Ep. #777: Can Alpha-GPC Make You Stronger and Smarter?

Hello and welcome to Muscle for Life. I’m Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to learn about one of my favorite supplements, one of the rising stars of the supplement space, and that is Alpha G P C, which is in a couple of my products. It’s in my pre-workout. Pulse, it’s in my neotropic ascend, and it has promise.

Both as an athletic performance enhancer and a cognitive booster and cognitive preserver. Future evidence could indicate that this is the thing you want to give to your mom to help her stave off cognitive decline when she. Older and also slip into your pre-workout to go hit a new pr. Another thing I really like about Alpha GC is its safety, its lack of side effects, how effective it is and how well tolerated it is.

And if you are interested in its neotropic effects, it’s brain boosting effects in particular, then that should be music to your ears. Because a lot of the stuff that people take to try to enhance their cognition, Comes with unwanted side effects, especially if you try to stack multiple neutropics. I’ve experienced that myself, and I’ve stuck to just the natural stuff.

I haven’t messed with any of the drugs, and even a handful of the common natural products taken to enhance cognition made me feel. Off. I started to have strange dreams, uh, regular nightmares, which I basically never have normally. And I was experiencing, not anxiety, but I was feeling a bit higher strung than usual.

It was harder for me to focus, harder for me to relax, which of course made my work harder, and that was the opposite of what I was trying to. And so I stopped my little nootropic experiment there, and that is a, a good example of why the kitchen sink approach to supplementation is generally not a good idea.

There are a lot of products out on the market now that have a lot. Of ingredients and some of these products I’ve come across I know are expensive to make. I know that people are actually not trying to cut corners on their budget. They just don’t know what they’re doing with their formulations, and they are throwing everything that could possibly improve physical performance.

In the case of pre-workouts, including in. That may be showing some promise in initial research, maybe in uh, animal research, but which have not been born out in human research. Ah, it might do something, throw it in. And there are neurotropics out there that I’ve seen, including some popular ones that have long labels, lots of ingredients, and some of those ingredients have been proven to.

Boost cognition in humans. Some of them have not. Some of them are very speculative, and when you do that with a neotropic in particular, and you start messing with brain chemistry, if you don’t know what you’re doing, the kitchen sink approach can cause unwanted synergisms. Between ingredients or conflicting mechanisms and counterintuitively, then you can have a formulation where each ingredient may have good evidence for efficacy, but not if you combine them all together or not, if you combine certain ingredients together.

And so sometimes fewer ingredients. In a product is actually going to produce better results. Anyway, let’s end that tangent and get back on topic Alpha GC and why you should consider getting some to see if you can’t push a little bit harder in the gym without any of the unwanted side effects associated with.

Stimulants. Also, if you like what I am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you, is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world, and we’re on top. Because every ingredient and dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research.

Every formulation is 100% transparent. There are no proprietary blends, for example, and everything is naturally sweetened and flavored. So that means no artificial sweeteners, no artificial food dies, which may not be as dangerous as some people would have you believe. But there is good evidence to suggest that having many servings of artificial sweeteners, in particular every day for long periods of time may not be the best for your health.

So while you don’t need pills, powders, and potions to get into great shape, and frankly, most of them are virtually useless, there are natural ingredients that can help you lose fat, build muscle, and get healthy faster, and you will find the best of them in legions products. To check out everything we have to offer, including protein powders and bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more.

Head over to buy legion.com/mike. That’s B U Y L E G I O n.com/mike. And just to show you how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code M F L checkout and you will save 20% on your entire first. All right, so what is this stuff? What is Alpha gc? Well, that is the short way of saying alpha glycerine phosphocoline, and that is the combination of the nutrient choline and the molecule glycerine.

Phosphate. And it should be mentioned that while choline is a nutrient, that’s not an essential vitamin and mineral, it is found. Foods mostly in meat products, and it’s essential for optimal organ function. It is very good for your brain. For example, if you have ever heard of methylation, maybe when looking at folic acid or or B12 supplements, choline is a big player in that process, and choline as a dietary supplement is found in different forms.

You have some forms that are used as health promoting molecules. Choline by TAR trait. And then you have something like C D P choline, which is usually designed with cognitive benefits in mind. And Alpha GC is also one of these choline related supplements that is often promoted as a brain booster and a workout enhancer or a physical performance enhance.

And C D P choline and alpha g c are molecules that can reach the brain tissue after oral ingestion. A lot of things can’t do that. They can’t pass the blood-brain barrier. Now, what happens when this Alpha GPC molecule gets to the brain? The C D P choline molecule also does the same thing, but I’m just gonna focus on Alpha gpc because.

Is what this episode is all about. Well, what happens is it’s a choline delivery agent, right? And so it helps the body then produce more of a neurotransmitter that requires choline called a settle choline. And that chemical is a major player in learning and memory and is the most important neurotransmitter for muscle contract.

