Deer Velvet Link with Athletes

Preliminary results of a research study to test whether deer antler velvet could improve athletic performance are encouraging.

Twenty-four physical education students participated in a "double-blind" trial, where neither the athletes nor the trial co-ordinator knew which treatment each group was receiving.

A strong treatment trend was identified. The group taking the deer velvet showed almost twice the improvement of the group taking a placebo in the amount of work they were able to do in a strength test.

The project was carried out for the deer industry organization, the New Zealand Game Industry Board (NAGIB) by AgResearch, through their joint venture company Velvet Antler Research New Zealand (VARNZ) Ltd.

The 10 week project was conducted at Otago University and medically supervised by Dr. David Gerrard, sports physician and senior lecturer in sports and medicine, and Dr. Gordon Sleivert, exercise physiologist.

Dr. Gerrard believes "these early results are a good start, and warrant more research having just scratched the surface of the subject. "Now we've developed a scientifically rigorous testing basis, we would like to concentrate on velvet's effect in building endurance and delaying fatigue -- a traditional usage of velvet."

"While these results are not statistically significant, some encouraging trends were noted," said Dr. Jimmy Suttie of AgResearch Invermay, who was responsible for the scientific control of the study.

The athletes were also tested for changes in body composition using a sophisticated DEXA scanner. Although all students lost body fat as a percentage of their body weight, the group taking deer velvet lost more body fat than the control group.

Contrary to popular misconception, the study showed that improving muscle strength does not necessarily require increasing muscle size. Scanning showed no bulking up of muscles, which suggested the positive results were due to an improvement in the muscle dynamic activity of the students taking deer velvet.

This was the first human trial testing the effect of deer velvet conducted by the NZGIB and AgResearch. It follows a finding last year showing that velvet was effective in stimulating the immune system – a traditional usage in oriental medicine to ward off illness and fight infection. 

News Release -- New Zealand Game Industry Board, February 18, 1998.