Derek (More Plates More Dates)

But that hormone, the most androgenic hormone in the body that essentially determines if you fully masculinize or not, where you end up with a micropenis, that has a much higher binding affinity for SHBG than testosterone does.

And then testosterone has a much higher binding affinity for SHBG than estrogen does.

So even though on paper, we're talking about the importance of free test versus total test, which is very important.

Also very important, which most people aren't going to test in their blood, is the DHT level that males will rely on through adolescence and to some extent in adulthood, potentially, depending on their test levels.

That is going to get gobbed up even more proportionally by SHBG.

So if you have high SHBG, not only is your free test potentially inadequate, despite adequate testosterone production, proportionally your free DHT, which is like the main androgenic hormone, is like way more gobbed up.

And this gets really rough in females because they, a lot of them, are using things like combined oral contraceptives, which crank SHBG through the roof, through the liver interaction with the oral, combined oral contraceptive pills, depending on which drug they're using.

In general, ethanol estradiol plus some progestin, depending on how androgenic the progestin is, it'll depend on how much the SHBG goes up.

But

You'll see in adolescent women or women who are, you know, in full adulthood that are taking combined oral contraceptives, their total testosterone will suppress upwards of 50 to 60 percent and free testosterone upwards of like 70 to 80 percent.

So they're walking around like borderline asexual castrated by a pill, essentially.

That's with oral, but like any sort of progestin that is synthetic will have negative feedback to some degree, all but much lesser so via a localized IUD releasing a levonorgestrel or something.

And you're not having to take that supporting estradiol that comes compounded into it.

So it depends on the format, but a lot of girls are still using the combined pill.

So it's just worth noting nonetheless that...

when these SHBG levels are skyrocketed or even like high on a clinical reference range,

If you are somebody who is like moderate, you know, tea production or low normal or whatever, like the proportional hit to your DHT getting gobbed up could be like the differential between you being symptomatic versus not, as well as your free tea.

Even though it's proportionally less gobbed up, the DHT could be like nuked entirely essentially via the SHBG levels being high.

Yeah.

So like a common thing that people hear is when you get 30 years old, your total testosterone will decline by 1% per year.