Posts made by Insr

Good stuff!

@insufferable

Provocative Statement: I think the healthier my mind, the worse i would be at computer programming.

@zaaku I don't want to limit it to blue light (which has always felt like a meme to me) I don't know exactly what part of the computer screen light is so bad. But it's a new, unnatural, and prolonged stimulus, taken as a whole.

I don't know george hotz but the stereotypical computer guy doesn't seem right at all to me. Yeah there's insane energy towards the programming but what about stuff off the computer? In many cases they struggle don't they? What does it mean if you can think out code logic super well but can't think of the right word in conversation?

I have a Dasung Paperlike. It pretty much looks like old time black and white newspapers I guess. 99% of the time I feel no desire to turn on my LCD monitor.

@Gaston Awesome, thank you! That's the first place I've seen any mention of an epiT increase.

~12% testosterone decrease, ~80% epitestosterone increase.

I know nothing about 7-keto-DHEA. Do you have any idea why it would do that?

Yes, although it was a return to the way i was originally before developing the sloth state.

I don't think diet had much to do with it. It was psychology and computer use.

Constant computer use changed me from dopaminergic to a bit of a shut-in. Fixing that got me back to 80% status. Since then I've been at 80% for a while.

But recently I switched my LCD screen with an E-Ink screen, and that's got me back to 100% (the way I was as a kid)

The light from computer screens kills your dopamine neurons, or something like that. E-Ink emits no light. (Kindles are E-Ink) I've posted about it a lot because it's had a really big impact for me.

Thanks for those papers! 57% of those who are already bald by age 45 have metabolic syndrome compared to 14% of non-bald 43 year olds. That's an impressive result.

@Gaston said in Epitestosterone, premature balding, and "male PCOS":

Supposedly you can increase epitestosterone by topically applying 7-keto-DHEA. I doubt applying it to the scalp would do anything, but if I can get the 7-keto-DHEA to dissolve, I'll put some on my scalp and on my navel/stomach and see what happens.

Interesting! Where did you find that out? I couldn't find anything about it.

Grounding 100% of the time
vs
just grounding for a millisecond a few times a day (just touch the earth for a moment)

Would these have pretty similar results? Like 90% as good as full time grounding?

I didn't get a huge impact from grounding, but I'm already pretty active outside and end up touching something that's grounded pretty often.

@insufferable That study theorizes that epitestosterone converting to epiDHT is what prevents hair loss. EpiDHT takes the seat of DHT in the hair follicle, thus preventing DHT from getting in and doing its thing.

There are two more studies in this series, which don't have quite as nice and clear results. I'll post them soon.

This is the study that measured testosterone, epitestosterone, and DHT in the hair follicles of balding guys.

https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)41116-9/fulltext

Here's the result:

What stands out most to me is plain old testosterone. Bald men have a lot more testosterone in their hair follicles. But as you know, they don't have any more testosterone in their blood than non-balders, and don't display the good "results" of testosterone in the body any more than non-balders. Anecdotally, I think they display a lot less! And at least in premature balders ("Male PCOS"), the studies confirm this.

It makes me think of calcium and vitamin K2. Calcium is good in the bones and bad when it inappropriately gets into soft tissue. Vitamin K2 somehow keeps calcium in the bone and out of soft tissue.

Some unknown factor puts testosterone where it should be and keeps it out of where it shouldn't be - the hair follicle. (and perhaps other places?)

When that unknown factor is not functioning well, testosterone is less present where it should be and more present where it shouldn't be.

Another question is what function do hormones have in hair follicles? What would testosterone be doing in your hair? What good does it think it's doing up there haha? Seems to me that it shouldn't be there at all. So WHY does it show up there?

Also I'd like to know how and why DHT has the function of miniaturizing hair in the first place. How does it do that? (I don't agree with the alternative claim that DHT doesn't cause hair loss. It absolutely does. DHT directly miniaturizes hair follicles right away in lab tests. However I do agree with the claim that DHT is good for you and that "high DHT men" often have plenty of hair. Because it's the varying levels in the different tissues that matter.) So how and why does DHT miniaturize hair? What purpose is it fulfilling, or attempting to fulfill but going off course instead?

@risingfire said in Epitestosterone, premature balding, and "male PCOS":

@insufferable have you ever tried spironolactone? It's used for women with PCOS. It's much easier to acquire compared to epiT

I'm not familiar with it, what does it do?

Good post thank you!

