Is 4 months on xgels safe?

[john10960]

Hi guys.

so ARA has been the most impactful supplement I have tried.

I am just starting anabolic xt and I was like man, I kinda wanna stack these. I had just finished 3 or so months of ARA.

I also want to add prime xt to the stack.

but yes, back to original question, is ARA safe for 4 months run?

thanks!

 

[Smont]

I feel like this question has poped up a lot lately, or i just got Some crazy deja vu right now.

 

[Electrake]

I feel like this question has poped up a lot lately, or i just got Some crazy deja vu right now.

It was them too, I've been following along lol. My response to them was going to be:

Take the information you've been given here and form your own risk tolerance. Will you be fine? Yeah probably. Will your joints hurt? The signs point to yes. If you aren't affected as poorly as some others in regards to the inflammation, roll with it within reason.

 

[sns8778]

Hi guys.

so ARA has been the most impactful supplement I have tried.

I am just starting anabolic xt and I was like man, I kinda wanna stack these. I had just finished 3 or so months of ARA.

I also want to add prime xt to the stack.

but yes, back to original question, is ARA safe for 4 months run?

thanks!

Yes, there are a lot of people that use Arachidonic Acid for 4 months or more.

We literally sell a 4 bottle discounted X-Gels multi-pack because so many people use it for 4 months & asked us to.

Whether you want to take it for 4 months is entirely up to you, and I'm not trying to sell you on it, bc we have tons of other great products you can use in its place if you decide to. But is it safe to use for 4 months? Yes.

You recently started a thread asking a very similar question, and it seems like you let some misinformation posted in that thread by a competing company rep scare you or get in your head - when the study he posted didn't even pertain to ARA supplementation, it pertained to factors associated with a high red meat diet (ARA, Iron, Saturated Fat, etc.). He was basically just trying to make you worried about taking it, which it seemed to accomplish.

The irony is that the article that he posted didn't link ARA to any side effects and acknowledged in itself that it wasn't looking at ARA supplementation, it was examining the role of increased ARA intake through red meat and it stated:
Israel, one of the countries with the highest level of AA intake, has high prevalence rates of atherosclerosis, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension [Invalid Link Removed]. This may be, however, confounded by saturated fat and heme iron contained in AA-rich red meat leading to a higher risk of dyslipidemia.

^^^ In context, its saying that it wasn't sure if the issues they were looking for were attributed to the ARA in red meat or the high saturated fat intake and high iron content in red meat. Again, in context, there is no comparison between using ARA supplementation for 4 months and eating a diet high in red meat for your lifetime.

In that thread, @Resolve10 wrote out a ton of actual real scientific information about ARA for you and went into detail about safety and different health benefits associated with ARA.

Here was a great link to a study that he posted about cardioprotective benefits of ARA in combination with DHA: Invalid Link Removed

I also posted a lot of information for you about various health benefits of ARA and ARA safety.

ARA has tons of safety studies. When it was first introduced 20+ years ago as a supplement, there was some debate as to if it would have any side effects and over the years, tons of studies have been done showing the health benefits of ARA supplementation.

Here are some excerpts on Arachidonic Acid from studies:

Arachidonic acid helps to maintain hippocampal cell membrane fluidity. It also helps protect the brain from oxidative stress by activating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma. AA also activates syntaxin-3 (STX-3), a protein involved in the growth and repair of neurons.

Studies indicate that long-term dietary supplementation with arachidonic acid (AA) in 20-month-old rats (OA) effectively restores performance in a memory task and the induction of long-term potentiation in the hippocampus to the level of young control animals (YC).


Long-term administration of AA to senescent rats might help to preserve membrane fluidity and maintain hippocampal plasticity.


ARA is an integral constituent of biological cell membrane, conferring it with fluidity and flexibility, so necessary for the function of all cells, especially in nervous system, skeletal muscle, and immune system. Arachidonic acid is obtained from food or by desaturation and chain elongation of the plant-rich essential fatty acid, linoleic acid. Free ARA modulates the function of ion channels, several receptors and enzymes, via activation as well as inhibition. That explains its fundamental role in the proper function of the brain and muscles and its protective potential against Schistosoma mansoni and S. haematobium infection and tumor initiation, development, and metastasis.


Free ARA and metabolites promote and modulate type 2 immune responses, which are critically important in resistance to parasites and allergens insult, directly via action on eosinophils, basophils, and mast cells and indirectly by binding to specific receptors on innate lymphoid cells. In conclusion, the present review advocates the innumerable ARA roles and considerable importance for normal health.

