This product (Liothyronine Sodium) is sold under different names:
T3
Thyroxyl (T3)
Cytomel is a synthetic T3 hormone. As you may already know, most natural T3 is not produced directly by your thyroid gland, but rather is converted from the T4 thyroid hormone.
Natural T3 is a regulator of the oxidative metabolism of energy producing substrates (food or stored substrates like fat, muscle, and glycogen) by the mitochondria. The mitochondria, as you will recall from your high school biology class, are usually referred to as the “cells powerhouses” because they produce ATP. Taking Cytomel (supplemental T3) greatly increases the uptake of nutrients into the mitochondria and also their oxidation rate (i.e. the rate at which they are burned for energy), by increasing the activities of the enzymes involved in the oxidative metabolic pathway. Everything is working harder, in other words, and more fuel is needed to supplement this increased work rate. Therefore, as you can guess, taking supplemental Cytomel will increase your bodys energy demands. And if you are in a hypocaloric state, you will begin burning even fatter primarily due to an increase in ATP. This increased ATP causes an increase in overall metabolic activity. This is exactly what we want, and is why we would be taking thyroid hormones like Cytomel in the first place. If you arent taking anabolic steroids with your Cytomel, however, your body may start to eat away muscle to provide energy for you to function. Remember mitochondria/ATP arent very picky, but they are very efficient. What I mean by this is that they will use whatever is on hand to generate energy for your body to continue functioning, fat, protein, glucose; it doesnt matter to ATP, as long as theres something to give them energy. Taking this drug will increase their need to find something to burn to create this energy. Ergo, if we arent taking anabolic steroids while taking our T3, we may lose too much muscle, especially while dieting.
Thus we can see that there are many advantages to using Cytomel to optimize our metabolic rate. It will also increase your bodys ability to synthesize protein, but from what Ive seen personally, it acts as a catabolic when it isnt administered with anabolic steroids. It is often the last thing added into a precontest diet, as it has a reputation for getting rid of the last few percentages of bodyfat& the “sticky fat” as its called in bodybuilding, the fat that just doesnt want to leave you in the last few weeks of dieting. I think this is a poor use for this drug, and that it should be the first thing added into a diet to lose fat, as it will optimize your metabolic rate, which should be done at the outset of a diet, not after the calorie restriction has diminished your thyroid output and you are adding it in simply to replace what was lost.
Unfortunately, in all of the studies Ive seen, T3 also increased growth hormone production. As we all know, GH is also a strongly lipolytic compound, and this is another mechanism by which T3 may exert its effects, although I suspect this would only be a small percentage of its overall effects. This being the case, it has always been somewhat problematic to me to note that when GH and T3 are used together, the increased nitrogen retention normally found with GH use is negated. If you were only using T3 and GH this may be a problem, but as Ive already stated, you are going to need some anabolic agents if you are using T3. And as you have read previously, I recommend the veritable anabolic/lipolytic orgy of Insulin, T3, Anabolic Steroids, GH, and insulin, for 100% maximum results in minimal time.
On the brighter side, and of special note to dieters, administration of T3 has been shown to upregulate the beta 2 receptors in fat tissue. As you know clenbuterol and similar compounds downregulate this receptor, so using T3 with your clen will help stave off or reverse this downregulation. I would still recommend taking your benadryl every third week, though.
After extended use of T3 at a suppressive dose, natural production is suppressed for some time after discontinuing T3 use. Generally the duration appears related to the length of use. In cases of brief usage there’s typically no noticeable period of low function post-cycle, but with extended cycles the duration of low function can be measured for as long as about six weeks in some cases.
The literature article “Recovery of pituitary thyrotropic function after withdrawal of prolonged thyroid-suppression therapy” provides an example of difficulty that can be encountered in recovering good thyroid production after a long period of oral thyroid use.
While in this study all the subjects did recover “normal” thyroid production, as also happens routinely in bodybuilding use, the “normal” that they ended up with was the rock-bottom end of the normal range, about 40 mcg/dL total serum T4 and about 80 ng/dL total serum T3. These are not levels one wants to be at, and are low enough that metabolism would be impaired.