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FRL Research Review - Diallyl Sulphide
The constant pursuit of lean muscle mass is a never ending goal of the bodybuilder. But as we know accumulation of lean mass is not something a lot of research goes into. However earlier this year an interesting study was published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1). This particular study was not designed to see how one can increase muscle mass, but it was looking for a way to stop the loss of hard earned muscle. They were looking to supplements to inhibit skeletal muscle proteolysis, which is essentially the breakdown of skeletal muscle proteins. Inhibiting muscle proteolysis is obviously beneficial even for healthy people who want to remain in an anabolic state as much as possible.
The researchers first tested four different supplements in vitro, in an environment that would stimulate muscle proteolysis. They were looking to see which of the four inhibited muscle proteolysis to the greatest degree. They found the two most effective supplements in vitro to be resveratrol, and diallyl sulphide. The second part of the study was an in vivo test, however the researchers chose to only test diallyl sulphide (DAS):
“A previous investigation had shown that resveratrol was effective in reducing muscle proteolysis in tumour-bearing animals.27 However, data from our own laboratory do not agree with resveratrol having muscle antiproteolytic effects.10 It was for this reason that we decided to concentrate our efforts on DAS…”
The in vivo portion of the study was designed to test the ability of DAS to prevent muscle wasting. For our purposes that part was not particularly exciting. What is exciting is the results found in the control group. Sometimes a study’s control group can be more useful to the supplement world than the experimental group itself. And this is one of those times. This study was of course done on rats, but the control group was given the same amount of DAS (100mg’s/kg). The researchers found significant increases in muscle mass in the control group (healthy animals). The highlights are below:
- Increase in muscle mass of 6.3% in the gastrocnemius (calf)
- 8.5% increase in the tibialis
- 11% increase in the extensor digitorum longus
The researchers wanted to confirm whether DAS was actually inhibiting muscle proteolysis. To do this they evaluated gene expression relative to the proteolytic systems. Upon their findings they go on to say:
“These results support the fact that DAS, through an inhibition of the proteolyitc capacity, can increase muscle mass in healthy animals.”
These findings are obviously interesting to bodybuilders. One caveat is an equivalent dose in a 200lb male would be about 9 grams per day of diallyl sulphide. Another problem is that diallyl sulphide is a component of garlic. This wouldn’t be so bad but to get an equivalent amount of DAS you would have to consume a lot of garlic, making it realistically (and for the sake of your breathe) unattainable. A garlic supplement would also not provide enough DAS (2). Thus this leaves us with a potentially promising compound with little realistic value (at least at this point). It will be interesting to see the future avenues of research and in particular those that are a follow up to this study. ForeRunner Labs™ will continue to keep you updated.
-FRL
References
1. Nutraceutical inhibition of muscle proteolysis: a role of diallyl sulphide in the treatment of muscle wasting. Olivan M, Busquets S, Figueras M, Fontes de Oliveira C, Toledo M, Sette A, Ventura da Silva P, Barberis P, Argilés JM, López-Soriano FJ. Barcelona 08028, Spain : Clin Nutr. , 2011, Vols. Feb;30(1):33-7.
2. Composition, stability, and bioavailability of garlic products used in a clinical trial. Lawson LD, Gardner CD. Orem, Utah : J Agric Food Chem., 2005, Vols. Aug 10;53(16):6254-61.
