Using exogenous testosterone will shut down your endogenous production, or at least permanently reduce it. A lot of people will try to tell you it can be avoided with the right combination of SERMs and HCG, but there are a lot of people who thought they were doing the exact “right” protocols who end up on TRT because their testicles were permanently atrophied. It’s one of those topics where everybody thinks they’re the exception who will avoid the consequences, but do it long enough and it will happen.
There are also a lot of secondary effects that people underestimate. For example, the extra testosterone (beyond normal levels) will result in excess estrogen, which can grow excess breast tissue in males. There are medications that can interrupt this process, but getting the dosage right is difficult and many people fluctuate around ideal values. Fluctuation and low estrogen values will cause significant mental health effects. Again, these are theoretical avoidable under perfect conditions yet almost everyone ends up with some of it eventually. I had a friend who tried using testosterone all the “right” ways with excessive lab tests, HCG, cycling, SERMs, AIs, and everything else. It still ended up destabilizing his mental health and making him prone to anger and bouts of sadness/crying. He denied it for a long time because he thought it couldn’t possibly be his by-the-book protocol, but eventually we got him to admit it was a problem. Denial runs deep.
Basically: Don’t go down this path unless you accept that it’s going to have significant downsides and consequences, many of which are long lasting or permanent. And definitely don’t dabble in taking testosterone or steroids as an early step in a weightlifting career or as a trial to see if it gives you a boost. The consequences can/will be permanent for the rest of your life.
> Using exogenous testosterone will shut down your endogenous production, or at least permanently reduce it
Can, not will. You're right though to point out that the body loves homeostasis and will downregulate endogenous testosterone production if serum levels are high from supplementation. Testicular atrophy from extended use is a real potential problem.
Unfortunately, TRT clinics are like the Internet Viagra doctors: they are drug dealers with an MD.
If you have low testosterone then see an endocrinologist or a urologist for treatment. There are certainly cases where exogenous testosterone injections are indicated, but depending on the kind of hypogonadism in question there can be better alternatives that don't involve injections or infertility.
It's worth noting that the secular testosterone decline is not a "new normal," but rather basically every man in the West is suffering from some kind of hypogonadism. We can speculate about the causes, but the precipitous drops in average population serum testosterone levels measured over the past decades is anything but natural or normal.
> many of which are long lasting or permanent
True, but not all of the permanent effects are negative. Exogenous testosterone causes muscle cell nuclei to multiply, and there is a permanent anabolic effect as a result. It's nowhere near as dramatic as being on exogenous androgens, but it's still significant.
> You're right though to point out that the body loves homeostasis and will downregulate endogenous testosterone production if serum levels are high from supplementation.
Any supplementation will, by definition, raise serum levels higher than they were before the extra testosterone was added.
This is what causes the downregulation, so of course it will happen. Like I said, people like to be in denial about this because it doesn’t necessarily happen right away, but it happens.
> True, but not all of the permanent effects are negative.
That’s a weird way of looking at it. Those extra muscle nuclei won’t be of much use if you discontinue TRT and your endogenous system is too atrophied to keep up with basic bodily needs. You have to look at the big picture.
Your comment is a good example of the denial I was talking about: For whatever reason, some people don’t want to believe that the negative effects will happen to them, and they want to ignore the consequences or change the subject to only talk about the positives.
It's worth noting that if you go to a doctor's office and get some treatment some of the evidence behind that treatment will probably overlap with the replication crisis. I don't know of any commonly accepted definition for the start of the papers covered by the replication crisis, but it's at least the last three decades.
> Does this apply to Longfolia leaf (Tongkat Ali)?
No -- Tongkat and other naturally occurring compounds like Fadogia increase testosterone by stimulating the body's production of Luteinizing Hormone, which in turn spurs the testes to produce more testosterone.
If you want to know more about this, the Huberman Lab podcast has visited the topic several times. His view is that Tongkat and Fadogia are safe to take for long periods of time without interruption ("cruise") and he has stated that he himself takes them as a supplement.
> _Hypogonadal_ men (n = 823) with total T ≤ 12.1 nmol/L (age: 60.6 ± 7.0 years) participated in an ongoing registry study. Among these men 474 (57.6%) were obese, 286 (34.8%) overweight and 63 (7.7%) had normal weight.
Hypogonadism means the gonads don't produce enough testosterone naturally.
So yeah, if you give testosterone to a bunch of old, fat, unhealthy [1] men with hormonal problems, it might help them lose weight and keep them alive longer.
Yes trt is the primary treatment for hypogonadism and the subject of these comments. If your over 40, sit in front of a computer all day for work and live in a city. i highly recommend getting your testosterone levels checked or better yet getting a full panel including vitamin d, hormones, etc.
Clomiphene is usually used for fertility in females, but the mechanism is the same in males. It works by blocking the estrogen receptor in the hypothalamus, which causes it to release more GnRH, which then stimulates gonadotropin, then LH and FSH, which in turn stimulates the gonads to do their thing.
If you were on TRT and wanted to restore fertility, it's a good way to do it. You probably wouldn't want to be on it permanently since it has some mood side effects due to it's estrogen blocking effects.
There are also a lot of secondary effects that people underestimate. For example, the extra testosterone (beyond normal levels) will result in excess estrogen, which can grow excess breast tissue in males. There are medications that can interrupt this process, but getting the dosage right is difficult and many people fluctuate around ideal values. Fluctuation and low estrogen values will cause significant mental health effects. Again, these are theoretical avoidable under perfect conditions yet almost everyone ends up with some of it eventually. I had a friend who tried using testosterone all the “right” ways with excessive lab tests, HCG, cycling, SERMs, AIs, and everything else. It still ended up destabilizing his mental health and making him prone to anger and bouts of sadness/crying. He denied it for a long time because he thought it couldn’t possibly be his by-the-book protocol, but eventually we got him to admit it was a problem. Denial runs deep.
Basically: Don’t go down this path unless you accept that it’s going to have significant downsides and consequences, many of which are long lasting or permanent. And definitely don’t dabble in taking testosterone or steroids as an early step in a weightlifting career or as a trial to see if it gives you a boost. The consequences can/will be permanent for the rest of your life.