Thermolife E-Bol


By Bodybuilding Science

E-BOL is billed as a "non-hormonal" athletic enhancer. It's supposedly a combination of many lab proven herbal extracts and recently synthesized chemicals. Like always, we will take each of the listed ingredients of Thermolife's new product and inspect them one by one in order to better understand what the product is and how it work. So let's jump right in.

Ecdysterone (80 mg)
The bottle indicated that the Ecdysterone is "99% pure" and "extracted from Rhaponticum carthamoides". First, what is Ecdysterone? It is a sterol hormone extracted from certain plants and insects, yep, bug juice. You can likely find many claims about what this product can do for you all over the internet. It has several other names including: 20-Beta-Hydroxyecdysterone, ecdisten and 20-hydroxyecdysone. The idea behind this compound is that this sterol mimics anabolic hormones found in the human body and would theoretically provide the same effects as low dose steroids. Because there are many chemicals in nature that have evolved simultaneously, similar compounds can be found in very different species. (This chemical is not a steroid in the plant, only when taken by humans does it function in this manner.) As for the "extracted from Rhaponticum carthamoides" bit: Rhaponticum carthamoides is a boring little plant that grows at higher altitudes. It's commonly known as Marals Root and apparently produces a large amount of this chemical. This is a fairly new finding, so research is limited at this point.

Radix Cyathulae (100 mg)
This herb has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for thousands of years. As I understand it, it mainly functions as an antioxidant. While this does have some implication as far as preventing muscle wasting and tissue damage, its effects are likely minimal at best.

Rhodiola Rosea (41.66 mg)
This is another very well know herb from Eastern Europe. There have been many studies confirming its anti-stress and stimulant properties. It is easy to see why both of these actions would be useful to the average worn-down lifter. The active ingredient is salidroside, but at only 5% of 41 mg, it is unlikely that you will feel any noticeably different from this chemical as the dose is somewhat low.

Ashwagandha (277.6 mg)
Ashwagandha is another lab proven chemical that is known to boost both endurance and cardiovascular function. It was shown to increase swimming time in rats in physical working capacity tests, and those receiving the Ashwagandha had a marked increase in heart and liver weight. This is a solid herb and will likely boost performance over the long term as it is more appropriately dosed than some of the other ingredients.

Ionol (83.33 mg)
Ionol is a commercially available antioxidant. Antioxidants are thought to protect the various cells in the body (including muscle cells) from damage by free radicals that are constantly being generated by the body as part of its normal metabolism. I'm very pro-antioxidant. Though you could probably get more antioxidants from a bowl of vegetables that in these pills, it is comforting to know they have included so many proven ones.

Super 6 Anabolic Cocktail (187.88 mg)
Ah, yes. The "Super Anabolic Cocktail". I have no way of knowing what is in this magical, patent-pending cocktail of wonders. The only clues from the bottle are that it includes 6-Methyluracil and 6-keto diosgenin. I know that Methyluracil is yet another antioxidant included in this horse pill and I believe that 6-keto diosgenin is either a very closely related sterol to Ecdysterone, or simply a variation of it. Either way it is a safe bet to expect it to have the same effects.

All in all this seems like a pretty good supplement. Most of the herbal ingredients are just antioxidants (not that that's a bad thing) and you get about a 100 mgs of testosterone-like plant sterol which, if the sterol is anywhere near as effective as actual testosterone, would likely produce some noticeable strength and muscle gains as well as a general decrease in body fat.

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