Next BB dropped dead at age 31

[nothuman]

Those are great anecdotes but unfortunately a few random examples doesn't tell us much.




Just curious, what is your current TRT regimen, all drugs included?

Anyway, as for the longevity discussion, there is a preponderance of evidence suggesting benefits from true testosterone replacement therapy (not what a lot of guys here do, but I understand why they do it and that's fine). Unfortunately, most studies are very short term (a few weeks to a few months). We have a few longer term studies with mixed results. And unfortunately many of the studies are not well run, poor to moderate methodology.

I certainly agree that if someone has low testosterone they should be on TRT. Honestly there's a decent chance that even if I try coming off I will end up back on because before I even touched gear I was around 350-450ng/dl at 20 years old and in my opinion optimal healthy range is 600-800ng/dl or so. Long term low testosterone is problematic and can cause a host of health issues, not to mention a lower quality of life.

Perhaps you can show me some studies I'm unaware of but from what I've seen it is fairly inconclusive if we're comparing normal healthy men to men on TRT. For example when my dad was in his 50s his total T was 550ng/dl. I don't think he would have been better served at all on TRT. Now at 60 he's around 300ng/dl...it may be good to eventually consider TRT for him but to my knowledge we don't have data on longevity of elderly men taking testosterone long term. Well we do actually and it shows a higher mortality rate but that study, while large, was poorly run and hopefully is not reliable.

At the moment it's 20mg test cyp (RX) and 2.5iu grey tops per day. I am not always on the grey tops though. As far as other "drugs" go, I use on a daily basis Telmisartan 80mg, Nebivolol 5mg, Cialis 10mg, Metformin 1500mg, Probenecid 500mg (only because I wanted to improve my diastolic function of my heart, wouldn't recommend this for everyone), and Deprenyl (2mg per week, not daily).

All of these besides HGH and Probenecid are for life extension purposes. As you know, I monitor very carefully things like echo cardiograms and blood work. I added Nebivolol, probenecid, and deprenyl more recently than the others.

As for the studies on TRT, there are a lot if you google "TRT life extension." When I read these things, I don't normally save them so it would require a lot of time for me to track everything down that I have read. Another thing I do is follow all kinds of progressive doctors and such on Twitter, who frequently post great new info every day that I learn a lot from.

 

[Deleted member 106824]

At the moment it's 20mg test cyp (RX) and 2.5iu grey tops per day. I am not always on the grey tops though. As far as other "drugs" go, I use on a daily basis Telmisartan 80mg, Nebivolol 5mg, Cialis 10mg, Metformin 1500mg, Probenecid 500mg (only because I wanted to improve my diastolic function of my heart, wouldn't recommend this for everyone), and Deprenyl (2mg per week, not daily).

All of these besides HGH and Probenecid are for life extension purposes. As you know, I monitor very carefully things like echo cardiograms and blood work. I added Nebivolol, probenecid, and deprenyl more recently than the others.

As for the studies on TRT, there are a lot if you google "TRT life extension." When I read these things, I don't normally save them so it would require a lot of time for me to track everything down that I have read. Another thing I do is follow all kinds of progressive doctors and such on Twitter, who frequently post great new info every day that I learn a lot from.

I'd love to go add some HGH myself but definitely not comfortable with it at this point given the cardiomegaly data out there and that's my specific cardiac issue. Have you had any high FBG readings while on GH causing the need for metformin, or are you just taking it for the purported benefits?

How's your estradiol on 140mg Test per week?

Currently I'm on 4x20mg Test C per week, 2x0.5mg Anastrozole per week, 80mg Valsartan daily, and my IBD medications (mainly mesalamine).

As for the TRT data, I mean hell I more than most people would have a bias for trying to find positive data on TRT. I'd love to never have to worry about low T again or rollercoaster levels and just keep it at 1000-1200ng/dl like most on this forum do (at minimum). Obviously I have reservations though considering I'm on such a low dose of 80mg per week.

**broken link removed**

Increased Risk of Non-Fatal Myocardial Infarction Following Testosterone Therapy Prescription in Men

I imagine you're familiar with these studies. They're not without their flaws, but then again most of the TRT studies out there have some flaws.

Again I see a lot of data showing short term benefits but I haven't personally seen conclusive evidence showing it's considered safe long term

 

[Deleted member 106824]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25961200

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26020563

For what it's worth, here are two more personal reasons I don't want to come off TRT. I've often wondered if coming off will result in a more unbalanced testosterone:cortisol ratio setting off an IBD flare. For me more than most people low T could cause some issues and those issues could in turn drive my T lower. I'd love to be convinced with evidence that staying on 100-150mg of TRT for life is nothing but healthy for me, but I want to be objective about the evidence I come across.


