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Testosterone is the drug of the future

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Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#231

Post by dsjoerg »

vannevar wrote: post #165
golemotron wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't succumb to the reductionist fallacy. The body is complex, and more than the sum of its parts, including its hormones. It's entirely possible that the process that produces testosterone naturally also has other effects that mitigate the downside of testosterone.

Are you referring to the reduction fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause)? I looked around for a "reductionist fallacy" but couldn't find anything. Or are you instead saying that the reductionist view is wrong, and you like to call things you disagree with fallacies.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#232

Post by vannevar »

dsjoerg wrote: post #231
vannevar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't succumb to the reductionist fallacy. The body is complex, and more than the sum of its parts, including its hormones. It's entirely possible that the process that produces testosterone naturally also has other effects that mitigate the downside of testosterone.

Are you referring to the reduction fallacy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause )? I looked around for a "reductionist fallacy" but couldn't find anything. Or are you instead saying that the reductionist view is wrong, and you like to call things you disagree with fallacies.

The latter.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#233

Post by jesstify »

Transwoman here, and I have some personal experience in this regard. I've been on T blockers for about 2 years, and I have seen significant mood, hair, and skin improvements, not to mention a lower resting heart rate. My chances of getting prostate cancer have been reduced to basically nil, which is pretty great. A significant portion of the benefits are from the estrogen, but just reducing bioavailable T does make a big difference in skin, mood, and hair. On the flipside, a close friend who is a transman (meaning he is on T), and when he went on it, he became very aggressive and prone to angry outburts, developed significant acne, and a very significant increase in body hair. So... ya know, just be careful so you don't end up having crazy moodswings and back-ne

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#234

Post by FreshlyMinted »

kingmanaz wrote: post #203
vannevar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't succumb to the reductionist fallacy. The body is complex, and more than the sum of its parts, including its hormones. It's entirely possible that the process that produces testosterone naturally also has other effects that mitigate the downside of testosterone.

>Don't succumb to the reductionist fallacy. The body is complex, and more than the sum of its parts The above needs to be repeated more often, particularly on HN. Tech culture is overdue for an epistemological yin to its empiricist yang.

>Tech culture is overdue for an epistemological yin to its empiricist yang.

What a wonderful sentence. I grew glasses reading this.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#235

Post by bjterry »

callum85 wrote: post #52
Simp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"start meditating" Research has not shown that meditation beats a placebo Studies about meditation are usually of poor quality. Source: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/03/08/r...

How could there be a placebo for meditation? A placebo has to replicate the experience of going through the 'real' treatment being trialled. How could you create the experience of meditation without the subject actually meditating? The claim being tested is simply that the experience of meditation is beneficial, so I don't know what form a placebo could take. It would be OK to do a trial where one group is instructed…

There are a mountain of studies that have been done on meditation. Among those that are controlled, there a few different strategies.

The best strategy is an "active control" group which receives some combination of education, attention from instructors, group therapy and the like which is matched with the meditation group for time and attention. This has subsets of "specific active control" in which the control is a known procedure (like exercise or progressive muscle relaxation) or "non-specific active control" in which the control procedure is not a known effective procedure and so is expected not to have any effect.

The other main control group used is a "wait list" or "usual care" control, in which the participants don't receive any treatment or only receive the treatment you would usually get for the condition under study, which isn't matched with the meditation group for time and attention.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#236

Post by DonCarlitos »

Don't forget that Testosterone "feeds" prostate cancer, and that most men will have one variety of prostate cancer or another by age 75. It's often slow growing, but if one feeds it, a different story. So potential "T" users should think twice about messing with this particular hormone.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#237

Post by johnward »

seestheday wrote: post #221
johnward wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took weekly shots at 100mg. Cypionate is usually prescribed in the US. Enthate everywhere else. Monthly is way too long. Most doctors recommend every two weeks. However, there was a new report ( http://rd.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-72185-4_11 ) that shows the half life ( http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/articles/article-steroid-half-li... ) of which they thought was closer to 12 days is actually something li…

What about pellets/implants? Aren't they supposed to release more consistently over a longer period? Please excuse my ignorance on this, I am in Canada, have been blessed with naturally high T levels, and have no experience with anti-aging clinics, but I'm fascinated by the subject.

I don't know much about pellets other than I have read forum postings about people not liking them and I prefer injections.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#238

Post by johnward »

freshfey wrote: post #214
johnward wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe he said he got close to 1000ng/dl naturally, which I consider on the high side based on lab ranges. 400ng/dl is actually interpreted by some doctors as low depending on symptoms even though it's "in range".

Ah yeah, sorry, the 1024 was definitely on the high side for me, but I thought you were referring to the 400

Yeah most of what I read seems to indicate you should be on the high side in your early twenties but ultimately if you are at 400-500ng/dl and you don't have symptoms that is probably normal for that person.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#239

Post by rsync »

vadman wrote: post #170
golemotron wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"The body doesn't care where it gets its chemicals from" Sometimes it does, or maybe the supplements are not formulated quite right. E.g. I saw this at LessWrong: "turns out that fish oil pills suck, and you’d need to take approximately 9 times as much to have the same effect as eating fish, at which point they’d have dangerous blood thinning effects." Link to the study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12848287

Can you provide a link to the lesswrong discussion where you learned this ?

Thanks.

Re: Testosterone is the drug of the future

#240

Post by blaabjerg »

rsync wrote: post #239
vadman wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The body doesn't care where it gets its chemicals from" Sometimes it does, or maybe the supplements are not formulated quite right. E.g. I saw this at LessWrong: "turns out that fish oil pills suck, and you’d need to take approximately 9 times as much to have the same effect as eating fish, at which point they’d have dangerous blood thinning effects." Link to the study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12848287

Can you provide a link to the lesswrong discussion where you learned this ? Thanks.

Google to the rescue:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jrt/lifestyle_interventions_to_incre...

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