I saw this article come across the wire the other day and thought I’d sit down and read it properly over the weekend:

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=65390&catid=2

To summarise: a guy put a molotov cocktail under a woman’s car in Knoxville, Tennessee in order to send her car up in flames, create a diversion for the police and rob a pharmacy across town. Police assume he was after what was in the locked cabinet in the pharmacy (narcotics), but when he failed to get into this, he made a getaway with a tote bag of insulin.

If you read the article, then the comments underneath, there seems to be varying opinion. The police think the thief was after narcotics and would have been disappointed to investigate his stash and find insulin. The commenters think the guy was after insulin all along because he couldn’t afford to pay for his prescription (Interesting to hear that in the States this can set you back US$200 a month!) . I think it could be either of those, plus another option: he was stealing insulin to sell on the blackmarket to bodybuilders.

I’ve heard bits and pieces about bodybuilders shooting up insulin to bulk them up and never really bothered to investigate it. Finally had a look at this link which tells me that:

Insulin is used in bodybuilding to increase the bulk of muscles. Regular injections of short-acting insulin are combined with a high carbohydrate diet and this has two helpful effects.

Firstly, the insulin works in the same way as it does in endurance athletes – increasing the volume of glycogen and leading to an increase in muscle bulk.

The second effect is that it prevents the breakdown of muscle protein. This means more muscle is made than destroyed, thereby increasing the size of muscles.

So there you have it. THAT is why you are always treated with suspicion with insulin prescriptions – so you’re not getting rich off selling it to your local jock.