Hacker News Reader

Comment by tedunangst | Hacker News Reader

How about research into whether a 55 year old actually requires the T levels of a 25 year old or whether they can make do naturally?

View on HN

TRT is tricky because patients will feel an initial boost in their early treatment. They assume this feeling is their new normal, but then things level out and they go back to a more normal-ish feeling.

Severe testosterone deficiencies respond very well to treatment. Going from 55 year old to 25 year old levels isn’t as dramatic.

TRT forums are full of people with normal or low-normal who thought TRT was going to solve all of their problems and make them feel young again, only to be disappointed that they don’t really feel much of anything after a while. However, now they’re stuck on it for life because their endogenous production has dropped off.

You can just dose on HCG for a month and your natural levels will come back.

> You can just dose on HCG for a month and your natural levels will come back.

That is the broscience consensus, but it's not as bulletproof as people like to believe. It will probably work for a 25 year old after 1-2 months of dabbling, but the TRT forums are full of stories where these tricks don’t work or stop working after extended use.

The tricks are not guaranteed like some of the forums or sketchy TRT clinics will claim. Atrophy can be permanent after relatively moderate periods, even with all of the HCG and SERM tricks.

I’m 40, was on for a year, then went off for a year. Levels of both natural testosterone and sperm count recovered in less than six months (could have been much less, didn’t test again until then), but those first few weeks really sucked.

If I could choose between feeling like a 55 year old and a 25 year old, why would I pick the former?

If there are no major health consequences then what's there even to consider outside of cost?

Is a temporary boost worth developing a reliance on such medication? From what ive seen your body quickly adapts to the testosterone, and while it feels good initially eventually you are back to the same baseline, except now if you stop taking it you will feel even worse as the levels drop below what your initial baseline was to start with. And many people will resort to taking even higher and higher doses, chasing the "high" that they got from it initially.

No there is no baseline reversion for exogenous testosterone. What happens is that your natural ability to produce testosterone disappears.

What about supplements like KSM-66 or other T “boosters.” Do these decrease your baseline production if you stop taking them?

They seem to hardly effect your baseline production in the first place, so little risk?

This sounds exactly like all other addictive drugs, such as opiates. Diminishing returns combined with physical dependence.

As someone who is generally against testosterone supplementation… hell no that’s a terrible comparison. How extrogenous testosterone affects the HPTA axis and the returns/dependence, is nowhere near what opiates do to your mu/delta opioid neuroreceptors.

Opiate neuroreceptors autodownregulate, for one, so that means tolerance/dependency gets worse over time. That doesn’t happen with testosterone at all. Also, TRT would not have diminishing returns, after you get past the first few weeks. Some of that is tuning E2 levels, etc; most of it is psychological result of expectations (think placebo effect).

You risk issues at common doses, like cardiovascular damage (which tend to be higher doses than TRT), but these issues don’t compare with opiates.

I’m 40, was on TRT for a year, quit for a year because of hair loss and fertility, then have been back on for the last six months. The initial high doesn’t last past a couple months, but I’ve always felt much better on TRT than off. The baseline is steady, not declining.

For what purpose, living forever? Like suddenly being 25 is going to vanish into thin air with no consequences?

For the purpose of feeling a lot better. Why are you so hostile to the idea of men having a better quality of life in old age?

What T level is required to have a good life?

I see what you are trying to do, thanks for contributing to the discussion.

Low T levels can massively negatively impact someone's life, if that can be addressed by supplementing testosterone people should be able to do so. If higher levels can benefit someone then they should be able to supplement it also.

That is for my doctor to figure out. But I know at not quite 50 i miss 25

That's the catch though, these absurdly high levels of testosterone have not proven better quality of life. Especially for those who aren't suffering from a severe lack of testosterone (far beyond the aging process).

I didn't interpret their question as hostile, this might be a case of you projecting. You felt enraged at the question, responded hastily and labelled them in a certain way. Try not to do so in the future.

Try to be less pompous.

You just have no idea what you are talking about.

Please don't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. If you want to share correct information respectfully, that would be great; not posting is also a fine option.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Unrelated, but while I have you: Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is also in the site guidelines.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Please don't cross into personal attack on HN. It's not what the site is for and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. We're trying to avoid that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Being deficient in sex hormones is not conducive for a long life. It doesn't mean a 55 year old should necessarily have 1200 ng/dL testosterone, but supplementing up to a normal range is a very good idea for bone health, the ability to exercise, and put on a reasonable amount of muscle so that you don't break a hip from falling when you're 65 or 70.

> If I could choose between feeling like a 55 year old and a 25 year old, why would I pick the former?

Theoretically, you are wiser at 55. /s

I am 100% pro TRT but if a person starts in their 40s, I just highly doubt it will be a free lunch if you are on TRT for 40 years.

On the other hand, there is no way to know at the individual level all the healthy habits that would come with TRT. This discussion is always from the point as if everyone is optimally healthy when reality is the opposite. Even just getting bloodwork done so much more than you would without TRT is a huge factor. No one is taking TRT and then playing video games and eating pizza all day.

The real downside to me though is having to get a supply of testosterone for decades. We are just so irrational on this subject that who knows what will happen in 10 years. The proposed hoops to have to jump through that are being debated right now are completely insane. Having to see a doctor in person once a month would be utterly ridiculous.

Of course they can, but they feel better at elevated T levels.

"Sure, you can overclock that CPU, but why?"

I dislike questions that challenge pushing the limits of our existence.

Do you also dislike questioning whether pushing the limits of existence accomplishes anything? What questions do you think should be permitted?

It’s up to the individual. If they want to limit test their HPTA, they can do that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com