My wild IdeaLabs nail test results - opinions ?

[Mauritio]

I didn't take any hormones or hormonal precursors.
Any comments, thoughts or recommendations?

Some values are absolutely off the charts high, some are normal.

Skyhigh:

1. DHT: 441; more than 20x the upper limit of the idealabs range
2. Androsterone:436; 10-15x above the upper limit
3. DHEA-S: 50; 5-10x the upper limit

Others:
Testosterone: high (but the normal and and the idealabs reference values vary quite a lot)
Androstenedione: high
Estrogen: low to-medium
Cortisol: medium
Cortisone: low
DHEA: low
Some values are below detection: pregnenolone, progesterone and some others ...

[Mauritio]

Interpretation:

The ratios on the second page are quite useful:

1. Cortisol/DHEA ratio:
   Optimal: 0.3-0.5; Chronic stress>0.5 ; mine: 0.08
   --> not sure why a lower than optimal cortisol/DHEA ratio isn't better, since it indicates lower stress/higher youth steroids

2. Cortisol/Cortisone:
   more than 1= chronic stress; mine= 1.3
   --> chronically stressed? Not sure, who isn't ?! Although in this case it isn't that my cortisol is extremely high, but that my cortisone is pretty low, increasing the ratio

3. DHT/Testosterone:
   0.2=optimal, if > 2 then may suggest hyperandrogenemia and/or supplementation with DHT or another structurally similar steroid.
   Mine=94
   --> hyperandrogenemia, so above 2 is high and mine is 94. Its not that T is low, but DHT is just really high.

4. Androstenedione/DHEA:
   If lower than 1.5 it might indicate a 3bHSD deficiency; mine: 0.35
   --> this one I don't get, 3bHSD converts DHEA to androstenedione, so if it's low as in my case, this should mean high DHEA and low androstenedione, yet the opposite is the case for me...

5.Androgen/Estrogen
Above 50 is estrogen dominance, mine= 0.99
--> Again, very high androgens, low-mid estrogen

6.Cortisol/Testosterone
Lower than 10 is optimal
Mine= 1

[DavidPS]

@Mauritio said in My wild IdeaLabs nail test results - opinions ?:

I didn't take any hormones or hormonal precursors.

Could it possibly be related to taking rapamycin?

[Mauritio]

@DavidPS said in My wild IdeaLabs nail test results - opinions ?:

@Mauritio said in My wild IdeaLabs nail test results - opinions ?:

I didn't take any hormones or hormonal precursors.

Could it possibly be related to taking rapamycin?

I thought about that too, but I don't think so, the amount I took was too low.

I took 1mg twice in the three months period that the nails cover. That's very little. So most of the time I had no detectable levels of rapamycin in my body.

I was thinking maybe adrenal over activity. But for that to be the case cortisol and cortisone are too low. Aldosterone I'm not sure about the range ...

[DavidPS]

@Mauritio - Thanks for the explanation. These hormones are too complex for me. I am concerned about the low level of your youth promoting hormones.

[Mauritio]

@DavidPS
Me too. But I have high androgens so maybe there's a lot of downstream conversion , so there's less precursors available.

I wish there were more people doing these tests so we can compare them.

[A Former User]

did you do nail or hair?

[Mauritio]

@sneedful nail

[evan.hinkle]

@Mauritio this is the very reason why I haven’t pulled the trigger yet on this test, (“wish more people were doing them”). Georgi understandably cannot comment, and many of the ratio indicators just aren’t followed by your average doctor. Heck, if you show the average doctor low cortisol like yours they’ll probably set you up for shots of cortisone, lol…

[A Former User]

what if the hormone oxidizes or something in nail or hair when exposed to light

[Mauritio]

@evan-hinkle yeah that's why I'm looking for a Peaty practitioner to give me a quick analysis for this, preferably without having to pay 500€ for it...

[Mauritio]

I've contacted IdeaLabs regarding there being a measurement error:

"It is not an error. We actually run 3 independent tests on each sample to weed out outliers and then average the results. The high DHT and androsterone make sense considering their precursors DHEA-S is 10x the upper limit of the range. It may be worth doing some blood work for those that are very high and see what the doctor has to say about it if they come back high again.
The tests you have seen from bodybuilders are most likely either in blood or urine and those are not reliable as they do not reflect cellular levels. Cells often accumulate steroids in concentrations up to 100 times higher (e.g. DHEA) than what is present in blood and the hair test is a good surrogate for tissue levels.
http://haidut.me/?p=2104"

[Mauritio]

An update on this situation:
I had an abdominal MRI to rule out any adrenal or liver tumor issues, which came back totally fine.

So I think at this point the most likely explanation is what @cs3000 and T3Uncoupled suggested which is that my consumption of apple polyphenols caused a reactive overproduction in the opposed hormones. Apple polyphenols seem to have a slight anti-DHT effect and I took 2-3 capsules for several months.