Now, I mentioned a couple of minutes ago that Alpha GC is choline and glycerine phosphate. Now, gly phosphate is a component of cell membranes, but it’s not very well studied as a dietary supplement, so we’re not sure if it has benefits unto itself. We know that it is not bad. For the brain. It is not bad to ingest orally, but we don’t know if it contributes much or anything at all.

Similar to the malic acid in Citraline malate, there is a little bit of evidence that it alone may have performance enhancing effects, but it. Mostly just a question mark. We know the citraline is good and we know that Citraline Malate works that form of citraline combined with malic acid, but we don’t know if the malic acid is helping or not.

So similar here with Alpha gc, we know the choline is good and it does good things when it gets into the brain. The e glycerin phosphate, we don’t know. Okay, so Alpha gpc, we can think of it as a choline delivery agent. An effective way to get choline into the brain better than if we were to just take choline as a supplement or if we were to eat choline containing foods.

And it comes with this other little good lyce phosphate, which may or may not do something as well. So what are the benefits of supplementing with Alpha G P C? Well, it’s interesting because a lot of the research that we have on it is with animals and it’s in vitro research, and there’s not much in vivo in living organisms.

Human research, which is what we need to really. Whether something is worth taking or not, because while we share most of the DNA with rats, for example, we are not big rats. Things that have positive effects in rats don’t necessarily pan out in humans. Look at the most popular weight loss supplement of all time.

For example, garnia Kimbo. That is great for helping rats get shredded, but not humans. It does not work in us. That said, there is enough human in vivo research to warrant Alpha GPCs use and its inclusion in different types of supplements, primarily pre-workout and brain boosting neotropic supplements. So why, well, let’s start with.

Power output. So the first evidence that Alpha gc, at least the first evidence that I know of that Alpha GC can increase power output was a study. It was a poster presentation that showed a 14% increase in power output assessed by bench throws, which are basically bench presses, barbell bench presses with no weight, where you press the bar up explosively and you actually throw it.

So you release the bar from your hands and then you catch it and you bring it back down. And that was. Interesting. And that was kind of creative because throwing a barbell is similar to a bench press. If we load weight and we lift explosively, which is what we should be doing, that is a very similar type of movement.

But then there was another study. That found a benefit to strength. And in that case, they were using 600 milligrams of Alpha gc. And after a week of supplementation, the improvements were seen. Uh, and they were assessed by isometric mid thigh poles, which is a strength test that’s similar to like locking out on a deadlift.

And then, That was later expanded on in another study where the researchers compared 250 milligrams of Alpha GC to 500 milligrams and they used caffeine and placebo as controls. And they found, surprisingly that 250 milligrams of Alpha GC every day was better at increasing power and velocity compared to the placebo once again using isometric mid thigh poles among other tests.

So while the evidence is limited, it’s also encouraging for us meat heads who like to bang weights. Because of how the studies were designed, they did not use windgate tests for power. They did not use cycling tests basically for power. That’s usually how power is assessed. I studies instead, the methods are more relevant to those of us who lift weights, and also the benefit came pretty quickly.

It only took about a week of use of Alpha GC to produce those benefits.

If you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you, is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. Now, what about the cognitive side of Alpha gc? What does that look like?

Well, that one is even less cut and dried because the research on Alpha GC and cognitive effects has revolved around aging. And this was first seen in age rats. Where Alpha GPC was able to restore the structure of damaged neurons and revitalized choline signaling. And the reason scientists thought that that may be able to help us humans is the likely mechanism was increasing phospholipid synthesis in neurons, which are what the membranes of the cells are made up of.

And since Alzheimer’s and dementia are associated with, Phospholipid synthesis scientists figured, Hey, this could be a beneficial supplement. And human studies have noted that very high doses of Alpha G P C, so we’re talking about 400 milligrams three times per day, so 1.2 grams per day have been able to reduce symptoms of Alzheimer’s after six months.

And that’s really it, which is disappointing given the potential that Alpha GC has shown. There’s another study that showed that that 1200 milligrams per day was able to help improve the rate of mental recovery after a stroke, but there is not much research on the topic. That said, it is reasonable to assume or at least hypothesize that an Alpha G P C supple.

Could increase cognition in those of us who are not elderly and who do not have some sort of disease. And the reason for that is that aceto choline, which again, aceto choline levels go up when you take Alpha G P C. It plays a very important role in different brain functions. Like I mentioned, learning and memory and overall brain health.

And so if you take Alpha G P C regularly, it may be able to improve the function and the health of your brain. Again, the evidence is not there. Of course, there is not evidence to say that. That is not the case. But given the mechanisms that are in play, I would not be surprised if one day we have good scientific evidence of that being the case.

So Alpha GPCs, most reliable benefits are going to be related to power production, and that’s great for those of us who like being strong in the gym. It also may improve the function in the health of our brain. Now there is another benefit. Often promoted to sell Alpha GC that I want to talk quickly about, and that is related to growth hormone.

