Dietary ways of reducing DHT

[powersam]

they didnt exactly get along fine, the sick ones died and the healthy ones lived. good for evolution but not so much for premature babies or the like. i totally agree that the world has gone pill crazy, but thats more a symptom of the quickfix society we live in rather than the medical profession. did you have any complications during your birth? still got your appendix? tonsils? all those conditions and many many more were for the most part fatal before modern medicine. i'm all for more natural medicines but to me their use is more for the prevention side of things. once i'm actually sick, i want a doctor.


what is this modulation that keeps getting mentioned? i know what the word means but dont understand how it can be applied here.

 

[newguy2006]

That's a very good point, too. In fact, they're likely to have even MORE side-effects than a designed drug like dutasteride, because the latter was designed to have ONLY one specific effect, unlike a natural food, which could have multiple such effects.
Bryan

I can understand your skepticism of Flax Lignans effects on actual hair loss, but now you're just starting to sound like a Pharma rep yourself. Any time you put anything in your body it's going to have multiple effects. As much as we'd all like to believe that dutasteride will solely grow hair on our heads like chia pets, that notion is sorely mistaken, and our dicks are usually the first to tell us about it. It's definitely not always true, but usually the case is that if natural compounds can be used to successfully treat a condition, less side-effects will be sufferred using them in comparison with prescription drugs.

Let's take sublime's earlier referenced example: high cholesterol. Over 12 million Americans have been prescribed statin drugs (Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor, etc.) that have supposedly been "designed" to have ONLY one specific effect - yet anyone who follows the health industry realizes how incredibly dangerous said drugs are. What is more disconcerting is that there are equally effective natural treatments (plant sterols, policosanol especially) available at a fraction of the price - with the most prominent side effect being weight loss with 1.8% of users. Rats given mega-doses of Policosanol of up to 1724 times what a human would take showed no signs of toxicity. Try that with Crestor.

Back to Flax Lignans - let's look at what they actually are. Oil (39%) - including a broad range of essential Omega-3,6,9 fatty acids; Fiber (28%); Protein (21.5%); Carbohydrates (7.5%); Minerals (1.8%) - including Calcium, Iron, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium, Copper, Zinc, Manganese, and Selenium; Vitamins (.32%) A, B1, B2, D, E, and Niacin; Lecithin (.15%); Flavanoids (.1%); Phytic Acid (.1%). The biggest side effect you're going to suffer with Flax Lignan is lack of cancer. Maybe some farts if you OD on the fiber. Whether it can help with male pattern baldness is still yet to be determined.

As far as doctors go - some of them deserve the bad rap, while many are excellent at their profession. The real evils in the health industry are some of the pharmaceutical companies who use profit-motivated heavy-handed tactics with only secondary concerns for the safety of their products. Take for example Propecia's low listed efficacy for sexual side effects - 2% - talk about a load of horse-sh*t! As it has always been in the past, the only way to attain good health care in today's society is to be an informed consumer. That's just my obnoxious rant.

 

[Aplunk1]

What a load of crap.

2% is definitely the number of sexual side effects. The number is even higher with dutasteride, yet I am not getting any sexual or other side effects at all.

 

[jakeb]

When I posted this thread, I was really just thinking that these would be some good guidelines to follow if you were on any sort of regimen, not as your sole treatment. If you're taking drugs to reduce dht, it makes sense to not have a diet that increases dht. Every little bit counts!

 

[sublime]

That's a very good point, too. In fact, they're likely to have even MORE side-effects than a designed drug like dutasteride, because the latter was designed to have ONLY one specific effect, unlike a natural food, which could have multiple such effects.

Designed to have specific side effects, that makes zero sense. Also dutasteride was not designed for hair loss and scientists do not even know what other pathways it affects. Look at propecia, it blocks 5AR-II and also increases IGF. If they were only trying to block 5AR-II they did a pretty horrid job of isolating that one specific task.

I totally agree that the world has gone pill crazy, but thats more a symptom of the quickfix society we live in rather than the medical profession. did you have any complications during your birth? still got your appendix? tonsils? all those conditions and many many more were for the most part fatal before modern medicine.

I consider those doctors the good guys to a certain level; surgeons, and a few others.

What do you think is the difference betqween those two?

Well you threw the term "PALPABLY" out there which means you are educated and have the ability to search webster.


We will probably never agree on this Bryan but in another 3 months I will be able to say whether SDG from flax hulls can help with hair loss. But if you would like to continue please feel free.

 

[powersam]

the medical profession doesnt really work that way, you dont have surgeons and then the other guys. there will be good surgeons and bad surgeons. either way though anyone who knows anything about medicine knows that diagnostic medicine requires the most skill and intelligence, closely followed by paedatrics. the surgery is usually the easy part.

