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Labmax Test Kits for the Identification of Anabolic Steroids
April 13, 2015 By
Bill Roberts
Q: “What do you think of the Labmax anabolic steroid test kits? Can I really trust the results?”
A: I have not used these test kits myself but from knowledge of analytical chemistry and information that is available about them, I can give you some further information.
These are colorimetric tests, where some rather general chemical reactions occur, such as reactions with conjugated double bonds, which are hardly unique to
anabolic steroids let alone to any particular anabolic steroid. As between two or more test vials a number of different combinations of reactions can occur and to differing extents, different patterns of color can be produced.
Such testing is always what’s called presumptive rather than conclusive. It can give a reason to think a given substance may be present, or may not be present. It will never prove the point.
MMC International appears to be the company that actually produces the kit. They appear to be a legitimate supplier of various testing kits to law enforcement in Europe. However, this particular kit very clearly is marketed by them to steroid users not to government. Further the kit is not listed under the National Institute of Justice Standard 0604.01. This is inconsistent with it being used much if at all by law enforcement or Customs in the US. Now in and of itself that would not be a problem, but a person could easily get the idea from the brochure that this kit has government acceptance.
If anyone knows of evidence to the contrary regarding official use, I’d appreciate if they let MESO-Rx know.
Aside from the general fact that tests of this type are only ever presumptive, the color chart gives further reason to be doubtful. For most esterified
steroids, they report the results only in oil solution. But for example with
testosterone propionate as powder, there’s no color change for either Test A or Test B, but
testosterone propionate provided in oil solution is reported to give olive green for A and yellow for B. Why a different result than when supplied as powder?
The steroid is the same. That’s not the reason. Rather, the chemical properties of the particular carrier used must have provided the color change, for example by reaction with double bonds in fatty acids of the oil.
Another example would be the result with
testosterone enanthate. There’s no chemical reason why in any colorimetric test
testosterone enanthate would react differently than
testosterone propionate. But here, they obtained a completely different color result than with the enanthate. This would be from the carrier being different.
Now what if the carrier used in your product was different than in the product they tested? Perhaps your supplier used ethyl oleate while their product happened to use, say, sesame oil. Or your supplier used different amounts of benzyl alcohol or benzyl benzoate than their product used.
The test might well then produce a different color pattern than what their chart says.
Until the company shows the test to be validated regardless of carrier, which I don’t think can happen for a colorimetric test, I would highly question it for UG oil preparations, as they can legitimately use varying carriers. However, a given pharmaceutical brand should perform consistently, though quite possibly differently from their chart.
It may be useful for powders, but they list results from very few powders.
For tablets, I’d be concerned about excipients affecting the outcome.
Labmax Test Kits for the Identification of
Anabolic Steroids
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