Here is a great study length that addresses how ARA was viewed many years ago and the shift in the paradigm to viewing it as something with many health benefits:

Invalid Link Removed



Also, vegetarians and people that don't eat a lot of red meat tend to consume much less ARA in their diets. This may be linked to why some people notice such incredible results from supplementation, and there are a lot of supporters of long term low dose supplementation for vegetarians and people that don't eat red meat.

It's entirely up to you whether you want to use it for 4 months, but there's really no question of whether it is safe to, because it is.

 

[sns8778]

It was them too, I've been following along lol. My response to them was going to be:

Take the information you've been given here and form your own risk tolerance. Will you be fine? Yeah probably. Will your joints hurt? The signs point to yes. If you aren't affected as poorly as some others in regards to the inflammation, roll with it within reason.

There's really no probably or maybe to it from a safety aspect - yes, it is safe to use for 4 months.

The joints hurting issue is funny bc we never ever hear that from customer feedback anywhere besides here on AM. I know it does happen for some people, but it gets talked about on here a lot just bc someone else said it so someone else says it, etc.

But the reality of that is that ARA may make some people's joints hurt, but gaining a great amount of strength in a short period of time may make someone's joints hurt regardless. This was also compounded by the fanaticism at one time where people were stopping anything that would be helpful to their joints when taking ARA - which you can find posts from me dating back 15 years saying that that was the wrong way to go about it; just simply space it out.

The issue with ARA more than joint pain is that many people deal with increased muscle soreness from it. To me, that's the only real drawback of it - to some people, that sucks - for other people, they love it - and for some, they don't really notice.

I never ever noticed any increase in joint pain from using it, but I did get extremely sore when using it. I can't use it anymore, but that's because I have an autoimmune condition that came on later in life and I can't use it now bc of that.

The only people that it wouldn't be 'safe' for are people with autoimmune inflammatory conditions because a lot of the treatment protocols with those are based on keeping ARA levels down, so obviously wouldn't want to supplement with it.

There are a lot of vegetarians or people that don't eat red meat that use 1 to 2 softgels daily for the health benefits of ARA. That's by far the biggest growing customer base segment for this ingredient in my opinion.

 

[Electrake]

There's really no probably or maybe to it from a safety aspect - yes, it is safe to use for 4 months.

The joints hurting issue is funny bc we never ever hear that from customer feedback anywhere besides here on AM. I know it does happen for some people, but it gets talked about on here a lot just bc someone else said it so someone else says it, etc.

But the reality of that is that ARA may make some people's joints hurt, but gaining a great amount of strength in a short period of time may make someone's joints hurt regardless. This was also compounded by the fanaticism at one time where people were stopping anything that would be helpful to their joints when taking ARA - which you can find posts from me dating back 15 years saying that that was the wrong way to go about it; just simply space it out.

The issue with ARA more than joint pain is that many people deal with increased muscle soreness from it. To me, that's the only real drawback of it - to some people, that sucks - for other people, they love it - and for some, they don't really notice.

I never ever noticed any increase in joint pain from using it, but I did get extremely sore when using it. I can't use it anymore, but that's because I have an autoimmune condition that came on later in life and I can't use it now bc of that.

The only people that it wouldn't be 'safe' for are people with autoimmune inflammatory conditions because a lot of the treatment protocols with those are based on keeping ARA levels down, so obviously wouldn't want to supplement with it.

There are a lot of vegetarians or people that don't eat red meat that use 1 to 2 softgels daily for the health benefits of ARA. That's by far the biggest growing customer base segment for this ingredient in my opinion.

Safe maybe wasn't the appropriate word I meant, didnt mean life threatening or debilitating. I appreciate this Steve, I've been spending a lot of free time looking into this as well.

 

[sns8778]

Safe maybe wasn't the appropriate word I meant, didnt mean life threatening or debilitating. I appreciate this Steve, I've been spending a lot of free time looking into this as well.

No worries, I just wanted to clarify because there was some absolute bs nonsense that was posted in that other thread that got the poster worried about the safety of it.

Sometimes, when you work on my side of things, there will be things that you get a chuckle out of and this is one of them in the sense that you have an ingredient that some bodybuilders are worried about or hesitant about bc of some broscience bs from years back, but then middle-aged general health consumers all the way up to little old men and women are flocking to it because of the research showing just how many overall health benefits it can have - cardiovascular, cognitive, senescence, etc.

