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Testosterone is the drug of the future

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Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#101

Post by mackwic »

vidarh wrote: post #74
mackwic wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is not if Placebo is an efficient method. We know for sure that it is. The question is if training and practicing meditation is better than doing nothing. If you don't beat the placebo, it could mean that there's nothing to train and practice.

It is meaningless to speculate on this without a concrete paper doing a concrete comparison of a specific concrete form of meditation vs. a concrete form of placebo, and without knowing whether or not the placebo was compared to a control group doing nothing. You're right, it could mean there's nothing to train and practice. It also could mean there'd be a substantial placebo effect and a big gap from "doing nothing"…

Great answer, and I agree with you. As a practicer it doesn't really matters as long as you get your dose of well-beingness.

I was more thinking of all the "train yourself to meditate" thing which can end with more frustration than relaxation for some, relatively of the scientific measure of this training (which is imperfect as we just saw).

On a side-note, I practice relaxation on the evening and I don't see such huge effects on my mind but "only" a greater sleep (which is already great). Could you share some of your practices ?

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#102

Post by hellodevnull »

randlet wrote: post #99
hellodevnull wrote: post #87

>I was just at the gym watching the 30-year-olds at the pull-up bar building muscles in three weeks. And I’m at the pull up bar and nothing’s happening While many of you are thinking that he's making excuses (he might be) or that the other guys worked long and hard to build muscle, I can relate: I've been lifting weights three times a week for the last four years. I still look average, and yes I'm eating and exercisi…

Are you sure you're eating enough? Have your lifts been going up? Before searching out testosterone I would try a beginners lifting program (meaning linear programming, where your lifts go up every workout) and eating a lot (3000-4000kCal a day). Starting Strength (my recommendation), Stronglifts and Ice Cream Fitness (ICF) are 3 popular ones.

I did Starting Strength with a gallon of milk a day (6000 Calories). I was able to improve my lifts (slowly) but I looked horrible (so much fat around abdomen I looked pregnant). Switched to hypertrophy with 2000-3000 Calories whilst cutting/maintaining. I researched this well and tried really hard so I'm not jumping to conclusions here.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#103

Post by randlet »

hellodevnull wrote: post #102
randlet wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you're eating enough? Have your lifts been going up? Before searching out testosterone I would try a beginners lifting program (meaning linear programming, where your lifts go up every workout) and eating a lot (3000-4000kCal a day). Starting Strength (my recommendation), Stronglifts and Ice Cream Fitness (ICF) are 3 popular ones.

I did Starting Strength with a gallon of milk a day (6000 Calories). I was able to improve my lifts (slowly) but I looked horrible (so much fat around abdomen I looked pregnant). Switched to hypertrophy with 2000-3000 Calories whilst cutting/maintaining. I researched this well and tried really hard so I'm not jumping to conclusions here.

6000 is a crazy amount of calories! Not surprised you packed on a huge amount of body fat.

Sounds like you have done your homework though. There's no harm in getting tested so I would talk to your doctor.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#104

Post by ap22213 »

hellodevnull wrote: post #87

>I was just at the gym watching the 30-year-olds at the pull-up bar building muscles in three weeks. And I’m at the pull up bar and nothing’s happening While many of you are thinking that he's making excuses (he might be) or that the other guys worked long and hard to build muscle, I can relate: I've been lifting weights three times a week for the last four years. I still look average, and yes I'm eating and exercisi…

It could just be genetics. Rs1815739 is related to what type of muscle that forms.

http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1815739

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#105

Post by atlantic »

golemotron wrote: post #86
mironathetin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am happy that an expert without a bias reports about this. What you noted down came back into my mind immediately. These were the reported risks for professional athletes (back in the days when I decided to study physics instead of taking more of this junk and go pro). There are also natural ways to keep your own T level high, like healthy food, enough sleep, everything that increases your muscle mass (weightliftin…

I don't think so. If testosterone is the culprit for increased risk of coronary artery disease, prostate cancer and sleep apnea, then doing things that naturally increase testosterone will increase risk also. Don't succumb to the naturalistic fallacy. The body doesn't care where it gets its chemicals from.

It's not the chemical. It's the dosage, and the way the body knows how to regulate it.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#106

Post by Loic »

davak wrote: post #55

MD here. Just remember that women live longer than men. Although it'll never be proven that hormones are part of that provess, I think it's a good assumption. Many males as they get older become more lovable and more pleasent to be around because of natural hormone declines. There are a ton of health issues such as balding, coronary artery disease, prostate cancer, obstructive sleep apnea that are related to testoste…

Studies[0] do support that eunuchs live longer than average men. You have also a study of the eunuchs of China's Emperor were living way longer than the men having the same lifestyle in the Forbidden City. I sadly can't find the study at the moment.

