Tip The T-Boosting Tendon-Healing Vitamin Search Skip to content Menu Menu follow us Store Articles Community Loyal-T Club Loyal-T Points Rewards Subscribe to Save Search Search The World s Trusted Source & Community for Elite Fitness EatingSex & HormonesSupplements Tip The T-Boosting Tendon-Healing Vitamin To get jacked and heal injuries at the same time make sure you' re getting enough of this by TC Luoma March 11, 2017September 20, 2021 Tags Nutrition & Supplements, Testosterone Boosters, Tips, Vitamin B5 Heal Tendons Faster and Elevate Testosterone Hardly anyone ever talks about vitamin B5, aka pantothenic acid. That's probably because deficiencies are rare. Even its name, taken from the Greek pantothen, means "from all quarters," suggesting that you can find the vitamin in just about every natural food you could eat, from sesame-crusted aardvark to zucchini carpaccio. However, if you exercise a lot while on a low-carb diet, or are deficient in some other B vitamin (which plays a part in the metabolism of vitamin B5), you could easily be deficient in pantothenic acid. Deficiencies of this vital nutrient can translate to restlessness, sleep problems, that "pins and needles" feeling, and stomach cramps. It could also lead to testosterone deficiency, because the testes, biochemical artisans that they are, require the vitamin to help convert cholesterol to testosterone. So yeah, let's agree that a deficiency of vitamin B5 is a bad idea and should be remedied, at the very least for the sake of your testicles. However, there's also evidence that skin or tendon injuries could be made to heal quicker by taking relatively large doses of the nutrient. B5 and Testosterone Relatively recent research by Japanese scientists revealed that lots of exercise, in conjunction with a high fat diet (which is often accompanied by low carbs, at least in physique conscious lifters), seriously impedes B5 levels, at least in rats. The researchers noted that this decrease in B5 levels led to, or was at least associated with, a notable decline in testosterone levels. As such, it's a mere deductive layup to assume that adequate levels of vitamin B5 are needed for having normal testosterone levels. B5 and Injuries It's not uncommon to find older studies that seemingly unearth valuable clues to increased performance, clues that were somehow ignored and swallowed up by time. This seems to be the case with some French researchers who found in the 80's that supraphysiological (but not extreme) doses of vitamin B5 resulted in damaged skin and tendons healing much faster. This, of course, could be a big boon to the tens of thousands of athletes who fold, spindle, or mutilate their tendons each year. To test their premise, the researchers divided rabbits into three groups: A group given standard food A group given food with reduced levels of B5 A group given food plus supplemental B5 They then operated on the bunnies, giving them incisions on the skin and tendon tissue of the abdomen. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, the food-plus-B5 group showed significantly faster and improved healing. In fact, by day 10, the scar tissue of the B5 group was stronger than that of the other groups, while the healing of tendons was even more impressive. Unfortunately, the researchers couldn't come up with a biochemical reason why this was happening. Still, it's intriguing for the tendon-gimpy among us. Possible Applications of the Research If you're eating a "normal" diet with appreciable percentages of fat and carbs, you probably don't need B5 supplementation. Vegetarians, however, might think about supplementing because they're not getting any/much cholesterol in their diets. If you're working out hard while limiting your carbs (and presumably replacing them with higher amounts of fat), you should consider taking a B5 supplement. One daily tablet or capsule of 500 mg. (oral) should easily suffice and presumably keep testosterone sufficiently elevated. If you've suffered a tendon injury in the gym, or are recovering from a surgery where the skin was damaged, consider taking 1 gram daily (oral) of vitamin B5 to possibly speed up healing. References Yamamoto, T, et al. "Effects of pantothenic acid on testicular function in male rats." J Vet Med Sci. 2009 Nov;71(11):1427-32. Aprahamian M, Dentinger A, Stock-Damgé C, Kouassi JC, Grenier JF. "Effects of supplemental pantothenic acid on wound healing: experimental study in rabbit." Am J Clin Nutr. 1985 Mar;41(3):578-89. Get The T Nation Newsletters Don' t Miss Out Expert Insights To Get Stronger, Gain Muscle Faster, And Take Your Lifting To The Next Level related posts Training Question of Strength 54 Are SARMs safe, legal, and as effective as steroids? Does German Volume Training work for natural lifters? Info here. Bodybuilding, Pharma, Question of Strength, Training Christian Thibaudeau March 21 Diet & Fat Loss Tip Eat All You Want and Still Lose Fat A big new study tells us what we've all wanted to hear about food and dieting. Strap on the feed bag! Diet Strategy, Losing Fat, Nutrition & Supplements, Tips TC Luoma March 15 Eating Structured Peptides The Next Generation of BCAAs Whether for muscle growth, reduction of fatigue, or to preserve muscle while dieting, structured peptides reign supreme. Here's why. 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