Either this or the hormone test is complete trash, which I dont think.

Unfortunetly I had an MRT with contrast not knowing how bad they are. So thats another issue.
Fortunetly it was a macrocylcic contrast which seem to be lot easier to excrete and less likely to be deposited:

"...gadolinium associated with macrocyclic GBCA use is cleared more rapidly from tissues than that with linear agents. The gadolinium present after macrocyclic administration is 306-fold lower in the brain, skin and bone of patients compared with linear GBCA..."
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8837552/#Sec4

"Results Gadolinium deposition in brain tissue significantly varied with GBCA type (F = 31.2; P < .0001), with median concentrations of 0 μg gadolinium per gram of tissue (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0, 0.2) in gadoteridol-injected rats, 1.6 μg gadolinium per gram of tissue (95% CI: 0.9, 4.7) in gadobutrol-injected rats, 4.7 μg gadolinium per gram of tissue (95% CI: 3.5, 6.1) in gadobenate dimeglumine-injected rats, and 6.9 μg gadolinium per gram of tissue (95% CI: 6.2, 7.0) in gadodiamide-injected rats; a significant positive dose-signal intensity correlation was identified (ρ = 0.93; P < .0001)."

"... this washout appears to be more robust with macrocyclic agents, where the amount of retained gadolinium 52 weeks after supradiagnostic exposure was only 13% of the amount retained, as measured with ICP-MS at 5 weeks (103). In comparison, a more attenuated washout phenomenon was observed after gadodiamide administration, with 50% of the initially measured amount retained at 1 week still present 20 weeks after administration (96). Longer-term washout data are needed at common time points to permit comparability between agents and classes."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28640692/

[cs3000]

@Mauritio good to hear its clear ,

hmm swerved a bullet with that then, so with the macrocylcic type might be negligible amounts

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5647271/

it was noted that the levels of gadolinium were several-fold lower for tissue from patients injected with macrocyclic agents compared to those injected with linear agents (20 times lower for ProHance than for Omniscan) and the actual amount of gadolinium deposited was very small, of the order of a few ng g−1 of tissue.

hard to say if thats a relevant amount right, low ng/g seems very small ive seen other toxic metals found in double - triple digit nanograms per g of non cancered tissue

but for added peace of mind with whats left a boost a round of lipoic acid might be worth a try for a couple weeks? and avoiding zinc supplements during this time as seems to help retention (but needs replenishing after ofc). and 1g vit C a day might help (helps lead excrete a lot at least)

Sulfur groups bind it like the other heavy metals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341867829_Investigating_the_role_of_sulfate_groups_for_the_binding_process_of_gadolinium_ions_in_glycosaminoglycans
(so lipoic acid which has 2 sulfur groups, msm, thiamine might be useful , as such low amounts from the macrocylcic type probably best not to take high amounts for long as run the risk of needed metal depletion, maybe a couple weeks would be significant)

[Mauritio]

@cs3000 said in My wild IdeaLabs nail test results - opinions ?:

so maybe ok considering very low ng concentration but for a boost with whats left a round of lipoic acid might be worth a try for a couple weeks. and avoiding zinc supplements during this time as seems to help retention (but needs replenishing after ofc). and 1g vit C a day might help (helps lead excrete a lot at least)

Sulfur groups bind it like the other heavy metals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341867829_Investigating_the_role_of_sulfate_groups_for_the_binding_process_of_gadolinium_ions_in_glycosaminoglycans
(so lipoic acid which has 2 sulfur groups, msm, thiamine might be useful , as such low amounts from the macrocylcic type probably best not to take high amounts for long as run the risk of needed metal depletion, maybe a couple weeks would be significant)

Im not sure about lipoic acid. know that peat thought it might lead to heavy metal deposition in even more harmful places, althugh i dont understand why that wouldnt be the case with lets say, citric acid from orange juice or lactic acid from yoghurt...but given the relatively small amount of heavy metals ill probably skip it

theres this video of a guy going around who said he lowered his heavy metals by 75% using MSM so that might be something Ill try.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r34x3jcRIo0
So far I feel like antioxidants help me the most and molybdenum for some reason ...

[Mauritio]

Another idealabs nail test that's all over the place ...
https://lowtoxinforum.com/threads/idealabs-hair-analysis-of-hormones-and-elements.53777/

[samson]

@Mauritio ray said once that toetails would be a pretty reliable metric from steroid analysis if you wear closed toed shoes most of the time. did you do finger nails?

[Mauritio]

@samson they urge you to send in both ,because of the amount.

[samson]

@Mauritio seems like an oversight on georgis part. ray pretty explicitly said that hair and fingernails wouldn't be very reliable, as they're constantly exposed to outside contamination

[Mauritio]

@samson could be . I don't know how much of those they use or of they're just back up in case toe nails arent enough