I was reading the forum yesterday and came across a post where somebody mentioned that they had heard that smoking DMT can increase your muscle mass. This seemed unlikely to me but still interesting enough to do some reading into and I found quite an interesting study that I felt was worth sharing.

It is part of the research carried out by Dr. Richard Strassman and discusses the effects of DMT on the human endocrine system. The research found that DMT stimulates the production of human growth hormone and cortisol amongst other hormones.

Human growth hormone is of course used as a performance enhancing supplement by athletes and is widely accepted to have a positive impact on fat and protein metabolism and muscle formation along with other alleged benefits such as slowing down the ageing process.

While reading into the long term effects of DMT usage I read an article where a south american tribesman was investigated after a lifetime of ayahuasca use and one of the observations was that he looked incredibly young for his age. This could just be coincidence of course or could it be that elevated levels of HGH have made him age better.

Also the secretion of cortisol controlled by the pineal gland serves to increase blood sugar and aid in the metabolism of stored fats which has obvious benefits to exercise and body building.

Another interesting coincidence is that one of the negative side effects of increased amounts of HGH in the system is abnormal bone growth, such as an oversized jaw and fingers, (exactly like jaws in that bond film, minus the metal teeth of course). Cortisol has a mechanism for inhibiting the formation of bone which would possibly work against the runaway bone growth caused by an excess of HGH in the system.

Not at all what I expected to find but quite interesting I thought!

A summary of the studies findings can be found at the web page linked below

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8297216

That's pretty interesting, I'd imagine you would need to smoke decent amounts on regular occasions to notice any effects though.

I workout regularly and do find myself more motivated if I've smoked dmt recently.

I also work out a fair bit and use a cycle to get around and I hadn't been on a ride for a while, I found that I had a great deal more stamina and was no where near as tired as i normally would be when I got where I was going and I have smoked quite a bit over the last few days.

I have been reading a bit on the role HGH plays under normal conditions and its concentration in the blood varies greatly over the course of the day in a kind of cycle. perhaps more of an impact would be felt if a dose were taken during the correct part of the cycle where concentration is intended to be high. Similarly I wonder if smoking during the wrong part of the cycle might upset your metabolism in some way.

Maybe a very low oral dose combined with an MAOI before workout might be interesting? although some reading into strenuous activity while using MAOI would need to be done first methinks.

Has anyone else noticed that they can work out better around the time of having smoked? if so do you remember how soon before it was when you worked out and what time of day it was etc?

I was actually pondering on that whole elevated HGH levels idea the other day and how that may affect things. As far as the shaman who looked young for his age, that's an interesting theory, but another theory to go with it could be that
A) He's in the jungle so he's naturally getting exercise everyday
B) As a spiritually secure person, he'd probably be apt at dealing with stresses throughout his life, and as a result, he may not have aged as much as irritable western folk.

There's usually a period during most aya/pharma experiences (usually right after the immense sleepy phase) where I feel like doing some physical activity like push ups or running or what not, but I never do cause I feel like it'll just ruin the trip.

Good points global, there are many different factors to consider, frequent vomiting has been connected with being good for your skin and body because it is said to remove undesirables sitting in your digestive system so that my have helped his youthful appearance. Similarly though being exposed to intense sunlight ages your skin drastically. So for a man who is exposed to south american sun every day to look young is impressive. Youthful appearance aside the performance enhancing characteristics of cortisol and HGH are well understood and DMT, according to strassmans body of research, causes the pituitary gland to release these hormones in greater quantity. Which is interesting as i understand HGH is very expensive and difficult to obtain, if DMT produces it endogenously in comparable quantities then that would be most interesting. I want to find a way of testing for HGH with a view to conducting some kind of study but I cant find anything anywhere and biology and medical science really isn't my field....

I dunno about this whole idea about sunlight aging the skin drastically. I never ever use sunscreen becasue I think it is toxic and I spend hours in the hot sun all the time with only shorts on skimboarding and everyone says I look way younger than I am.

People are afraid of the sun I find and hide from it with sunglasses and sunscreen. Sunlight is important and makes us healthier and more radiant.

Getting proper sunlight durring the day also improves seratonin/melatonin cycles.

Early morning sunlight or late afternoon, definitely, frac, but mid-day summer sun, no way, specially if you're anywhere near the tropics and do it on a regular basis. Just wait some years before you make conclusion about how sun affects your skin, you're still young.

I dont like passing sunscreen either (though there are natural ones), also because they polute a lot, but its easy enough to avoid the sun at peak times.

As for DMT side effects, interesting OP, I definitely feel like more energetic the next day after vaporizing/taking aya, but I dont know about muscle growth. One thing I definitely notice as an unexpected beneficial side effect of dmt is cleared sinus/lungs. Sometimes I blow my nose or spit some stuff out and its like im renewed

Every time you go outside your DNA is damaged by light from the sun. Thankfully we have repair systems to fix pyrimidine dimers.


Sun is good in moderation, just like everything else.

Growth hormone's effects on aging are disputed.[link]
Cortisol's benefits are not obvious to me Was under the impression that stress=>cortisol=>fat. Could you share a link?


Only minimal dosing for benefits!? Like it flips a switch somewhere... Very interesting indeed!

From the time I was 3-18, I received HGH injections (I was short for my age, but one of my doctors didn't think I needed it). I was never very physically active so I never really got muscle growth (and at the time, I hadn't heard of athletes using it). I always wondered what kind of side effects were going on though. I hit puberty earlier than most, conversely people often think I'm younger than I am, and I have an incredibly efficient metabolism (I can and sometimes do eat just as much as some of my obese, but I'm around 100lbs lighter). I seem virtually incapable of gaining/losing weight (except when I went on a pharma/aya-taking spree....I think the fasts/purges caused me to lose weight that I can't gain back).



I believe the same is for melatonin. To receive any kind of effects, they recommend you do less.