955 replies to this topic

[judge]

Hi, can you please tell us more about your baking soda protocol? I'm on 500mgx2/day Metformin, 6mg Rapa weekly. My blood CO2 went down below the normal range recently. My hematocrit also went up as high as 52.7, indicating acidosis and hypoxia. I started taking B complex vitamins after watching the video below (was supplementing with B12 already). Also ordered baking soda, but haven't been using regularly as I wasn't sure if it'd work. Thanks! 

Pretty sim[le really, tons of research on it.  I used it in sports when I was younger, still do when i work in the field or in the yard on hot days/

 

  google: "soda doping"  some sports forums should pop up.

 

I take 1/2 teaspoon mixed in a glass of water until clear first thing almost every morning on an empty stomach.  I do this to counter act the acid from the 4 or 5 cups of coffee I drink  lol

 

For colds or flu I take 1/2 teaspoon mixed with water 4 times a day up  to 2 weeks

 

for sore muscles and lactic acid build up i take a little more maybe 3/4 teaspoon one time before bed and feel great in the morning. 

 

For endurance take about 3/4 teaspoon 1/2 an hour before work out, gives up to 10% more endurance!

 

 

[Starchild]

Can someone illuminate me about an appropriate Rapamycin dose for humans? I'm suspecting 5-10mg/week is woefully inadequate. Some data points below.

 

Daily dose

In mice, 14 ppm (∼2.24 mg/kg/day) results in ~10% life extension. 42ppm results in ~25% life extension. [1]

 

Intermittent dose

Intermittent rapamycin (2 mg/kg i.p. ---injections--- every five days) starting with 20-month-old mice increases mean lifespan by 13% and median lifespan by 7%, without affecting glucose or insulin tolerance. [2] Oral bioavailability of Rapa, 18% (tablet), higher with high-fat meals. I.e. only 1/5 of Rapa you ingest goes into your blood (to compare with injections).

 

Some math:

Typical human (male) = 80kg

2.24 * 80 = 179 mg/day. (Taking 14ppm as a baseline)

If one does surface volume scaling (12.3) as explained in [3], humans need to take 179/12.3 = 15mg daily! 

If you believe mice metabolism is 40x faster (they live ~2yrs vs human's ~80 yrs), we need to take 179/40 = 4mg daily!

Mind you optimal mice dose wasn't 14ppm, it's 42ppm. Which will bring in another 3x. 
 

Are we fooling ourselves thinking 5-10mg/week Rapa will extend life? Are the so-called side effects of Rapa actually *effects*? I.e. no side effects no life extension benefit?

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

References: 

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC4401992/

[2] https://thelri.org/b...-news/rapalogs/

[3] Mice oral dose to human equivalent: https://www.research..._to_animal_dose

 

Edited by Starchild, 24 October 2020 - 04:11 PM.

[PAMPAGUY]

 

Can someone illuminate me about an appropriate Rapamycin dose for humans? I'm suspecting 5-10mg/week is woefully inadequate. Some data points below.

 

Daily dose

In mice, 14 ppm (∼2.24 mg/kg/day) results in ~10% life extension. 42ppm results in ~25% life extension. [1]

 

Intermittent dose

Intermittent rapamycin (2 mg/kg i.p. ---injections--- every five days) starting with 20-month-old mice increases mean lifespan by 13% and median lifespan by 7%, without affecting glucose or insulin tolerance. [2] Oral bioavailability of Rapa, 18% (tablet), higher with high-fat meals. I.e. only 1/5 of Rapa you ingest goes into your blood (to compare with injections).

 

Some math:

Typical human (male) = 80kg

2.24 * 80 = 179 mg/day. (Taking 14ppm as a baseline)

If one does surface volume scaling (12.3) as explained in [3], humans need to take 179/12.3 = 15mg daily! 

If you believe mice metabolism is 40x faster (they live ~2yrs vs human's ~80 yrs), we need to take 179/40 = 4mg daily!

Mind you optimal mice dose wasn't 14ppm, it's 42ppm. Which will bring in another 3x. 
 

Are we fooling ourselves thinking 5-10mg/week Rapa will extend life? Are the so-called side effects of Rapa actually *effects*? I.e. no side effects no life extension benefit?

