#270: Alexander Kolliari-Turner – Anabolic Steroids, Muscle Memory & Advances in Drug Testing
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 626 Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2019
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Links:
About This Episode:
Alex is currently completing a PhD at the University of Brighton in the UK, investigating the implications of RNA sequencing in the detection of anabolic steroid use and the harnessing of the molecular mechanisms of “muscle memory”. He is currently conducting research aiming to address a hypothesis that suggests that the myonuclei obtained via strength training and anabolic steroid usage are retained and therefore provide long term advantages to steroid users.
In This Episode We Discuss:
--> The mechanism of hypertrophy via myonuclei accumulation
--> Defining “muscle memory” in relation to myonuclei
--> Animal models that show myonuclei don’t dissappear after atrophy
--> Anabolic steroids activate the stem cells in muscle (satellite cells) resulting in a donation of their nuclei into muscle fibres
--> How drug testing works
--> How you prove someone has taken exogenous testosterone via T:E ratios
--> The Athlete Biological Passport
--> Thoughts on the recent Jon Jones case
--> Next generation “omic” technologies such as transcriptomics could enhance the testing protocols
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | And ultimately that seems to make sense on an evolutionary scale because if you were to accumulate muscle mass seasonly and then lose all of that muscle mass, it would make sense that you'd be easier to then |
| 0:22.6 | reacquire that muscle mass upon a second occasion, as opposed to have to reacquire that muscle mass |
| 0:28.6 | slowly through that first time route. And that's kind of makes sense that you can retain this |
| 0:33.6 | memory of my nuclei being accumulated into the muscle to enable second phases of growth |
| 0:40.3 | to be faster than first phases of growth. |
| 0:43.3 | And that would make sense on an evolutionary scale to retain that beneficial adaptation inside the muscle. Hello and welcome to Sigma Nutrition Radio. |
| 1:02.2 | I am your host, Danny Lennon. |
| 1:04.5 | We're at episode 270 of the podcast today. |
| 1:08.3 | And I'm delighted to be talking with Alex Colliery Turner, who is currently completing his |
| 1:14.5 | PhD at the University of Brighton in the UK, where he's investigating the implications of RNA |
| 1:20.0 | sequencing in the detection of anabolic steroid use and also the harnessing of the |
| 1:25.7 | molecular mechanisms of muscle memory. |
| 1:27.9 | And we're going to get into some of the concepts related to his research, and some of it really |
| 1:32.3 | is fascinating, essentially taking a look at this hypothesis that suggests that some of the |
| 1:39.3 | benefits that are obtained via strength training and anabolic steroid use. So, for example, the accumulation |
| 1:46.1 | of more myonuclei, those are retained even after steroid use is stopped and therefore providing |
| 1:53.1 | long-term benefits to steroid users. And his work is trying to see to what degree this happens |
| 1:59.1 | and essentially exploring this concept of muscle memory at a deeper |
| 2:02.7 | level. So in this conversation, we get into a ton of cool stuff from the mechanisms of hypertrophy |
| 2:09.1 | related to this myonuclear accumulation, all the way to looking at the effect of anabolic steroids, |
| 2:16.7 | then looking at drug testing protocols, |
| 2:18.7 | how they work, and then some implications for testing in the future, as well as the work |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Danny Lennon, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Danny Lennon and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.