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunuch#Eunuchs_in_the_contempor...

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#107

Post by johnward »

I'm 28 now and I have hypogonadisn and have experience using T and other options like clomid. My total T was I finally went to the doc. Got the blood work and was put ona low dosage of Testosterone. Enough to get me to the 500ng/dl range. My quality of life improved dramatically and I was the happy and productive person I used to be. I felt like I did in my early 20s instead of like I was approaching 50. Now I have to take clomiphene because the T kills my fertility. Clomid gets my hormones to the 500ng/dl range but I do not feel the same. My brain is "foggy". I'm not as sharp as I was. I'm up and down with my mood. On a higher dosage of clomid I even had experience where my brain just didn't make sane decisions. I rammed a car one time in traffic. I ran over my mailbox backing out of my garage, even though I did this thousands of times before.

Testosterone can be a miracle for some people. It saddens me that it get such a bad rep for being used/abused by athletes.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#108

Post by ninguem2 »

Be very careful. Usually low T has no discernible cause but sometimes it is caused by a (treatable but potentially very serious) cancer of the pituitary called a prolactinoma. Testosterone treatment can mask the symptoms until is too late. See an endocrinologist before embarking on these "over the counter" treatments.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#109

Post by vidarh »

return0 wrote: post #65
vidarh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A placebo often helps substantially. That is why we tend to test with a placebo rather than nothing at all, in order to measure the effect of what we want to test rather than the ability of our mind to influence our body. And the effect is not merely psychological. Often placebo produces measurable responses.

Still though, the idea behind placebos is that they 're the most convenient thing to do compared to the alternative. It doesn't justify the suggestion to "meditate to increase T" more than "take a sugar pill to increase T"

The idea of placebos is to attempt to introduce a "noise floor" of sorts that lets you get an idea for how much of the measured effect is actually caused by what is being measured.

Generally you want a placebo that makes the test subject unable to tell which is the placebo. That will not be the case with just handing people a sugar pill and being honest about what it is. To have an effect of a sugar pill in such a setting you would have to tell people there is a chance the pill is some form of medication intended to produce similar effects.

The problem with that is that if the effects of meditation are just placebo, what you end up measuring is the strength of peoples beliefs about the efficacy of meditation vs. the efficacy of drugs - you're not comparing like with like, and can't rule out additive effects of combining the two (whether or not they're both caused by the placebo effect) either.

And even if it is all placebo, that does not mean it may not be justified to suggest to meditate. In fact, it is a long standing debate of medical ethics whether - and if so when - it might sometimes be justified to utilize placebos as medical treatment, because it can often have real, measurable physical effects on peoples health.

The issue with that is that you'd be lying to a patient, and it might undermine peoples trust in the medical profession. That is not an issue with an off the cuff suggestion to people to meditate from someone not claiming to be a doctor.

Also, I haven't seen anyone here suggest meditating to increase T, but giving an off the cuff remark suggesting meditating to address "psychological worries" people might have 10-20% of the time. Serious psychological issues needs professional treatment, but I took his comment, given the context, the term "worries", and the implication they'd only be there 10-20% of the time to mean general stress and light performance anxieties, in which case meditation either works for you or it doesn't.

If it does, it does not matter if it works because of the placebo effect or not. If it doesn't, then no harm done and you can consider TRT.

The point of his comment seemed to be that most people do not need TRT, but fall in the normal range and should consider other factors first. I'm saying that as someone who will seriously consider TRT when I'm older (I'm turning 40 this year)

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#110

Post by omegaham »

Lio wrote: post #79
davak wrote: post #55

MD here. Just remember that women live longer than men. Although it'll never be proven that hormones are part of that provess, I think it's a good assumption. Many males as they get older become more lovable and more pleasent to be around because of natural hormone declines. There are a ton of health issues such as balding, coronary artery disease, prostate cancer, obstructive sleep apnea that are related to testoste…

"Women live longer than men" is interesting though. Does that take into account the horrendous levels of male suicide? Statistically does this bump the average life expectancies down for men? I'm definitely not disagreeing with you. It seems very plausible that human growth hormone could be linked to some cancers. On a side note, is baldness actually a "health issue"? I mean I know mainstream media doesn't like to sh…

This is a good point. Men do more dangerous jobs, are much more likely to be murdered, do riskier behavior, and commit suicide more often.

On the other hand, women bear children, which historically would have been a huge cause of early death. Not as much these days, though.

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