Edit: One other thing I forgot to mention was that study showing cardiac benefits from finasteride, a drug that inhibits DHT formation. Well obviously higher test = higher DHT unless you're on a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor so that study made me wonder about lifelong higher T, and therefore higher DHT, causing issues down the road. Again I haven't seen anything refuting that definitively.

 

[nothuman]

I'd love to go add some HGH myself but definitely not comfortable with it at this point given the cardiomegaly data out there and that's my specific cardiac issue. Have you had any high FBG readings while on GH causing the need for metformin, or are you just taking it for the purported benefits?

How's your estradiol on 140mg Test per week?

Currently I'm on 4x20mg Test C per week, 2x0.5mg Anastrozole per week, 80mg Valsartan daily, and my IBD medications (mainly mesalamine).

As for the TRT data, I mean hell I more than most people would have a bias for trying to find positive data on TRT. I'd love to never have to worry about low T again or rollercoaster levels and just keep it at 1000-1200ng/dl like most on this forum do (at minimum). Obviously I have reservations though considering I'm on such a low dose of 80mg per week.

**broken link removed**

Increased Risk of Non-Fatal Myocardial Infarction Following Testosterone Therapy Prescription in Men

I imagine you're familiar with these studies. They're not without their flaws, but then again most of the TRT studies out there have some flaws.

Again I see a lot of data showing short term benefits but I haven't personally seen conclusive evidence showing it's considered safe long term

That dose of HGH has zero impact on my fasted glucose or my A1C. I'm going to my endo tomorrow though so I will get these tested again along with E2. I was doing a twice weekly injection method last time I had my E2 checked so I'll update what it is now. It's never been high where I need an AI on TRT though.

Yea it's true we want to find a positive bias for TRT studies. Hard to argue that. But with everything, I think if we get bloodwork for all the necessary things, we can know how it impacts each of us personally.

I admit I know very little about finasteride as I haven't had to deal with hair issues luckily

 

[Deleted member 106824]

That dose of HGH has zero impact on my fasted glucose or my A1C. I'm going to my endo tomorrow though so I will get these tested again along with E2. I was doing a twice weekly injection method last time I had my E2 checked so I'll update what it is now. It's never been high where I need an AI on TRT though.

Yea it's true we want to find a positive bias for TRT studies. Hard to argue that. But with everything, I think if we get bloodwork for all the necessary things, we can know how it impacts each of us personally.

I admit I know very little about finasteride as I haven't had to deal with hair issues luckily

If you remember, update me on that E2, I'd be curious to see if you notice a difference in levels between the same weekly dose injected in 2 days vs 7 days.

Monitoring bloodwork is huge. The main arguments against the 2 negative TRT studies I posted above (which are some of the largest TRT studies performed) are mainly that they didn't monitor things closely enough. My problem with that argument is that sure, they should monitor values more closely, but that itself doesn't negate the fact that they still showed increased risk.

Additionally, even people who are obsessive like us can't necessarily determine the effects from some basic blood testing or even an echo. I can take testosterone and see that my lipid values are still amazing....ok great. But I can't take testosterone and accurately determine how it's affecting my heart. I can get an echo what, once a year? Maybe once every 6 months? Echos easily have a +/-5% range for ejection fractions and other measurements so their interpretation alone could alter the results. Additionally, if there is a change, something else could have caused it. Maybe it would have happened anyway due to one reason or another, or it would have gone in the reverse direction and there is just simply no way to know. That's why large long term studies are so important. When N=1 it's just impossible to be sure of anything, as much as we may want to be.

Again I'm not saying TRT is bad, I'm just saying I don't personally believe it's 100% ok either and we have several large studies suggesting it MAY not be ok. I certainly hope it is. My last echo was in September 2017 so I'll probably get another one in the next few months. Everything has been more or less the same since then.

 

[Deleted member 106824]

Just an FYI here. We could also find studies showing numerous benefits. Just expanding on my point that it's still controversial.




Ours results demonstrated that there was an inverse correlation between right and left ventricular function and total testosterone serum levels

It is also partially discordant that, after testosterone administration, serum total levels remained in the normal physiological range and no significant changes were found in BNP, TNF-α or LVEF. Also, there was also a positive correlation between testosterone and cardiac output (15). However, it was concordant with worsening of left ventricular remodeling with testosterone administration. The mechanisms to explain our findings are not clear. Effects of testosterone in the heart are controversial and alternative hypotheses could be proposed.

The first hypothesis is that the total testosterone serum blood levels could play a role in pathophysiology of HF, worsening cardiac function. This is concordant with the concept that anabolic steroids were considered as having cardiac toxicity with alterations of cellular pathology and organ physiology similar to those seen with heart failure and cardiomyopathy (16). In addition, testosterone treatment in very high supra-physiological doses causes myocardial hypertrophy and stiffening (17). Investigators administrated physiologic doses of testosterone and found an increase in the left ventricular diameters, but did not find any change in the LVEF