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

References: 

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC4401992/

[2] https://thelri.org/b...-news/rapalogs/

[3] Mice oral dose to human equivalent: https://www.research..._to_animal_dose

 

 

[PAMPAGUY]

You are over thinking this.  The Godfather of Rapamycin has already done all the work for you. Dr. Mikhail V. Blagosklonny  He know 10 times more about Rapa than any of us.  He takes 10mg. weekly, and has written this article which discusses the dosing of humans.  He also is on Twitter, and you can following his advise at any time.    

https://www.aging-us...cle/102355/text

 

[Starchild]

Re: Dr. Mikhail V. Blagosklonny, Dr Green etc..

 

Yes, I do follow them. But I'm looking for some confirmation that the dose I'm taking is meaningful (6-9mg/week). I haven't seen their dose recommendation approved by folks like Matt Kaeberlein, Nir Barzalai etc. 

 

There's also a school of thought which suggests taking 20-35mg weekly in a single dose. Discussion in earlier pages. I examined, and found that to be more consistent with mice experiments.  

[PAMPAGUY]

I have taken 30 mg at one time, and waited 15 days for the next dose.  You don't wait for the trough level there are going to be more side-effects than you can imagine.  You can do this also, instead of weekly doses. There is a school of thought that the "Chronic Spike" can get past the blood/brain barrier in the brain, in order to get the maximum longevity benefits.  There have been rat studies where they reset the weight set point in the brain doing very high doses to get the Spike.  Mannick tracked the amount of rapa inhibition in the blood per dose in her breakthrough trial.  At 5 mg weekly, there was a marked improvement in the elderly immune response to a flu vaccine.  (which does not happen in the elderly) At the 20 mg weekly dose, many side effects. Trial was only 6 weeks. They have been working on Pan inhibitors that inhibit Tor1, and not Tor2, but not ready for market yet, and will be expensive. (you can block Tor1 at higher dose without worrying about Tor2 side effects)  You can only block Tor1 just so much.  We need some signal to live.  We can only work with what we have.  You can of course, experiment on yourself, and if still alive, report back to us.

Edited by PAMPAGUY, 24 October 2020 - 06:11 PM.

[Guest]

 

You are over thinking this.  The Godfather of Rapamycin has already done all the work for you. Dr. Mikhail V. Blagosklonny  He know 10 times more about Rapa than any of us.  He takes 10mg. weekly, and has written this article which discusses the dosing of humans.  He also is on Twitter, and you can following his advise at any time.    

https://www.aging-us...cle/102355/text

 

 

 

Even being the godfather doesn't absolve him from using actual evidence for his claims. And prophets of the god should be careful not to over-interpret his scripture.

 

 

Case in point:

 

nowhere in the article does he address the question of translating the very high dosing in mice to humans

 

 

The life-extension reputation of rapamycin is based on studies in mice. Studies that if scaled to humans deliver a much higher dose than 10 mg once every 7 days. And the mice studies demonstrate that dosing does matter: the lower the dose - the lower the lifespan effect.

 

Therefore it is valid to ask, what the actual evidence is for using 5 mg or 10 mg every sunday, instead of the more proportional 10 mg to 40 mg every day that are implied in the studies.

[Starchild]

Thank you, Guest! I couldn't have said it better myself. 

 

Re: Effects vs Side effects. Consider this.

 

1) We know that Immune disfunction is a major hallmark of aging. As we age, immune system goes into overdrive (high WBC count). It almost gets into a mode of auto-immunity; immune cells attacking your body. I was checking out this blood marker the other day. It's called ANA (Antinuclear Antibody) Blood Test. I was reading that it comes back positive for 1/3 of senior adults! W/o any obvious physical manifestation of autoimmune disease! From animal studies, we know that several anti-inflammatories extend life with mice, fruit fly, worms etc. Aspirin, NSAIDs and similar. The lesson being: we do need to shut down parts of our immunity as we age to live longer. 

 

This begs the question: How much of the life extension benefit of Rapamycin is from immunosupression? If you're getting zero immunosupression (as evidenced by unchanged WBC), are you still getting the life extension benefit?

 

2) Significant CR puts body into starvation mode. You get things like elevated blood sugar. Even keto diet does the same, long term (been there). 

 

Follow up question: If you aren't seeing any effects of your body going into starvation mode (such as elevated FBG), are you still getting the life extension benefit?

