He convinced a lot of people that he was an expert at all things science despite using an incredibly immature writing style. It turns out he was a lawyer!
Tangentially related but, Zyzz was also a hugely popular member of the BB forum. He was known as having one of the most desirable physiques and had a big personality (he frequently posted videos of himself at the club).
It was then discovered he was using steroids, which caused some of the community to hate him. He got booked for a reality show, but then died due to an undiagnosed heart defect.
>He convinced a lot of people that he was an expert at all things science despite using an incredibly immature writing style
I find this hard to believe considering the many years I spent on his forum, and especially in comparison to many of the advice touted by gurus from other hubs.
One excerpt:
-11th November 2012, 11:57 PM
-How a dose of GHRP-2 affects a change in GH - CHARTED OUT
"Sometimes people seem to get confused... When you use a GHRP or Mod GRF (1-29)/GHRP two things happen. One the GHRP or Mod GRF (1-29)/GHRP enters the blood stream and slowly disappears from the blood stream. But what it does (by binding to cells in the pituitary) is increase the appearance of GH in the bloodstream.
So GHRP or Mod GRF (1-29)/GHRP are involved in a two-step move that modulates the appearance of GH. The two-step dance is nicely graphed out for us in Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Growth Hormone-Releasing Peptide-2: A Phase I Study in Children, Catherine Pihoker, Gregory L. Kearns, Daniel French, And Cyril Y. Bowers, Clin Endocrinol Metab 83: 1168–1172, 1998
In words, you can see GH peak in the blood stream at 30 minutes. This understanding you are probably familiar with. You can see that the initial drop in GHRP-2 corresponds to the GH rise. This disappearance primarily comes from GHRP-2 being taken up into the pituitary. An analogy would be 100 people on the street, 30 minutes later 70 of them have opened doors to houses on the street and entered. There are still 100 people, but only 30 left on the street with 70 in the houses. At the 30 minute mark GHRP-2 reflects the lesson of this analogy.
After 30 minutes there may be more binding opportunities for GHRP-2 in serum and so some may also be taken up but most will be cleared over the next 1.5 hours.
What is responsible for GH's disappearance from serum? Well to use the people/street analogy, it too begins to open doors and get off the serum street and bind to cells. This continues to take place over the next hour.
So to put this two step into context, both GHRP-2 & GH follow the same pattern. They appear in serum and then disappear because they have found their respective doors. However GHRP-2 steps out on the street 30 minutes earlier then GH which is not awoken until GHRP-2 wakes it up.
GH will then bind to receptors from approximately 30 minute post-injection to 90 minutes post injection."
This is one small sample. There was a wealth of information lost when the forum was taken down.
He was a fraud that put his parents in legal peril with his scam.
He claimed "Tom" synthesized the compounds in America when in reality they were sourced from China. He doesn't have the required skill to test these compounds for purity and heavy metals. He put many people at risk for financial gain.
What we can both agree on is that Dat manipulated people from his position in order to benefit himself financially. Is this normal within the Bodybuilding community? I would say yes — you would be hard pressed to find any experienced bodybuilder or powerlifter who hadn't come across deceiving sellers and figures who push their own agenda. They are, after all, participating in an illegal market where substances (such as Peptides) are either outright banned or within a grey area.
However, what made Dat and his forum unique was their focus on health and wellness. Bodybuilding was one small area that could benefit (in limited cases) from the use of peptides.
>He was a fraud that put his parents in legal peril with his scam.
I am not arguing that he was ethical. I am simply stating that the information gathered over time in the forum was invaluable. Many people contributed their knowledge and expertise on a variety of subjects to lengthy discussions. I would argue that readers of HN would find a forum like this very intriguing and worthwhile.
Stating that he was a fraud does not invalidate the knowledge he and others shared.
>He put many people at risk for financial gain.
This is partially correct. Let's look at "...for financial gain":
From his arrest and the investigation, in fact, he received immunity (IIRC) and likely gave away his list of buyers which included Olympic athletes and major sports stars (a good reference for the NYT article is actually an Al Jazeera documentary on sports doping: see https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/the-dark-side.html). In the coming years we may learn more about some of his buyers.
Now, for the first part of your statement:
>He put many people at risk
Dat did not push peptides onto any participants on his forum. Many anecdotes (and from my own experience as well) show that Dat actually recommended members NOT to use peptides for many of their illnesses or other troubles. The application of peptides falls into a small band of uses: muscle rejuvenation and recovery; stimulating GH release in an older age; maximizing IGF-1 and cellular swelling for optimal hypertrophy (and a few other applications). Peptides are not a miracle cure and do not provide the same benefits as other PEDs.
Practitioners who used peptides knew fully well what the risk of application was. Nothing was peddled as completely safe and harmless; people were, after all, injecting exotic compounds into their body without proper medical supervision.
People who used peptides and other PEDs did so out of their own motivation and will, and knew fully-well what the risks involved were.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/sports/doping-thomas-mann...
He convinced a lot of people that he was an expert at all things science despite using an incredibly immature writing style. It turns out he was a lawyer!