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You really don’t want to take Arimidex if your estradiol is normal. Arimidex is a powerful drug, and you will likely tank your estradiol levels and feel terrible. If you suspect high E2, try DIM first (Nature Way and Estrobalance are two good brands). DIM, although natural, is also strong stuff so again be careful and dose properly to ensure you don’t go too low. If that doesn’t work, there is a natural supplement called Myomin that might work well.
I believe insulin is the main cause of low SHBG. Also look into high dhea. If your SHBG is very low like you say, your doctor really should pay attention. I believe Marianco has written that a very low SHBG is always an indicator of a pre-diabetic state.
You are correct, dhea plays a significant role in lowering SHBG (probably mainly via its actions on insulin), but one would imagine that any libido boosting effects of dhea would not be attributed to lowering SHBG, since in most cases total testosterone would be lowered as SHBG goes down. I have started a post on this at the meso rx men’s health forum. The answers so far seem to suggest this.
That’s exactly what I wrote in my previous post. Maybe I’m not good at explaining myself.
I guess if high SHBG is lowered (via dhea or whatever), then there will be more free testosterone available even if total testosterone is lowered.
62 nmol? If so that is even higher than my 52, which is already damn high. My dhea is on the low side, but still in range. Same goes for estradiol and progesterone.
I don’t fully understand SHBG in relation to libido. If lowering it will in turn just lower total testosterone (so that the same level of free testosterone is maintained) then what’s the point?
I have read Mariano’s writings on SHBG, where he states that SHBG is an indicator of something wrong, and not a problem in itself. I’m confused as to where he’s coming from. Maybe he means that, for example, if one has high SHBG and low dhea such as in my case, that treating the low dhea would be the concern, and any improvements in libido would be due to the increase in dhea alone, NOT the lowering of SHBG. I find this paradoxical considering all the information over the web which goes on about lowering SHBG and the importance of raising free testosterone bla bla bla. Maybe it’s all mis-information.
I’d have to concur that my experience with saliva testing hasn’t been positive. Dr Jon Crisler considers saliva testing to be garbage, and if I remember correctly Mariano only considers them accurate for cortisol.
I recently got my results back from Lab21 here in the UK, and the results were so inconsistent and contradictory to all my blood work that I seriously doubt the accuracy of them. It wasn’t cheap either. The comments on my lab report were that my samples were “very acidic”, and this could have affected the results. A waste of money imo. My advice would be to get a male hormone modulating profile from the Life Extension Foundation, definitely worth the money.
Obviously I’m not the dr, but I have searched for the answer to this question before and come up with nothing – there doesn’t seem to be any supplements or drugs that can directly lower progesterone in any signficant way. In theory, inhibitory neurotransmitters such as gaba should lower progesterone since high progesterone is often a sign of stress.
Maybe a better (or the only) approach would be to treat the cascade of hormones that are affected by progesterone, rather than trying to lower progesterone itself.
ie, progesterone can raise prolactin levels when progesterone is already at optimum, and the elevated prolactin levels in turn upregulates E2 receptors, which increases E2 metabolism. In this case we could use dostinex to lower prolactin and/or DIM to lower estrogen signalling activity.
Progesterone also opposes DHT, and can prevent its conversion from testosterone. In this case we could use a topical DHT cream to raise levels.
I’m not sure though. There doesn’t seem to have been a lot of studies done on progesterone; in the web of hormones under scientific scrutiny it seems to have taken a backseat. Which is stupid, imo, because looking at what functions it performs in the body, it’s a lot more than just a “female hormone”.
Estradiol isn’t the only thing that influences SHBG. If the only problem one has is high levels of estradiol, then what you’ve posted is correct. But if high SHBG is correlated to factors other than estradiol then what?