 

I think question #2 has been answered in literature. You can still extend life in mice ~10% w/o FBG increase thru intermittent dosing. But it's unclear if you can extend it ~25% w/o affecting FBG. 

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Reference:

Antinuclear antibody levels tend to increase with age. As many as one-third of healthy adults over the age of 65 may have a positive ANA test result. 

https://medlineplus....-antibody-test/

Edited by Starchild, 25 October 2020 - 01:07 AM.

[PAMPAGUY]

Even being the godfather doesn't absolve him from using actual evidence for his claims. And prophets of the god should be careful not to over-interpret his scripture.

 

 

Case in point:

 

nowhere in the article does he address the question of translating the very high dosing in mice to humans

 

 

The life-extension reputation of rapamycin is based on studies in mice. Studies that if scaled to humans deliver a much higher dose than 10 mg once every 7 days. And the mice studies demonstrate that dosing does matter: the lower the dose - the lower the lifespan effect.

 

Therefore it is valid to ask, what the actual evidence is for using 5 mg or 10 mg every sunday, instead of the more proportional 10 mg to 40 mg every day that are implied in the studies.

Focus on human studies and there are a few.  Forget the mice, very difficult to convert.  There is a scale that does convert all of this, you just have not looked for it.

[Guest]

Unfortunately there are no human studies that look at mortality data - e.g. prospective cohort studies in the general population or RCTs in non-organtransplant-patients.

 

These are the limits of what we are facing. There ARE those types of studies (mortality data in humans) available for other substances - metformin, aspirin, fish oil, glucosamine etc. - though not necessarily favorable or statistically sound.

 

 

Again: the only indication for life-extension that there is for rapamycin is from studies in rodents (and more primitive organisms). These very same studies demonstrate, that dosing does matter.

 

There are different scales to convert mice dosing to humans - all leading to much higher rapa intake than commonly used in people self-experimenting. It's in the range of about 10 mg to 40 mg per day (depending on the mouse study and method of scaling - and I'm aiming low; you can as well arrive at 70 mg per day for the maximum effect studies in mice).

 

If Blagosklonny got methods of scaling or studies specifically translating rapa-lifespan-dosing from mice to humans that could be helpful. I don't know of any.

 

 

 

Another method could be to look at the effect of the rapamycin dosing in mice on certain aging-associated biomarkers - and try to figure out if the effect is the same in humans. Has anyone done that analysis?

 

 

 

I myself am taking 30 mg of rapa once a month (everolimus specifically - jointly with grapefruit juice), to "kickstart" autophagy. But it's highly uncertain if that - or any other common consumption practiced - is in line with translating the mice lifespan results to people. So don't make that your main-strategy for extended health or life. Certainly don't skip your exercise or good diet "because I'm taking rapamycin"

[QuestforLife]

I myself am taking 30 mg of rapa once a month (everolimus specifically - jointly with grapefruit juice), to "kickstart" autophagy. But it's highly uncertain if that - or any other common consumption practiced - is in line with translating the mice lifespan results to people. So don't make that your main-strategy for extended health or life. Certainly don't skip your exercise or good diet "because I'm taking rapamycin"

Where did you buy Everolimus from? Thanks.

[Guest]

I bought it on unrelated trips to India and keep it refrigerated. The Indian government by decree slashed the local price of cancer drugs last year - including for everolimus. This makes it cheaper than branded rapamycin (Rapamun) in India. Pharmacies are legally required to sell only be prescription..... but nobody really cares if you're not asking for narcotics.

[smithx]

Pampaguy:

 

I asked you this before but will try again: There were claims that taking 25mg of rapamycin in one dose produced weight loss and re-set the weight set point to a lower weight. In your experience with the 30mg dosing, did you notice any such effects?

 

Thanks in advance for your reply.

 

[Researchgrounded]

A long thread, not intended as medical advice, essentially proposes ideally 20-30 mg+ (low dose=10mg).

This is only for health populations, under careful medical surveillance by their medical doctor, and provided no contraindications, side effects, lab abnormalities, or other issues.  Other caveats in the thread too.

 

It provides calculations, extrapolating from mice as the basis of such theoretical translation to ideally 20-30mg+

 

Master thread 1:

 

https://twitter.com/...159741776203778

 

Master thread 2: 

 

https://twitter.com/...948171095433217

 

Combined overview with links: 

https://twitter.com/...4904307712?s=20

 

You need to keep clicking "more replies" at the bottom to progressively reveal more of the thread

[Guest]

A long thread, not intended as medical advice, essentially proposes ideally 20-30 mg+ (low dose=10mg).

