanted to try these steroids on athletes, since they knew he got involved with the lifters. “He gave me one of those half-bushel baskets with the pills to try and get some of the lifters to try them." But that was probably no Dianabol.

In the patents you can find many  different steroids that  became a double bond in the 1,2 or 4,5 position. It is very likely that these steroid series where tested. The patent mentioned specific 1-dehydro-17 alpha-methylyestosterone (dianabol) and1-dehydro-17 alpha-ethinyl-testosterone and functional derivatives such as esters, ethers etc.

This involvement in of Ciba in weightlifting and bodybuilding in not new, but rarely mentioned.  Randy Roach began to mention it after his research. CIBA Pharmaceuticals was already targeting bodybuilders with ads for synthetic testosterone in 1947.

Once you start reading all the different articles and interviews, you find out that some writers try their best to come up with new facts. Like the sentence that always pops up at the end of articles where Dr ziegler deeply regrets his involvement with steroids in sport.  When asked if this could be true to Bill March  he said: "Ziegler wishes he would have never invented it? That's an outright lie. He never said that,"

What we know is what is documented. The involvement of Dr. Ziegler with CIBA is unauthorised research. CIBA provided Dr. Ziegler with steroids, testosterone – Dianabol  and other steroids, most probably methyl-testosterone, to try “in vivo” on human guinea pigs. It where un-scientific, un-official, undocumented trials without reference-groups. Who knows which other athletes where used as guinea pigs via an other un-official channel, or channels? CIBA provided there products to find out if these means where effective in the athletic performance of weightlifters of the “York Barbell Club”. Or in plain English, if the use of their products made the weightlifters stronger and bigger.

In late 1959 (some claim as early as 1958, some as late as 1960) Ziegler decided to try the new Dianabol on some of the non-medal contending York lifters and enlisted Grimek to convince a few lifters to begin taking it under his (Ziegler's) supervision. Lower level or non-competitive lifters were chosen for the initial trials so as not to risk marring the performance of medal contenders at the upcoming 1960 Olympics (Dianabol was, at that time, a relatively untested drug and York chief Bob Hoffman was said to have feared trying it on his top lifters). Bill March, Tony Garcy, John Grimek, Ziegler himself and later Lou Riecke were the first Guinea Pigs, and the results were much more promising this time around.  Riecke was on dianabol, tried the 'isometric' schedules from Ziegler, swallowed the protein preparations  from Hoffman, and let Ziegler to hypnotize him. It worked. But it was the dianabol  that worked,  initially Ziegler nor Riecke realized it.

Ziegler also then began to experiment with another agent, a new medication that would restore potassium ions to skeletal muscle cells and thereby relieve fatigue. And then, when Ziegler switched to work with the hormone manufacturer Winthrop, Riecke was also treated with a new improved Heterocyclic Anabolic. Steroids with a heterocyclic ring at ring A have been investigated at the end of the fifties and in the beginning of the sixties by Sterling-Winthrop. Most of the steroids in this group do not have a D⁴ double bond and therefore they do not aromatize, they do have substantial androgenic side effects. Stanozolol is the best known steroid in this group.

Its logical that not all experiments where documented.

In order to find out out if these early steriodal compounds where effective and how effective, and how effective compared to each other many tests where run. Official and non-official. On anaimals and human guineapigs. In this light I want to bring an interesting fact. We know the York Barbell Club experimented with steroids. We assume more undocumented trials where conducted (also in the Soviet union that beat the USA in weightlifting, revealed their little secret.  This started the steroid experiments by US weightlifters). Steroids were initially used to treat burn patients during Worls War II at military facilities in Hawaii. In 1952 the Hawaii Olympic Lifting Team beat the York Barbell Team, and won the National Championships and ended Yorks 20-year winning streak. Coincidense?

These early studies are very interesting especially since compounds where very new and the scientist researched the basics. They discovered some facts we where aware of, but forget or neglect. Therefore I want to show some exerpts from this patentapplication and later clinical research on patiets woman-children etc

The comparison of the estrogenic properties of Nilevar and Dianabol, note that the oral doses where 10 times the subcutanously given doses. Its my strong believe that the sub-Q administration route is much more effective and I’ll adress this later in the article.

The  anabolic substances know to date possess other hormonal properties in addition to their androgenic effects: it is known, for example, that 19-nor-17-ethyl-testosterone(Nilevar) in particular, even when given in small doses, induces the secretory phase of the estrogen sensitized uteris, e.g. is action is similar to that of progesterone. The daily dose of 19-nor required to elicit this effect is 0,03 mg/kg subcutaneously or 3 mg/kg orally. With 1-dehydro-17α -methyl-testosterone(Dianabol) even when given in doses up to 300 times higher (10 mg/kg subcutaneously or 100 mg/kg orally) it is not possible to produce a progesterone-like effect.

In the patent you can find a way to dissolve the API (raw powder) and to manufactur a 1 ml ampoule. Wouldn’t it be logical that Ciba has experimented with this injectable compound? The above exept show that they did, but that is actually the only hint. Of course some UG labs sold injectable dianabol. And I have made some experiments myself that worked very well.