Alpha GC is often recommended as a way to increase growth hormone levels, which is supposed to help you gain muscle faster, supposed to help you burn fat faster, supposed to have anti-aging effects. And here’s the. There are a couple of studies that show that Alpha GPC can do this. There is one where 600 milligrams taken before a workout was able to boost the exercise-induced growth hormone release, and a thousand milligrams have been seen to increase growth hormone levels even without.

Exercise. So technically, I suppose, yeah, taking Alpha GC is going to increase growth hormone secretion in your body, but that doesn’t mean that anything meaningful is going to happen in your body. For example, growth hormone has been seen to increase in the short term, so we’re talking about two hours or less.

When you take many different types of supplements, including L Arginine, L Citraline, even creatine, and some of those have even reduced. Growth hormone levels acutely like L arginine, creatine, , cool paradoxical results, but none of those changes in growth hormone levels are going to lead to more muscle growth or faster fat loss.

And that is true of the arginine, the citraline, the creatine, and the alpha gpc, because we’re talking about very. And relatively small increases. If you want to boost your growth hormone levels and you want to actually get real benefits from boosting your growth hormone levels, you need to be increasing them basically 24 7.

I mean, not literally, but you have to do a lot more than just a single, slightly larger pulse. Here and there, and none of the supplements, including Alpha GC, have any 24 hour data on them, only for single pulses that are too short to matter. It’s just not enough extra juice to make a difference. And that, by the way, is why Legion doesn’t make.

A hormone boosting supplement. I mean, we have D H E A in a supplement called Vitality, and that can increase testosterone production in older men in estrogen production in older women. But it is not sold as a testosterone or an estrogen booster. The best case scenario is it helps. Optimize your hormone profile if you are middle-aged, if you are 40 plus, and if your testosterone or your estrogen, if you’re a woman, uh, levels are low.

Now, if I was purely in this for the scratch, I could put together a testosterone booster, a formulation for that, and I could put some ingredients in there and show some research that would back them up. Like for example, de aspartic acid for raising testosterone levels. There is some research. Can do that.

But what I wouldn’t mention is that the effects are gone within a couple of weeks. So if you want to have slightly higher testosterone levels for a couple of weeks, de aspartic acid may work. It also may not work because that is the nature of natural supplements. Some people respond well, some people respond poorly.

Some people don’t respond at all. But even if you do respond well to Dias, Acid, the effects are going to be gone within a couple of weeks, and I can attest to that. I tried the aspartic acid years ago when I first heard about it, and my experience was right in line with the research for a couple of weeks.

I noticed a little bit more energy, a little bit better sleep, a little bit more sex drive, and then. It was gone, but of course I wouldn’t mention any of that. If I was trying to sell you on my test booster, 9,000, I would simply talk about de aspartic acid. I would share a couple of studies showing that it increases testosterone levels, and I would hope that none of you really looked into the details and noticed that it is short-lived.

And I could find a couple of other ingredients that I could massage in the same way. And so the same thing would go for growth hormone. If I were a shady pill and powder pusher, I would put alpha GC in my growth hormone booster. I would pixie dust it though because the stuff is very expensive. I would not put the hundreds of milligrams, if not a thousand milligrams per serving, needed to replicate the research that I would cite.

I would come up with a proprietary blend, of course, put some Alpha GPC in there, reference a couple of studies, and again, hope that you don’t really look into it and question the value of one small. Increase in growth hormone production, uh, that lasts maybe an hour or two. So that’s it for Alpha G P C for now.

I hope there is more research that is done on this in the future because it is one of the more promising under-researched molecules. In the sports nutrition space that we see in a lot of products, that has gained enough popularity that people go looking for it. So hopefully there is more funding in the future.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to provide some of that funding. That would be cool. Anyway, if you want to give it a go and see if it can help you in your training and maybe. Give you a little bit of a cognitive boost as well. Then 250 milligrams to 500 milligrams per day is enough for both of those things.

That’s in line with the research. And as far as individual products, you of course can buy it as a standalone supplement. You can buy it, uh, as pills. You can buy it as a powder if you want to get out your little itty bitty measuring cups, or your very fancy measuring scale, or you can buy. a pre-workout with it.

My pre-workout Pulse has Alpha gpc 250 milligrams per serving. You can find that [email protected]. And my neotropic, which is called Ascend, also has Alpha GPC in it. If you don’t want to do pre-workout, I should also mention that Pulse comes both with and without caffeine. So if you are sensitive to caffeine or if you’re like me and you prefer to get your caffeine from Espresso, you can just take the caffeine free.

Of Pulse, which has the Alpha gc and you can also find Alpha GC in my Neotropic Ascend, which has 300 milligrams per serving, as well as several other ingredients that improve brain health and function. And what’s cool is you can take both, you can take Pulse and. Ascend and not blow yourself up with too much alpha GC together.

That’s 550 milligrams per day, which is again, perfectly in line with the research that we have on Alpha GC use. All right. Well, that’s it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don’t mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or.

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And that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.