This is only for health populations, under careful medical surveillance by their medical doctor, and provided no contraindications, side effects, lab abnormalities, or other issues.  Other caveats in the thread too.

 

It provides calculations, extrapolating from mice as the basis of such theoretical translation to ideally 20-30mg+

 

Master thread 1:

 

https://twitter.com/...159741776203778

 

Master thread 2: 

 

https://twitter.com/...948171095433217

 

Combined overview with links: 

https://twitter.com/...4904307712?s=20

 

You need to keep clicking "more replies" at the bottom to progressively reveal more of the thread

 

Thanks for the effort. There is only one user - "Agingdoc1" - who is doing some actual discussion. He is also pointing at the disconnect of translating the mice dosing to humans - arriving at much higher and daily dosing. The reasoning for low dose, once every couple days provided is possible side effects of sustained high doses as used in mice.

 

So the 10 mg every sunday (instead of 10 mg to 40 mg every day) is not based on aiming at the life-extension effects seen in mice. It's rather based on minimizing possible side effects - even if this means heavily compromising the lifespan benefits seen in mice by using vastly smaller dosing.

 

 

 

 

Again, I'm not precluding that there might be benefits from intermittent intake of small amounts (10 mg) of rapamycin. But I'd like to see some data for that, as it clearly isn't derived from the mice studies. So: is there data available of the effects of Rapa-intake on aging-related biomarkers in humans? And does this compare favorably to the same biomarkers in mice?

[PAMPAGUY]

Pampaguy:

 

I asked you this before but will try again: There were claims that taking 25mg of rapamycin in one dose produced weight loss and re-set the weight set point to a lower weight. In your experience with the 30mg dosing, did you notice any such effects?

 

Thanks in advance for your reply.

 

I tried it a few times with very limited success for me personally. Doesn't hurt anyone to try.  What I have had great success with is taking Metformin with Rapa and combined with a Keto diet. (almost all meat and fish)  All three together really work for me.  As blood sugar levels drop, appetite also drops.  Meat is also very filling.  I follow Dr. B on twitter and that is his formula also.  I have lost 30 lbs on that combination.  71", 165 lbs.  I also know I could go lower without a problem because I'm in control of my appetite.  Started out with 500 mg in morning, later went to another 500 mg  at night, and eventually added 1000 mg. around 1-3 in afternoon.  2000 mg is max effective dose from what I have read.  Have also read that the extended release works even better, but I live in Spain and the ER is not available.  Metformin kills appetite, takes about a month on the 2,000 mg dose to really feel effects.  Metformin is also very cheap and is a mild Tor1 inhibitor. Hope this helps

[smithx]

In looking to see what support there might be for Blagosklonny taking 10mg/wk of rapamycin, I looked through his twitter and found that his only justification seems to be that he doesn't experience side-effects at that dose, which seems like a not very great justification:

https://twitter.com/...392481317384198

 

I then came across this rather disturbing article (including a letter from Blagosklonny's lawyer) basically saying that his journal Oncotarget, which was apparently de-listed from PubMed for being un-trustworthy, is actually something of a fraudulent operation:

https://forbettersci...target-or-else/

 

I don't think that any of this discredits rapamycin as a good anti-aging treatment, but based on all of this I'd prefer to see independent research from someone other than him.

Edited by smithx, 26 October 2020 - 05:43 AM.

[Researchgrounded]

On Blagosklonny’s dose 10 mg weekly is arbitrary and he seems to know that. In fact, he has said before highest tolerable dose may be best. There’s of course a lot more to that - tolerable may mean biomarkers, symptoms - or personal risk, the last of which is hardest to appraise. Though rapamycin is probably more of an immumodulator that in some situations can enhance immunity, in other situations and doses it may lower immunity - or both, eg raise risk to one infectious agent and simultaneously lower risk to another. This is very poorly understood and we only have very limited experience here, especially for intermittent dosing save for a few studies by Mannick et al with closely related everolimus (a rapalogs): best immunity at 5 mg/wk but at 20 mg/wk, it was either neutral or slightly positive/good for immunizations anyway. Everolimus also has a shorter half life so it is eliminated faster with dosing. On the other hand while it is molecularly very closely related to rapamycin, many would still not use everolimus for such purposes (ie for unproven speculated possibility of life extension in people) even if it was very cheap because unlike rapamycin everolimus has not been tested and proven to induce life extension in mice or other mammals.

