Sorting Out The Andro Question

Sorting Out The Andro Question
by Robert S. Green

Much has been written about the Androstenedione/diol family of products and a great debate continues on their safety and efficacy. What is equally troubling for our industry is that despite these products' popularity, there is complete confusion on the identification and quantification of the individual products that compose this group. It is time to resolve this situation:

At last count, there were nine compounds composing this group, as follows:

• 4-Androsten-3, 17-dione (commonly known as "Androstenedione");
• 5(6)-Androsten-3, 17-dione;
• Dehydroepiandrosterone (commonly known as "DHEA");
• 4-Androsten-3, 17-diol (commonly known as "Androstenediol");
• 5(6)-Androsten-3, 17-diol (commonly known as "5-Diol");
• 19-Nor-4-androsten-3, 17-diol (commonly known as "19-Nor 4 Diol");
• 19-Nor-5(10)-androsten-3, 17-diol (commonly known as "19-Nor 5 Diol");
• 19-Nor-4-androsten-3, 17-dione (commonly known as "19-Nor 4 Dione");
• 19-Nor-5(10)-androsten-3, 17-dione (commonly known as "19-Nor 5 Dione").

Each of the above is a different compound, and a small change in molecular composition can have a dramatic effect.

There exists much confusion over which product is which. Some raw material manufacturers are not sure which compound is ordered and which they are producing. Some raw material suppliers, encapsulators and finished product sellers are not sure which they want and which they get.

First and foremost, each player needs to know which product is desired and then specify it by its full name. Looking at the above list, if you specify only "19-Nor," you have a one-in-four chance of getting what you want.

Even after determining which product you want, that isn't the end. Identifying which is which, and determining the quality of any given sample, can be a crapshoot. This is one area where analyses at different analytical labs will routinely contradict each other. Labs will disagree on the identity and quality of most of the above compounds. There is a simple explanation for this. There are no commercially available analytical standards for these products.

To understand this situation, a quick analytical lesson is in order. It would be nice to put any compound in a machine that would identify and quantify it, but it doesn't work this way. In actuality, identification and quantification are generally done by comparison to known entities. For example, to confirm the identity and quality of a chrysin sample, a lab would compare a known fully-characterized sample of chrysin (known as a "standard"), run the standard and the sample to be tested together in an HPLC and compare the results. For most known compounds in commerce there are generally accepted standards available to do this. If several qualified analytical labs test a sample against a correct standard the results should be comparable, even if they employ different analytical methods. When there are no standards available, the system breaks down. It deteriorates to the point where labs are comparing products to be tested against assumed but incorrect "standards" or in some cases against no standards at all, which invalidates the results.

There are standards available for the first three products in the above list and, as a result, there is little analytical confusion concerning them. There are no commercially available standards for the remaining six products, but there is material simply assumed to be as labeled without adequate documentation to verify its authenticity, and this is where chaos reigns.

There are several reasons why no standards exist for the six products. To begin with, these products have come out of nowhere to become commercial hits and the chemical industry has not yet caught up. Also, these products are steeped in controversy, so many technicians shy away from them. And simply, in many technical circles, the sports nutrition industry "gets no respect." The fact is these products are legally in commerce and both the industry and the consumers need to be served.

For an analytical lab to adequately test the remaining six products, it must have developed its own standards. In order for a "standard" to qualify as such, it should have been obtained from a reliable source and subjected to a multitude of characterization tests, each one focusing on a different property of the compound. Each test result must match that reported in the literature or independently verifiable from first principles of structural chemistry.

So the moral of the story is twofold. First, be sure you know which product you want. Second, be sure your analytical lab has a standard for the product you want tested. And make sure the lab is using a true standard with supporting data, and not an "assumed standard." Ask your lab where it obtained the standard and how do they know it is the compound it is supposed to be. If they can't or won't answer both questions, then try another lab. Only with this information can you be sure you are getting your analytical money's worth.

Robert S. Green is the president of Integrated Biomolecule Corp., which conducts research, development and testing of nutritional supplements. He can be reached at (520) 799-7566.

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