Overview:

• Tectona grandis (teak) extract.

• Supports healthy androgen system activity in response to training.

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Duration:

24 hours

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Ingredients:

Gelatin, Tectona grandis (teak) extract (5mg/capsule), bioactive flavours

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Application:

1 capsule daily

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Legal Status:

Legal in Australia, history of use as tea

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Description:

K-507 is nature-identical to an isolated extract of the essential oil of Tectona grandis; a member of the mint family reaching heights of 30 metres tall. The leaves of the plant have a long history of use in herbal medicine among tribes of the Amazon. Screening of the hydro-alcoholic extract of Tectona grandis leaf has demonstrated support of healthy wound healing. It has been reported that Tectona grandis has healthy anti-ulcer supporting, leishmanicidal, and nitric oxide scavenging activities. Transdermal gel preparations applied to excision wound and burn wound models in rats showed those treated with Tectona grandis leaf extract had significant differences in period of epithelisation and wound contraction (50% in the incision wound model). Tectona grandis leaf extract treated rats showed significant increases in breaking strength. In a dead space wound model, Tectona grandis leaf extract showed significant increases in breaking strength, dry weight and hydroxyproline content of the granulation tissue. It has been demonstrated that Tectona grandis leaf extract topically (5% and 10% gel formulation) and orally (250 mg and 500 mg/Kg body weight whole leaf) in rats have wound healing activity, which may be due to its anti-oxidant properties (1).

Reports describe a saw mill in Panama where ecologists identified overly aggressive and masculinised rodents predating on larger, usually more aggressive species. At first it was not obvious as to what the cause for the imbalance in predator/prey interaction was and initially endocrine disruption was not considered because there were no known androgenic endocrine disruptors. An investigation into the cause of the imbalance discovered that runoff from a local sawmill filled the local feeding grounds of the rodents (and other species) with androgenic anthroquinones from saw dust in effect supplementing the prey species with androgen receptor modulators. Consider a coypu or river rat snapping up a jaguar and making it lunch (2,3,4).

K-507 has been shown to support healthy androgen system activity. Because K-507 does not contain any structural similarity to testosterone, no competitive down regulation of testosterone is expected (3). Likewise, it has no structural similarity to any of the current selective androgen receptor modualtors. K-507 has no activity at the oestrogen receptor (3).

In Australia, K-507 appears on the NICNAS database and meets Food Standard 1.3.1.

A number of related compounds have been found to be beneficial to health. These include alizarin and purpurin which are natural dye stuffs in plants (6)
 

1) Majumdar, M. (2005). Evaluation of Tectona grandis leaves for wound healing activity (Doctoral dissertation, RGUHS).

2) Howes, M. J., Houghton, P. J., Barlow, D. J., Pocock, V. J., & Milligan, S. R. (2002). Assessment of estrogenic activity in some commonessential oil constituents. Journal of pharmacy and pharmacology, 54(11), 1521-1528.

3) Windeisen, E., Klassen, A., & Wegener, G. (2003). On the chemical characterisation of plantation teakwood from Panama. Holz als roh-und werkstoff, 61(6), 416-418.

4) Araki, N., Ohno, K., Nakai, M., Takeyoshi, M., & Iida, M. (2005). Screening for androgen receptor activities in 253 industrial chemicals by invitro reporter gene assays using AR-EcoScreen TM cells. Toxicology in vitro, 19(6), 831-842.
5) Ritter, J. K.; Chen, F.; Sheen, Y. Y.; Tran, H. M.; Kimura, S.; Yeatman, M. T.; Owens, I. S. (1992). A Novel Complex Locus UGT1 Encodes
Human Bilirubin, Phenol, and other UDP-Glucuronosyltransferase Isozymes with Identical Carboxyl Termini. Journal of Biological
Chemistry 267 (5): 3257–3261.
6) Takahashi, E., Marczylo, T. H., Watanabe, T., Nagai, S., Hayatsu, H., & Negishi, T. (2001). Preventive effects of anthraquinone food
pigments on the DNA damage induced by carcinogens in Drosophila. Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of
Mutagenesis, 480, 139-145.