Dr. Kyle Gillett

For health optimization, testosterone is just as important to know.

For pathology prevention, for example, breast cancer, osteoporosis, estrogen and progesterone are more important to know.

So when you're thinking about women, women think that they have such a tiny amount of testosterone because you test it.

Most people test a free testosterone.

So testosterone that's unbound, which is by far the smallest proportion of testosterone.

Any androgen is bound by lots of different steroid binding proteins, but the ones that are most pertinent are called SHBG or sex hormone binding globulin.

And that binds the androgenic steroid

for example, DHT or dihydrotestosterone, it's associated with prostate enlargement, it's associated with male pattern baldness.

It binds that the most strongly, and then it binds testosterone next most strongly, and then it binds things like androstenedione or DHEA, dehydroepiandrosterone.

and then it binds the estrogens, the weakest, like estradiol.

So if you look at the total amount of testosterone, women actually have, almost all women, not all women, but almost all of them have significantly more testosterone than estradiol, but it's because it's in different measurements.

So estradiol a lot of time is grams per mil as opposed to nanograms per deciliter.

So women have more testosterone than estrogen.

and significantly more DHEA than either.

DHT is a very androgenic hormone.

So whether you're talking about DHEA, which is a weak androgen, or testosterone, which is a relatively strong androgen,

or DHT, which is a very strong androgen, they bind to the androgen receptor in both men and in women.

So the effect of all three of those is mediated by the androgen receptor.

Intriguingly, it is on the X chromosome.

So men get their androgen receptor gene from their mother.