Anabolic Research Update
By William Llewellyn
Take With Food?
Q: Is it better to take steroid pills with meals or on an empty stomach? Prescription drugs often say to take them one way or another. I can't find any mention of this with steroids, and I think I've read every steroid book from every author I could find. If you can't answer this I don't know who can. So, any idea? Does it matter which way you take them?
A: Yes, there's a difference. Steroid hormones, even when they don't have esters, are still considered lipid- (fat) soluble compounds. They basically like to dissolve in fat more than they do water. If you take a fat-soluble hormone with a meal, particularly one with a high fat content, some of the steroid is going to get dissolved with the fat in your stomach. This is, again, a natural property of the steroid. Some of the fat you ate may go undigested, which will ultimately reduce the overall bioavailability of the steroid hormone by preventing some of it from being absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract (and transported to body tissues).
I looked for a long time for some reference to this and finally found mention of a study that took place several decades ago with stanozolol. The experiment administered an equal amount of hormone to two groups of animals. One group received the drug mixed with their food, and in the other, it was administered directly into the animals' stomachs via a feeding tube (on an empty stomach). The drug indeed had a considerably stronger effect on promoting nitrogen retention (a measure of protein synthesis) when it was given on an empty stomach. Seems like very strong support for this position.
So taking your pills on an empty stomach does seem best- at least when it comes to the standard c17-alpha-alkylated (most) oral steroids. If you want to be really meticulous, you can also take your pills with a glass of water, which will help their absorption a little by facilitating the breakdown of tablets and binders and aiding in the transport of the hormone. Chewing the pills before swallowing will also help, again through rapid breakdown and transport to the GI tract. Also, exercising soon after taking your pills draws blood away from your stomach, which could slow or lower drug absorption. Try not to train right after taking them if you can.
Of course, the advice of taking your pills on an empty stomach wouldn't apply to those oral steroids that rely on lymphatic transport, or absorption of the drug by the lymphatic system (with dietary fat) to bypass the liver. Lymphatic delivery is occasionally used with unprotected (non-c17-alpha-alkylated) steroid hormones, although this isn't a common method of steroid delivery. It won't be of relevance with most pills and the only drug really like that now is Andriol (testosterone undecanoate). At one time, however, other lymphatically transported agents such as Maxibolin (ethylestrenol) and Anabolicum Vister (quinbolone) also circulated on the black market. Bodily utilization of drugs like these may actually be aided by consuming them with a high-fat meal.
