I won't pretend to know the science, but it does appear you're playing a bit fast and loose with it: https://montrealgazette.com/technol...istry-the-research-on-bpa-has-been-sufficient https://montrealgazette.com/opinion...-environmental-chemicals-and-childrens-health And here's some context on the estrogen thing: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/food-health-science-science-everywhere/milk-hormones-and-cancer Oh, and this: WTF?
I got curious about the world wide trend and found this: " The study, which was funded by the health ministry, concluded that the Japanese men appeared to have a higher sperm count than men from Northern Europe, but slightly lower than men from Spain." "Lowest sperm concentrations and total counts were detected for Danish men, followed by French and Scottish men. Finnish men had the highest sperm counts. " I would like to know the data from 3rd world countries for a comparison. Hey, anyone knew the seasonality?: " A general seasonal variation in sperm concentration (summer 70% of winter) and total sperm count (summer 72% of winter) was detected. " https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/16/5/1012/2913506 Slightly related, but if you want to cut down your risk of prostate cancer: "According to ATTN, it found that those who blew their load“five to seven times per week were 36 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer compared to those who ejaculated less than two times per week.”
Considering TRT, had blood work done and will get results Monday. Never have considered before, never even checked a level, never felt the need. Last 6+ months I'm experiencing nearly every symptom of Low T, so I thought I'd check. I also have to consider interactions with Afib medication and blood thinner I take. It's a risk/reward equation at this point in my 70's. We'll see
Excellent advice from a scientific point of view, in my opinion, so long as "may" replaces "can". Ideally, for males under 70 and for good overall health I'd shoot for total T in the 600 to 900 range and that would allow for the occasional excursion above or below. (regardless there will be no benefit above the saturation point, and possible harm. I don't know if anyone knows where the saturation point is, but it's probably somewhere between 1000 and 1500 for most men --- it will be higher for the geriatric because of high SHBG levels.) Above age seventy a somewhat different situation pertains, probably for evolutionary reasons. Above age 70 our SHBG levels will begin to rise which will inactivate T, so it becomes necessary to do a T panel occasionally which will allow computation of free T which is what matters.* You can have total T above 1000 after age 70 and be OK. You may need total T > 1000 particularly after age 80 because SHBG goes up non-linearly with age. One of the most important papers published to date on hormone replacement for men is a study from 2008 available free at the NIH site PubMed. Make a copy and give it to your Urologist or Endocrinologist. It may be nearly impossible to get them to read it, however, because it seems few practicing M.D.s rarely, if ever, read the Journal literature and will often be dismissive of any information provided by their patients. (One of many reasons American medicine, by a wide margin, is the worst in the world among developed countries.) This is a dynamite 2008 paper: "The Effects of Growth Hormone and/or Testosterone on Whole Body Protein Kinetics and Skeletal Muscle Gene Expression in Healthy Elderly Men: A Randomized Controlled Trial". Its a joint study from Kings College (UK), St. Thomas Hospital (UK), and the Mayo Clinic (USA). J. Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Aug;93(8): 3066-3074. the PubMed citation: PMCID: PMC2515076 and PMID: 18477661 This study show that T and GH supplementation is synergistic, i.e., each is more effective in the presence of the other in men 65-75. Older men have lowered protein turnover rates. I would guess younger men might not experience much benefit from supplementing TRT with GH. Very likely the benefit of GH supplementation would track the age relationship of TRT benefits. Also of great interest to those on TRT is: Testosterone treatment and the risk of aggressive prostate cancer in men with low testosterone levels. This is an open access paper from 2018. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199194 Conclusion: "No association between cumulative testosterone dose or formulation and CaP [prostate cancer] was observed." This is consistent with new studies which are all suggesting that maintaining T levels in a healthy range with supplementation for older men, rather than increasing the risk of prostate cancer, as is still commonly believed by many physicians, many actually lower the risk of prostate cancer. Some physicians will tell you that although T does not cause prostate cancer it can accelerate its growth. This is very likely also wrong. The latest studies suggest that correlation between T levels and both the incidence of prostate cancer and its aggressiveness is either zero or negative rather than positive. The medical community believed it was positive for many years, and that's still believed by many urologists. The incorrect thinking with regard to prostate cancer and testosterone stems from a 1940s paper by Holmes and Huggins. Huggins later won the Nobel prize in medicine. This Holmes/Huggins paper, in my personal opinion, has done tremendous damage to men's