via farm3.static.flickr.com

They harvest the so-called velvet antler (a soft coating that covers deer antlers) in New Zealand, freeze-dry it and then grind it into a powder. It then gets shipped to the United States, where it gets put into either capsules or liquid extracts that can become a simple oral spray. You can buy it for $68 a bottle.

via www.cagedinsider.com

That’s right, deer antlers. Bambi is making humans in mutants.

For the elite athlete, experts say it’s essentially a human growth hormone; one of the substances organized sports is trying to keep out. The difference here is deer antlers are natural, not synthetic, and properly discovering it in a test falls somewhere between extremely challenging to virtually impossible.

Yes, the elephant in every sports locker room, HGH. HGH stimulates growth, cell reproduction and regeneration in humans and other animals. HGH is hard to detect. It is only detectable by a blood test which most professional sports leagues don’t administer.

 "You can find it," Jonathan Danaceau, a director at a World Doping Agency approved lab, told ThePostGame.com in its report about new Raiders coach Hue Jackson’s connection with a supplement company that produces the spray. "But saying whether this is synthetic or natural is hard to determine. It’s only detectable in blood, and most anti-doping tests are done in urine."

Here’s the thing most people hinge on when talking about PED’s. Those people say that steroids and HGH are synthetic and not natural. Now scientists have found a somewhat natural way to make HGH. How close is the deer antler serum (IGF-1) to HGH?

"It’s similar to HGH in that it aids in recovery. It helps build tissue, and strengthen tissue – more than you can ever do by training alone. Any preparation that is not naturally occurring is banned. Taking IGF-1 through deer antler is banned as well."

Yes, it is technically banned. The problem is that it’s undetectable, easy to purchase and self administered.

"I use the spray all the time," Bengals safety Roy Williams said. "Two to three times a day. My body felt good after using it. I did feel a difference."

It’s "natural." It’s easy – no messy needles. It’s secretive, no accomplices to shoot you up who can one day turn on you (right, Roger Clemens?). It’s effective, essentially HGH without the risk, because you probably aren’t getting caught.

With the type of money a fighter can get from being a top tier fighter, why not try something like this? The only thing stopping people from taking HGH or IGF-1 is morals.  The difference between the two is that the deer antler serum is legal to buy on the internet. All a fighter has to do is send his package of "natural" HGH to a friend’s house (don’t Carwin it up), and take IGF-1 with few people knowing. What does the MMA community think about IGF-1? Should we be worried? Should we turn a blind eye as we already do with HGH? There are two sides to every coin. As much as we want our athletes’ to be clean, we also want them to perform well, make their scheduled fight without injury and see amazing KO’s.

Quotes taken from : http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=dw-deerantlers011911