You may have heard of Human Growth Hormone injections, which doctors use to treat various illnesses and conditions when humans are lacking in growth hormone. Athletes also use it for its performance benefits, and because it’s harder to detect in testing than anabolic steroids are. Athletes are typically the only ones who can afford it without it being medically prescribed as it’s outrageously expensive. Enter MK 677, a new product still being researched as a growth hormone secretagogue. It’s not quite like injecting HGH, first of all because it’s oral vs. injectable, but more importantly, because what it does is tell your body to produce more growth hormone, as opposed to actually being growth hormone itself.
Of all the benefits of higher growth hormone levels, and there are many, the one I’m most interested in is the seeming correlation between higher levels of growth hormone with lower levels of sex hormone binding globulin. If you’ve been following my endocrine saga– which has become all consuming since causally deciding to just test my hormone levels to see where they were–you’ll know I have quite high levels of SHBG which is fairly typical for the aging male, and results in lower free testosterone. I did all the research I could on MK 677 and finally bought some. Don’t concern yourselves; it’s perfectly legal to purchase and own. No prescription necessary.
I started it yesterday, using a fairly low dose of 15 MG to see how I would react to it. The most immediately noticeable effects of supplementing with it are increased hunger levels due to stimulating the grehlin hormone that tells the brain it’s hungry, and improved sleep quality. After continued usage, fat loss, more muscle mass, improved recovery from exercise, healthier hair and nails, and improved sleep quality emerge as the principle benefits. The typical dose used in research is 25 MG, so I didn’t expect to have any of the immediate impact to my hunger and sleep, but allow me to share some remarkable results from just one little pill.
Faithful Readers know I purchased and use an Oura ring to monitor my body temperature, respiration rate and heart rate while I sleep, as a kind of canary in the coal mine to indicate I may be getting sick. It also provides an impressive array of other measures regarding sleep quality and I typically don’t get enough REM sleep, or Deep Sleep, and tend to have restless nights.
Here’s a typical result from an average night of sleep:
That’s a fairly typical night’s sleep and it’s overall impact on my “readiness” for the day ahead, There are things you can do to improve sleep quality–limit caffeine especially late in the day, go to bed at the same time every day, use blackout curtains, take melantonin–and I do them all. But you can only impact your REM and Deep sleep so much.
Here’s last night’s data after my very first MK dose:
It’s literally the first time since using my Oura ring in June of 2020 that I’ve had both REM and Deep sleep in the Green. Can you imagine if this continues? Can you imagine the impact this improved sleep quality will have on my life? I can, and I’m excited to bring it on.
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