From Ciba:

The new compounds can be used as medicaments in the form of pharmaceutical preparations, which contain the new compounds in admixture with a pharmaceutical organic or inorganic solid or liquid carrier suitable for enteral, parenteral or topical administration. Estrified or etherified.  1-dehydro-testosterone derivatives 1-dehydro-17α -methyl-testosterone  and 1-dehydro-17α -ethinyl-testosterone

They may also contain, in combination, other useful substances. The new compositions contain preferably from 0,001 to 50% of the new active compounds or from 0,05 to 300 mg!! per dose unit.

When tested in castrated male rats it increased the gain in bodyweight and show myotropic effects ( increase in weight of the M.elevator ani) similar to those of the male sex hormones proper. The relationship of anabolic to androgenic activity is illustrated by the comparison with 17α –methyl-testosterone; this compound has per unit of anabolic action from 3 to 4 times the androgenic action of the new 1-dehydro-17-methyl-testosterone.

The independence of the anabolic action of 1-dehydro-17α -methyl-testosterone from its sex-specific effects can also be demonstrated in human beings: For example, 1-dehydro-17α -methyl-testosterone was clinically administrated in daily doses of 25 to 100mg to patients with cancerous and tuberculous cachexia, anorexia, and osteoporosis, as well as to patients with convalescing after serious illness. In response to this treatment, a marked decrease in the excretion of nitrogen was noted within 1-2 days following administration of 20-50 mg of 1-dehydro, but no androgenic effect was observed.

This shows an increased nitrogen uptake which is the marker for muscle growth., without an androgenic effect. This is of course due to the fact that Dianabol has a favorable anabolic action in comparison to its androgenic action, as you can also read in the patent that compares it to methyl-testosterone (in italic above)

According to many ‘guru’s” dianabol gains are mostly waterweight (you can read this everywhere on the forums). If you use a lot od testsoteron and Dianabol or methandrostenolone or methandienone you’ll expirience some fluid retention for sure. But that can be delt with and is not relevant for this article. The increase in bodyweight in these experiments show in increase in muscle (nitrogen uptake [yellow]) and not in waterweight (messured [red])

Again back to the subcutain administration of Nilevar and Dianabol as highlighted in yellow. It took 0.03 mg/kg 19nor-17alpha-ethyl-testosterone (Nilevar) or 3 mg/kg orally (tablet) to illicit a progestrone effect in the uterus. Thus  one needed 100 time the oral dose to reach to the same effect. What convused me a bit is that the ratio from oral to sub-q doses from Methandrostenolone are devious from the Nilevar doses.

There have been many other experiments done with these new means to find the most appropiate way to use it, such as appetite, growth with small children, grwoth of a small penis etc etc. It came to the market to treat burn patients but showed more valid applications, also oc dependant on the doses. Very interesting and some points against common believe...later folks..in an other article..

Maximum growth

In 1927 McGee showed that the comb of a capon could be made to develop by the injection of testis extracts. Attempts to investigate the maximum growth rate which can be induced, where practically impossible because it was impossible to obtain so much testis extracts. In 1936 this problem was solved by the synthesis of testosterone.  In 1938 Schoeller & Gehrke  implanted tablets of testosterone and testosterone propionate up to 2 mg. The combs of their birds did not  reach the size of those of normal cocks. Which showed that a doses of 2 mg was to low.

 A group of eight Brown Leghorn capons received implantations of one tablet of 5-16 mg. per bird. The combs were measured at frequent intervals after implantation of the tablets, their size being expressed as the product of length and height. The combs attained their full size, equal to that of normal cocks, in a little over 40 days, and the effect of the tablets lasted for a surprisingly constant period of between 60 and 70 days, after which regression took place. The rate of growth showed no correlation with the weight of the tablet received, from which it was assumed that a maximum growth rate had been stimulated.

In order to verify this, another capon (AC 21)was given an injection of 100 mg. free testosterone in oil, together with an implantation of a 100 mg. tablet of testosterone propionate!!! It exhibited only a slightly higher growth rate during the first few days only.

This shows the well known principle of overflow, comparable with a 200 ml glass in which one tries to pore 1 litre of fluid, if the glass is full the rest will flow away. Everyone also knows that that this principle is also true for water-soluble vitamins like by example vitamin C, when you take more then the body can handle you’ll excrete (piss out) the rest. This fact is also very useful if you want to cure a bladder infection.

The scientist clearly wanted to find the results with doses to low and to much against enough toreach the desired effects, in this case a fully develloped comb..Despite the fact that we know all this, some bodybuilders still swallow enormous amounts of oral steroids. Most think that if two tablets give a certain body effect, twice the doses will result in twice the effect. The desired effects will decrease and the side-effects will increase.

MAXIMUM GROWTH RATE OF CAPON COMB, C. W. EMMENS National Institute for Medical Research, London, N.W. 3 June 1938

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