That “maximum tolerated dose”, however defined, will vary from person to person. That same @agingdoc1 Twitter thread describes an example of someone who takes rapamycin 20 mg every WEEK (some on longecity have described higher doses but less often, such as once a month) and doing great. That individual may be an anomaly or alternatively perhaps many would do well at 20 mg/wk but very few have so far since everyone has been following the footsteps of lower doses (5 mg/wk or an occasional 10 mg/wk) out of pure tradition without testing at levels that may have a lot more promise (ie, 20 mg+).

As for Blagosklonny - though he may be “underdosing” by only using 10 mg/wk rather than 20 mg+ of sirolimus, nobody knows, and calculations (such as those from the @agingdoc1 thread) are the best basis for dosing align with experience in people.

Blagosklonny has cited a lot of this. I am not aware of the details of the case you cited regarding his journal but top authors continue to publish in his journal which is promising (high impact factor which is a measure of academic prestige and involvement). Either way, the studies he has cited are legitimate, and his arguments, good or bad, should stand for their own merit. I just would not use his particular dose (or start at all for that matter, which he feels and I agree I’d started at all should only be under a prescribing professional and monitoring to at least reduce though it know doubt does not eliminate risk), just because he happens to take it for himself. There is no connection between his argument and his arbitrary dose or why a dose lower, or as we are discussing here potentially much higher might be much more appropriate for someone else.

[Starchild]

Peter Attia claims 2-6mg every 5-7 days is probably the optimal human dose (4:50). 

[Guest]

Peter Attia claims 2-6mg every 5-7 days is probably the optimal human dose (4:50). 

 

 

It would be interesting to see his detailed reasoning on that.

 

 

In that short segment he is saying, that he is basing it on studies done by Mannik, Kaeberlein and Sabatini. So is he doing some actual calculation - i.e. scaling of dosing? Is he going by parallel changes in biomarkers that occur in animal models and to similar effects in people using rapa?

 

Or is he just going by avoiding any side effect?

 

 

 

If the latter is driving the regimen - and biomarkers instead would indicate considerably more intake - it is just as likely, that he is not going to get much lifespan benefit out of it.

[Researchgrounded]

1) Joan Mannick in her study of weekly everolimus and immunity used a similar dose with low side effects. She also used 20 mg weekly but more of them had mouth sores ( which one can argue for the most part, not a big deal except in rare cases and you can always lower the dose).

2) Dr Green prescribed similar doses at the time off label ; again probably borrowing from Joan Mannick.

I have not seen a detailed analysis like seen with @agingdoc1 on Twitter translating doses in mice using the high quality ITP dosing study demonstrating life extension to around:

“10-30+ mg for people depending on Cmax/Cmin, up to weekly if tolerated.”

Edited by Researchgrounded, 28 October 2020 - 01:11 AM.

[Guest]

To make a point about biomarkers and side effects:

 

 

there is an ongoing lifespan study in marmoset monkeys; a recent update can be found here

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC6415526/

 

 

Monkeys are still not humans - but are probably as close as possible to get reasonable data to translate. The monkeys are receiving a dose of 1 mg per Kg body mass from Monday to Friday by oral intake.

 

Per this paper:

https://www.jbclinph...s-and-human.pdf

dosing can be translated (HED scaling) by dividing the linear scale by factor 6,2

 

For a 70 kg person that dose is about 11,3 mg per day - 5 days out of every 7

 

 

The monkeys are averaging a blood level of about 5 ng/mL of rapamycin.

 

In humans organ transplant patients receiving rapamycin alone for immuno-supression, a blood level of 12 to 20 ng/mL is commonly used:

https://www.mayoclin...erpretive/35144

 

The rapamycin intake to achieve that level is about 5 mg of rapamycin every day (Rapamune) - though that is in combination therapy aiming 4 to 12 ng/mL blood level. Still it means that 5 mg every day is sufficient to translate the future results of the monkey study.