One thing though - my Dasung Paperlike monitor (a black and white one) is somehow fast enough to watch videos without any problem. I think it may just be Dasung that can do that. And people do say videos will wear out e-ink devices faster.

@saturnuscv said in Epitestosterone, premature balding, and "male PCOS":

I remember on RPF there was a thread where a guy got lab work after being on 6-Ketoprogesterone for a few weeks and his T:EpiT ratio shot up to 9:1

I receded a bunch when I experimented with 6keto, despite it being anti-cortisol so this theory does make a lot of sense IMO.

Anyone have a source for pine pollen with a positive EpiT:T ratio?

Very interesting, thank you!

Found the thread I think: https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/test-results-before-after-using-6-keto-p4.29137

@Hearthfire said in Epitestosterone, premature balding, and "male PCOS":

@saturnuscv

Found this article which linked a study.

https://musclemonsters.com/blogs/blog/natures-newfound-anabolic-steroid-pine-pollen

"According to a pine pollen study conducted by The U.S. National Library of Medicine, one variety of Pine pollen known as Pinus Sylvestris contains 80ng/g of testosterone, 110ng/g of epitestosterone, and 590 ng/g of androstenedione…"

The study linked:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5549221/

That's a good ratio, no? You want more epitestosterone than testosterone?

Looks like there's some supplements with Pinus sylvestris on Amazon/Google if you search "Pine pollen Pinus sylvestris".

You're telling me I can make muscle gains AND hair gains from one natural supplement? I am definitely gonna try this.

I was thinking about pine pollen for epitestosterone. It would be interesting to apply it topically to a bald scalp. I'm not sure what would happen from taking it orally.

My concern with pine pollen for epiT is the high androstenedione content. This is the precursor to both testosterone and epitestosterone. If I remember correctly I saw some study on urine levels that sounded like exogenous androstenedione would raise testosterone more than epitestosterone.

When I read studies my main reaction is disgust and anger at what they are doing to these furry little beasts.

So much science is built on the back of torture, mutilation, and psychological abuse of animals.

Like a sort of mafia ritual killing, all professional scientists in these fields have been forced to participate. To become a scientist you had to suppress your strong, natural revulsion to treating animals like this. You have to become hardened to animal suffering and to the instinctive feeling of the natural, beautiful, noble place of a creature in the world (as opposed to its place serving as a bile bear for Man's disgusting tower-of-babel scheming).

What does it do to your mind? Once you've crushed that side of yourself, what will you do next? You've blinded yourself to your natural perception of what is good and right in life. CS Lewis said that the worst thing about purposefully trying to blind yourself is that you will eventually succeed.

Anything built on viciousness will always go wrong. Science is built on the back of animal abuse, and so it has gone wrong.

I don't totally understand this guy's work. He's one of the few talking about epiT.

"Flowers for Algernon: steroid dysgenesis,
epigenetics and brain disorders
Bryan K. Sanders"
http://if-pan.krakow.pl/pjp/pdf/2012/6_1285.pdf

He seems to be proposing something like this: Early life SSRI exposure causes autism because it inhibits epitestosterone in the brain.

"the role of epiT in brain development remains a long neglected area of research. [...] It is herein proposed that epiT deficiency disrupts the action of sex steroids and other hormones (e.g., glucocorticoids) at their target sites, and may trigger the expression, overexpression or downregulation of the myriad genes implicated in several brain disorders."

"inhibition of epiT synthesis in rats by either VPA exposure or a citalopram-induced increase in serum T or 17b-E2 during a critical period in brain development raises the question of whether epiT is the central mediator of the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. If so, endocrine disrupting agents that impair epiT synthesis may be the most important factors contributing to pervasive developmental disorders."

He also wrote this little thing about epiT:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17382481/
He conjectures there that androsterone and epitestosterone are very important. And that epiT may be lowered by stuff like ibuprofen or opiods and raised by "antimycotics that do not impair testosterone biosynthesis" (So salicylic acid - aspirin? Not sure how he comes to this conclusion as I can only see the abstract.)

His idea about autism and epiT was tested just recently in this study. But it didn't find much. There wasn't much difference in urinary excretion of epitestosterone between normal kids and autistic kids.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7931062/

I think these researchers like the idea that epiT could be involved because they're trying to reconcile the "extreme male brain" theory of autism with the conflicting fact that male autistics aren't in any way high testosterone, and in fact the males show decreased masculinization. But epitestosterone could help explain that contradiction. I think that must be where these researchers are coming from.

