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Comment by failwhaleshark | Hacker News Reader

In bodies with testicles, low T (from a number of possible causes) can be even worse than just depression: inability to concentrate, confusion, alertness, consciousness, memory, anxiety, social, and sleep problems. You don't want this.

Maslow's hierarchy things help: Sleep (where possible), diet, water, exercise (HIIT cardio and weightlifting), get outside, routine, defuse catastrophizing thoughts with reality, and not everything is as hard as it may seem (no mind, grasshoppa).

Avoid: alcohol, walnuts, almonds, soy, licorice root (black licorice candy), mint, certain oils (canola, corn, cottonseed, soybean, flaxseed, sunflower, safflower, palm kernel, "vegetable"), sugar/HFCS, carbs, trans-fats, and excessive omega-3.

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Almost any hormonal imbalance will lead to the symptoms you described. Also AFAIK soy and most of the other foods you listed causing low T is a myth.

You do bring up a very good point though: sometimes depression is a mental symptom of a physical problem. Bad hormones can make you hopeless, they can take enjoyment and passion out of everything, they can completely alter your thinking and personality (I know from experience).

Which is another reason to not commit suicide when you're depressed. Even if you cannot physically imagine yourself happy, seek a doctor to check if your hormones are off. And if they can't find anything, seek another doctor (there are many many things that can go wrong with your body and cause depression, one doctor won't check them all). People's lives have been changed because they found weird holistic treatments which cured their rare hormone imbalance, which caused their depression.

Causing? No. I never said that. Reducing? Yes. It's important if there's an underlying condition causing low T to not lower it even further. Excessive PUFS or omega-3 leads free T to be SHBG-bound. Albumin-bound and free are the only readily, universally bioavailable forms.

If you commit suicide, you throw away all future changes to a different state.

Why in the world are you being down voted? People who are down voting this post, get a fucking life, really.

He has a point, bad food is underrated as the cause of depression, even if you disagreed with him, the least that you can do is to just ignore him, rather than actively down vote him.

Why walnuts & almonds?

PUFAs

Also if you think you may have low T levels, give Fenugreek a try which is a natural booster. You can pick it up at Walmart.

https://bestlowthelp.com/fenugreek-health-benefits-men-testo...

Uh, no thanks. Please don't recommend snake oil supplements here.

Excuse you. I assume people here are intelligent and will do their own research. Other entrepreneurs shared this with me, and I'm grateful.

The irony of you peddling one set of unsubstantiated opinion and then crapping on someone else’s (who at least gave a link)…

When dealing with failures of the body and brain, an experimental approach by a capable individual is worthwhile: even if you mitigate your issue by placebo then that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Try whatever isn’t damaging, within reason.

That said, I am a super sceptic.

If you don't exhibit any symptoms and your lab tests are fine, couldn't you just ignore basically 100% of this advice? I feel like some of these things are rather drastic changes (e.g. canola oil, carbs in general) that would be better left for consultation with a medical professional.

Appeal to authority fallacy, among others.

Lab tests of T are a snapshot in time. T values vary dramatically over the day, but their average values are influenceable.

Feel free to go without sleep, add stress, binge drink, and eat only pizza, and then see how much T remains.

A male-born individual can choose murder their SHGB-unbound T by shunting it into cortisol or estrogen production with lifestyle choices, in addition to genetics, health, and acute conditions, if they want more inflammation, less calm, more anxiety, shorter lives, and less focus.

hey mate. can you recommend some reading?

> inability to concentrate, confusion, alertness, consciousness, memory, anxiety, social, and sleep problems

Has anyone every genuinely done any research to check if an increase in theses resulting symptoms from decreasing T levels across men over the past few decades is highly-correlated to our seeming decline in productivity and generally stagnating GDP growth?

Can it be affecting the contributions of 50% of the population? Can it be affecting scientific, industrial, cultural, community, and familial contributions from men across society more than we realize?

And what would we actually do if we did realize this?

How would that be controlled-for when there are shifts in unskilled and semi-skilled work around the globe, automation, local demographics changes, aging population, increasing densities of people (tending towards depression which also reduces aggression (T)), and massive income inequality increasing the economic stresses on the average person (that alone would kill T in all genders)?

> Can it be affecting the contributions of 50% of the population?

How would this be measured without a duplicate control Earth? Hypothetically: if everyone in sadder areas had as much food and money as they needed to be comfortable, I guarantee T levels would be much higher in men and women, there would be a lot more sex, a lot more happier people, and a lot more babies in 9 months.

> And what would we actually do if we did realize this?

The average person would probably do what they always do: shrug and do nothing. The plutocrats would only care if their top employees weren't performing optimally and would throw more money and/or better conditions at them.

So I have a bit of a unique perspective here; I’m a trans woman who has had “the surgery” so my body no longer produces its own testosterone (cisgender women get a little bit from their ovaries). So I take T in gel form, and I definitely notice if I don’t take it.

Symptoms of low T for me are difficulty sleeping, migraines, low sex drive and overall low energy. But it doesn’t take a whole lot to get me out of that range; just a tiny dab of gel rubbed in to my shoulder (for comparison, a man with low T would use an entire 1g tube every day). Low T that’s not super low doesn’t necessarily make any of that worse, and very high levels of T will actually convert into estrogen (which is why bodybuilders who abuse steroids can grow breasts and have shrunken genitals, and also increases emotional volatility).

And I think you’re right; there is a population benefit to lower levels of testosterone overall at a societal level that reduces conflict. Furthermore high T levels have a positive feedback loop with physical labor (building muscle is way easier the more T you have), so it makes sense your body would produce less if it isn’t trying to constantly repair muscle damage from strenuous physical activity. I would say that high T levels would be a liability in an office job; they make people quicker to anger and outright aggression is not taken positively in knowledge work. There may be benefits for physical labor, but definitely diminishing returns if you work a desk job.

Did I just read Alex Jones?

I'm almost certain this thread is just a transcription of a Joe Rogan podcast

That's disingenuous imo.

Attempting to discuss the well-documented statistical declines of testosterone in men is always and completely "Alex Jones"?

You need to get out more.

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