 

 

 

At that dose (scaled by intake to 11,3 mg in people Monday to Friday or by blood level to 5 ng/mL) the ongoing study is not reporting any notable side effects. Strangely though it also does not report any major changes in biomarkers - blood cell count is borderline normal; inflammation markers are even unchanged. So it's going to be interesting to observe, if the study is resulting in any notable life extension.

[longévité]

 

Anyone able to obtain Rapa after the lockdowns? I reached out to four suppliers. All of them said, they can't/don't do shipments at the moment :/

(Rapamune) https://www.dropship...om/buy/rapacan/

(Rapapro) https://www.antiagin...papro-rapamycin

(Alldaychemist) https://www.alldaych...iromus-1mg.html

(Vea Impex) http://veaimpex.co.i...everolimus-5mg/

 

Any experiences with Santa Cruz Biotechnology? (www.scbt.com/p/rapamycin-53123-88-9)

 

Any Dr who's licenced to operate in California? I prefer the prescription way over the others (if anything).

 

Hi All: Is India still freezing certain pharma exports?

 

My supply of Rapamycin (Biocon Ltd. Sirolimus / Rapacan-1) I ordered from Soni at dropshipmd.com is all gone. Any recommendations besides ordering bulk powder from China on Alibaba? Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

[FrankT.Hippo]

 

Hi All: Is India still freezing certain pharma exports?

 

My supply of Rapamycin (Biocon Ltd. Sirolimus / Rapacan-1) I ordered from Soni at dropshipmd.com is all gone. Any recommendations besides ordering bulk powder from China on Alibaba? Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

 

 

I have a contact for Sirolimus and Everolimus. Message me and I will give the WhatsApp contact. 

[Andey]

Want to share a cautionary story about Chinese suppliers

I bought 2gr Rapamycin from 

Wuhan Hengheda Pharm Co., Ltd.

Contact Name: Sabrina Zhang

https://hhdpharm.en.alibaba.com/

Started to take it and noticed it doesn't give me any side effects of rapa, regardless of dosage.

So I took it around 10mg 3 days in a row and made a blood test for it. Such a test is used for controlling and adjusting rapa levels in a clinical setting.

Test result showed no detectable level of rapamycin.

The company representative stopped communicating with me immediately I brought that out.

[PAMPAGUY]

Want to share a cautionary story about Chinese suppliers

I bought 2gr Rapamycin from 

Wuhan Hengheda Pharm Co., Ltd.

Contact Name: Sabrina Zhang

https://hhdpharm.en.alibaba.com/

Started to take it and noticed it doesn't give me any side effects of rapa, regardless of dosage.

So I took it around 10mg 3 days in a row and made a blood test for it. Such a test is used for controlling and adjusting rapa levels in a clinical setting.

Test result showed no detectable level of rapamycin.

The company representative stopped communicating with me immediately I brought that out.

Alibaba guarantees that you will get your money back if you do not get the product you ordered.  If successful, the company would be barred.  Alibaba is serious about this.  Let us know.

[Andey]

Alibaba guarantees that you will get your money back if you do not get the product you ordered.  If successful, the company would be barred.  Alibaba is serious about this.  Let us know.

 

Its long past 30 days after the delivery so I dont have an option to request a refund or complain. Cant even left the review, prob coz they deleted the product listing.

Anyway, I treat it as a teacher not to trust such kinds of companies.

Edited by Andey, 03 March 2021 - 09:34 AM.

[judge]

My doctor is from China and his parents owned a hospital in China,  I asked him about buying cheap pharmaceuticals from China.  He said drug fraud is rampant in China.  I stay away from Chinese vendors

[geo12the]

My doctor is from China and his parents owned a hospital in China,  I asked him about buying cheap pharmaceuticals from China.  He said drug fraud is rampant in China.  I stay away from Chinese vendors

 

Not just pharmaceuticals, remember the melamine in powdered milk fiasco?  I have good friends from China who are permanent residents in the US whose folks regularly visit. They joke that their parents will say "can we bring you anything from China?" and they always say "NO! NO! don't bring anything!"

[smithx]

I once bought what was billed as a highly pure specific compound from a reputable-looking Chinese supplier.

 

I had it analyzed and it was a banned anabolic steroid, not what I had asked for at all. It would have been very dangerous if used as if it were the compound they claimed it was.

 

It was fairly pure, however.

 

They were probably trying to get rid of it and didn't care who got hurt as long as they made some money.