I wouldn't draw any conclusions from urinary hormone excretion studies though. Does an increase in hormone excretion mean that tissue levels have increased, or does it mean that tissue levels are decreasing? As I understand it, either one can be true.

Here is a recent epitestosterone study.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28870779/
The abstract (all I can access) says that in rats, epiT by itself (without testosterone being present) is able to restore the proper masculinization of testicle weight and AGD (an important measure of physical masculinization) just like testosterone does. This is so interesting because epiT is an "anti-androgen" in other ways.

I remembered another way to fix youtube.
https://invidious.io/

@risingfire They are indeed found together in the "male PCOS" condition.

@Chud Good list! I just installed onetab, I've been looking for this for years! I love it

Here's Danny Roddy's view on the high DHEA premature balders (no mention of epiT though)

https://www.facebook.com/thedannyroddyweblog/photos/a.166254416730223.33414.160367813985550/1265571730131814/?type=3&theater

Basically he says stress provokes prolactin which makes the adrenal glands produce more DHEA. The young bald men had 340-730 mcg/dl DHEAS, while the non-bald young men had 124-300 mcg/dl.

Epitestosterone isn't even present on most charts of hormone production haha.

It appears that this is its main production pathway. (source)

DHEA is converted by 3 beta-HSD to androstenedione. (same pathway as testosterone's production from DHEA so far)

Then the enzyme 17alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17α-HSD) converts androstenedione to epitestosterone. (while testosterone's production pathway is that 17beta-HSD converts androstenedione to testosterone)

So whether your body makes testosterone or epitestosterone from androstenedione depends on which enzyme is used, 17alpha-HSD or 17beta-HSD.

17alpha-HSD is "inhibited by synthetic estrogens and 17beta-estradiol" (source)

According to the first study, 17alpha-HSD makes several other epimers too, including epiDHT, which seems to be even less known than epiT! Isn't it a big deal that such a hormone even exists? There seems to be a whole other half of hormone production going on? Perhaps there are even more that are completely unknown right now.

Like aromatase converts testosterone to estradiol (also known as 17beta-estradiol), there is a corresponding phenomenon with epitestosterone. Aromatase converts epitestosterone (also known as 17alpha-testosterone) to 17alpha-estradiol. (which I assume could be called epi-estradiol if you wanted)

According to the wikipedia article, 17alpha-estradiol has good effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17α-Estradiol - 17alpha-estradiol is 100x weaker than "regular" estradiol. Perhaps its good effects are because it displaces estradiol?

17α-Estradiol "antagonizes the hypertrophic response of 17β-estradiol, probably by acting as an antiestrogen by virtue of its very low activity."

"Supplementation with 17α-Estradiol increases the median lifespan of male mice by 19%, while not affecting female lifespan. This treatment does not lead to feminization of male mice."

High testosterone production leads to a certain amount aromatizing to estradiol. But the body naturally produces epitestosterone too and this aromatizes to 17alpha-estradiol instead. So when the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone production is imbalanced in favor of testosterone, I predict you would also imbalance the ratio of estradiol to 17alpha-estradiol in favor of estradiol. Probably has big effects.

Maybe this is why epitestosterone has been seen to have strong anti estrogen effects, despite not being an aromatase inhibitor.

I would expect that endocrine disruption does just as much damage to epitestosterone as to testosterone. A bit of evidence for that: Cadmium is a well known endocrine disruptor, and it's been seen in mice to suppress 17alpha-HSD. (source)

As a thought experiment, imagine four men. What would each type look like?

• High test, high epiT (this would have been the norm before endocrine disruption. Look at old pictures to see this type.)
• High test, low epiT (this is what TRT does to you since injecting increases testosterone without increasing epitestosterone. So you get high levels of test while still having hypogonadal levels of epitestosterone. So imagine the stereotypical TRT user here. Red face, bald, something weird going on.)
• Low test, high epiT (I'm not sure if this happens much. It wouldn't be a good thing, but I think it would be a different kind of dysfunction than we're used to seeing.)
• Low test, low epiT (this is a known type, it has been called "male PCOS" - he has insulin resistance and premature balding. I think he's the disastrous standard millennial male of today)

@metabolicmilk said in Defanging your computer:

@insufferable I ordered one. So I’ll let you know an honest review when I get it around May

Nice! I look forward to that!