 

[john10960]

Thanks sns.

yeah I figured I would post new thread but maybe I should’ve just posted question on same thread.

my gut intuition said yes it’s safe in light of the info I read.

I just wanted to ask point blank though to get peoples immediate thoughts.

im really looking forward to trying anabolic xt, Ara, and prime xt stacked.

to me it sounds like a synergistic stack, I would assume you think the same?

thanks again!

 

[sns8778]

Here is some general information on Arachidonic Acid.

First and foremost, don't get confused or deceived by brands selling ARA in capsules and claiming the dosage to be Arachidonic Acid. It's Arachidonic Acid powder which is 10% Arachidonic Acid. The liquid, which we use in X-Gels is 40% Arachidonic Acid.

For comparison, that means that it takes:

• 2,500 mg. Arachidonic Acid powder (min. 4 capsules) to equal 1 softgel of X-Gels.
• So to do 1,000 mg. per day of actual Arachidonic Acid per day, that means that it would require 10,000 mg. (10 grams) of the powder/capsule form which would be a minimum of 14 capsules or 4 X-Gels softgels.

The key with using ARA is why/how you're using ARA.

Are you a bodybuilder wanting to do a high dose of it for a cycle?
Cool. Do a 2 to 4 month cycle at 1,000 mg. to 1,500 mg. of actual ARA.

Are you wanting to use it long term for its overall health benefits?
Cool. But you probably wouldn't want to do the higher dosages like that. Most people using it for this purpose supplement with 250 mg. to 500 mg. of actual ARA per day (1 to 2 X-Gels softgels) , depending on how much red meat they typically consume.

Are you vegetarian and wanting to use it long term for its overall health benefits?
This part can also apply to vegetarian bodybuilders or bodybuilders that don't eat a lot of red meat too. The typical dosage for people in this category would be 250 mg. to 500 mg. of actual ARA per day (1 to 2 X-Gels softgels).


I hope that that helps anyone interested and trying to figure those things out.

 

[sns8778]

The joint stuff is funny to me. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but all those logs in bb.com and here people were obsessed with how good it was and the biggest drama was when MN made that advanced version and people were so upset because they just wanted straight ArA in it’s inflammatory glory.

I agree. I've never had one, not one single email from a customer mentioning joint pain with it.

And like you said, back when people were obsessed with it and dosing the hell out of it on bb.com, you never say anyone mention joint pain. Muscle soreness, yes, but never joint pain.

Then you saw one or two people on AM say it and its like everyone repeated it and it became bro gospel here to just blindly repeat it for some reason. I'm not saying they didn't experience it, but it also happened around the time where people started going nuts about not taking any type of basic joint support supplements or anything with it, rather than just spacing their dosage out away from it. And also, to me, its pretty common sense that anything that causes a lot of strength gains in a short period of time can cause your joints to hurt - that's not specific to a product, that's a byproduct of gaining strength very quickly in general can be taxing on the joints.

 

[sns8778]

Thanks sns.

yeah I figured I would post new thread but maybe I should’ve just posted question on same thread.

my gut intuition said yes it’s safe in light of the info I read.

I just wanted to ask point blank though to get peoples immediate thoughts.

im really looking forward to trying anabolic xt, Ara, and prime xt stacked.

to me it sounds like a synergistic stack, I would assume you think the same?

thanks again!

No harm in starting another thread on it, especially bc the other one had so much intentional misinformation and bs in it.

Yes, I definitely agree that that would be a great stack.

The safety of ARA has been well studied - anyone that says that 4 months of ARA supplementation is not safe for a healthy adult with no autoimmune conditions is either trying to mislead you or just simply wrong.

ARA has been and continues to be well-studied and many studies are focused on a wide variety of overall health benefits, as well as ones specific to cardiovascular health, cognitive health, and more.

X-Gels and Arachidonic Acid is very overlooked in the bodybuilding community. One reason is because so many brands deceive people with the powder form that contains very little actual ARA and people think it doesn't work - but its not that it doesn't work, it's that they're not taking enough for it to work. Then another reason is because so many people have 'new girl' syndrome where they're always obsessed with the latest, hottest, new thing whereas ARA is just the old reliable one. Working in the industry, yes, I'm always interested in new ingredients - but personal results wise, I want what works.

I would say that its a good likelihood that we sell as much or more ARA to people that are using it long term for its overall health benefits than bodybuilders at this point; and also to vegetarians or people that don't eat a lot of red meat.

So much so that, and this is my first time mentioning this, but that once we sell out of the current batch, the intention is to change over to vegetarian softgels.