Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, M.D. have 2 well-researched chapters, Hormones of Aging Hormones of Youth and Other Hormones of Youth: Sex Hormones in their 2004 book, Fantastic Voyage*, which provide a sound basis for a discussion of anabolic steroids and testosterone replacement therapy. I take their work as a valuable introduction, because the science (as to the subject at hand) appears well within the consensus of serious peer reviewed medical research.
The first of the chapters defines anabolic and catabolic hormones. Anabolic hormones facilitate or control tissue growth. Catabolic hormones stimulate tissues to break down. The chapter has a simple chart, which illustrates how all steroid hormones in the body ultimately derive from cholesterol. It looks something like this:
Cholesterol
|
Pregnenolone
/ \
DHEA Progesterone
| / \ stress
Testosterone Cortisol
|
Estradiol
This little flow chart of testosterone synthesis may only present a very simplified view of an enormously complex system, but it does establish an interesting relationship. Our bodies synthesize testosterone from cholesterol. Maybe not in every case, but for the most part higher cholesterol levels support higher testosterone levels. Many of us at age have managed our diets and fitness regimens and taken supplements and even statins to lower cholesterol levels. Doing so, likely, makes it more difficult for our bodies to maintain the higher testosterone levels, which enhance muscle growth, recovery, and repair.
Alpha^2
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