health because it led to the standard treatment for prostate cancer having included the chemical knocking-out of the natural production of T by the testes, making the patient weaker, and, of course, miserable. This chemical castration is still going on, even though it is looking more and more as though it is not only unnecessary but actually harmful to the patients health. A widely acknowledged T guru is Abraham Morgentaler from Harvard. I think he would agree with me. (Do a YouTube search for him; and also search for A. Morgentaler at PubMed. ) Here is some advice I am happy to pass on. Don't let any ordinary physician run a PSA test on you if you are in your eighties or above. Hardly any of them know what's the normal range for those above age eighty, it's at least up to 6.5. Physicians rely on the lab printouts of supposedly normal levels and these vary depending on who made the lab equipment used, etc., and none are even close to correct for eighty year-olds when it come to PSA. Always insist on a digital exam, an ultrasound or an MRI of the prostate. Never a PSA! A cheap digital exam is fine so long as there are no signs of trouble. This is also good advice for younger men too. Insist your urologist give you a digital exam. ( If they don't like sticking their finger up your ass, why did they go into urology?) _____________ *Some are saying indirect determination of free T via calculation from Total T, Albumin, and SHBG is more reliable than direct laboratory measurement of free T. I don't know for sure why, but I would guess it's because because free T is plasma occurs at very low levels so its direct determination, besides being expensive, is subject to large relative error, whereas Total T , Albumin and SHBG all occur at orders higher in concentration and so are subject to much lower relative error. For this reason I wouldn't bother to pay for direct measurement of free T, but instead insist on the free T being determined by calculation. (It is free T that we respond to, not total T, according to Morgentaler.)
Update, not that any of you Neanderthals care, blood work came back. Total test...578, Free test...7.7 Sex hormone bind...64 E2...25.6 PSA total...2.2, a bit high, but I'm old. All other blood markers good to great. All things considered TRT was not recommended. Afib was a slight risk factor and being my Testosterone level was better than average, their opinion, for a guy in his 70's not worth triggering arythmia. Suggested I up my magnesium level to 1000mg daily, take some melatonin before bed, lose the 20 lbs I've put on this year, quit being a bitch in the gym. Off I go.
lol, "quit being a bitch in the gym".. no joke what was your vit D level? I thought I was low T when it was low vitD that was the culprit (even though I was supplementing)
D was fine although not as high as one would think considering I supplement. My issue was/is more related to sleep and stress. Sold my home earlier this year and bought a new home which had a few problems with the builder. Then there's this part time job I do helping a friend build his Machine Shop business. Growth has been great, but what was me helping out has turned into a job. So those two things added stress. To say my nutrition hasn't been on point is an understatement, it's been for shit. My workouts have been lame, just going through the motions. So these are the things that need tuning up. All that said the clinician did turn me on to what may be the fountain of youth which I will discuss in another thread once some time goes by and I care give a fair evaluation. Stay tuned. Until then, I'll just get back on track.
Correction: The 1940s paper I was referring to in my post #54 above was not by Holmes and Huggins, but by Hodges and Huggins. It was published in 1941. https://aacrjournals.org/cancerres/...6/Studies-on-Prostatic-Cancer-I-The-Effect-of This paper is now available free in PDF form. I believe it's highly probable that the primary conclusion drawn was, and is, incorrect. Huggins and Hodges assumed that elevated serum phosphatase levels were reliable markers of metastatic cancer of the prostate, when their data clearly indicates that phosphatase levels are not a reliable indicator of the presence of metastatic prostate cancer. In 25 Men, all diagnosed with metastatic carcinoma of the prostate, 19 had elevated acid and alkaline phosphatase levels, but 4 men with "normal" phosphatase levels also had metastatic carcinoma of the prostate. When they discovered that androgen injection raised the level of serum phosphatases, and castration lowered the levels, they made an unwarranted leap to concluded that "...cancer of the prostate is activated by androgen injections." And thus generations of urologists and endocrinologists have likely been mis-educated. It now seems that what Hodges and Huggins may have been observing was a relationship between serum phosphatase and androgen levels with only a putative relation to cancer progression. Huggins, a seasoned University of Chicago medical researcher made a beginners mistake by drawing a conclusion that wasn't justified by the data. The data is not proof that Hodges and Huggins were wrong in their conclusion, but, more importantly, neither does the data prove they were right. Abundant data published in the past twenty years strongly suggests, even if it does not prove, that Huggins and Hodges were probably wrong in the primary conclusion they drew from their study. Huggins later won the Nobel prize in medicine.