One of the most significant meetings I have had in the last 20 years was with the former head of the Russian strength, weightlifting and bodybuilding programs, Dr. Arkady Koulton, M.D., Ph.D. For 12 years Dr. Koulton was chairman of the Medical Committee of the Russian Body Building Federation and was directing research into anabolic agents that would improve performance, strength and musculature in trained Russian athletes. Dr. Koulton worked with Russian kayakers, water-sports athletes, weightlifters, bodybuilders, and power-lifters. Upon meeting Dr. Koulton, I began to ask him about discoveries the Russians had made about antler velvet and how they...

Extracts of velvet antler have shown to help work towards anti-inflammatory activity. Scientists have isolated the compounds from velvet antler that they believe may help reduce inflammation. Dr. James Suttie's team at Invermay has tested the effects of velvet antler on peritoneal inflammation in mice. They found that antler helped work towards suppressing an inflammatory response (neutrophil growth) caused by injections of thioglycollate. In fact, some antler preparations worked as well as, or better than, some drugs that reduce neutrophil growth. An important fact to remember here is that the anti inflammatory effects varied with the age and section of the antler used....

The following story is Dr. Alex Duarte's own personal introduction into the use of velvet antler as an anabolic agent. It was late. I was tired. I had flown from California to the Windy City and was seated in the dining room of one of Chicago's Holiday Inn's waiting for my dinner and a face-to-face meeting with John Abdo, television health and exercise star. The body was tired, but the mind would not stop reeling from the research I had just read on a remarkable medicinal food that was by far the most unique in terms of its athletic building...

The production and use of velvet antler to potentially alleviate human disease appears to be a win-win situation with both the human population as well as that of deer. American, New Zealand, Russian, and Korean deer farms harvest the velvet in a process that has received the endorsement of farmers, veterinarians, animal behaviorists, animal welfarists, and government agencies. Together they have developed a velveting code to ensure deer are velveted humanely. Velveting involves restraining the stag to enable local anesthetics to be administered and for the velvet to be removed. At the time of removal, usually in late spring, the...

Currently, New Zealand produces some of the best velvet antler extract. Perhaps one of the more difficult to treat human diseases is an ailment that afflicts the nervous system and one that progresses ultimately to death. We know it as multiple sclerosis. In the September 1992 issue of The Deer Farmer appeared the story of a New Zealand couple, Clint and Shelley Thomsen, who reside in Hawkes Bay. In about 1988 Shelley began taking velvet antler to relieve the painful symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Slowly but surely the pain began to subside and by 1992, Shelley had not experienced one...