 

[sublime]

the medical profession doesnt really work that way, you dont have surgeons and then the other guys. there will be good surgeons and bad surgeons. either way though anyone who knows anything about medicine knows that diagnostic medicine requires the most skill and intelligence, closely followed by paedatrics. the surgery is usually the easy part.

I speaking in terms of which ones in the industry I would trust. If you are in a car accident at 3am you are going to get the surgeon who is working whether he is good or bad. Obviously with everything else you want to select your dr when possible.

How is surgery the easy part and dispensing pills the hard part? They check off the syptoms and hand out the appropriate pill.

 

[Bryan]

That's a very good point, too. In fact, they're likely to have even MORE side-effects than a designed drug like dutasteride, because the latter was designed to have ONLY one specific effect, unlike a natural food, which could have multiple such effects.
Bryan

I can understand your skepticism of Flax Lignans effects on actual hair loss, but now you're just starting to sound like a Pharma rep yourself. Any time you put anything in your body it's going to have multiple effects.

I suggest to you that if you eat enough flax to reduce DHT to the same extent that dutasteride does, it might cause a side-effect known as DEATH!

Bryan

 

[Bryan]

Designed to have specific side effects, that makes zero sense.

Designed to have specific INTENDED effects.

Also dutasteride was not designed for hair loss...

How do YOU know what it was designed for? Maybe it was designed for a spectrum of potential uses (including hairloss), just like finasteride was.

and scientists do not even know what other pathways it affects.

Maybe some other "pathway" will eventually come to light, but so far, it appears to work with pretty good specificity.

What do you think is the difference betqween those two?

Well you threw the term "PALPABLY" out there which means you are educated and have the ability to search webster.

Oh-oh, I can see the writing on the wall: I'm never gonna get an answer to that question! :wink:

Bryan

 

[powersam]

that comment simply shows you know absolutely nothing about medicine. diagnosing a patients illness is the hardest part of medicine, without fail. The same disease can have different symptoms in different people, different diseases can have the same symptoms, and so on. This is barely scratching the surface of the difficulty of diagnostic medicine. ask any doctor, surgeon or otherwise, and you'll get the same answer. the surgeon pulls the trigger but the diagnostician aims the gun. bad analogy i know but it fits.

 

[sublime]

PowerSam - Apparently I am not the only person who does not know much about medicine considering prescription drugs kill over 105,000 people every year. Your point does not even have to do with the topic of this forum anymore.


Jakeb - Do you have any additional questions or do you feel that things have been addressed?

 

[powersam]

teach people how to read labels, teach them that increasing their dose because they want to feel better sooner doesnt work, make them aware that not telling their doctor about every other drug they are on or will be using can be fatal due to contraindications. your post has absolutely no relevance whatsoever as you simply assume all those deaths are the the fault of the doctors. moreover it does not in anyway argue my point that diagnostic medicine is the hard part.

jakeb - i apologise for the thread hijack and also beleive dht can be reduced via diet and may help your regime somewhat. i use freshly ground flaxseeds, brocolli and tomato which have all been found to have a beneficial effect on the prostate.

 

[Jupiter1]

Men at younger ages who suffer from "Androgenetic Alopecia," male pattern baldness have lower circulating SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin) and higher androgens than normal. Elevated testosterone, for example, causes SHBG synthesis to decrease, whereas high estrogen stimulates SHBG production.

Younger men with low levels of SHBG have increased androgenetic testosterone converted into DHT. Low levels SHBG are inversely correlated with insulin resistance. In other words, high insulin levels due to poor blood sugar metabolism are usually associated with sub-normal levels of SHBG. Predominate dietary consumption of sugars and starches not only encourage insulin resistance and impaired blood glucose levels, but elevate DHT levels.

Flax Lignans were found to modulate 5-alpha-reductase isozymes 1 and 2 in differing extents (30% and 75% respectively).

In scientific studies, lignans from flax are reported to have an influence on testosterone metabolism through three mechanisms: (1) the mediation of 5-alpha reductase (2) the inhibition of aromatase (3) the inhibition of 17B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase.

Flax secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG) works, not lowering serum 5-alpha-reductase like Finasteride or Dutasteride, but instead bind to it. Lignans inhibit 5-alpha-reductase selectively and irreversibly binding with 5-alpha-reductase, thereby blocking conversion of testosterone to DHT. Enterolactone is found to inhibit 5-alpha-reductase up to 80%.

Lignans also inhibit aromatase, a cytochrome P450 enzyme. Note that both Finasteride and Dutasteride kick up extra estrogen. Inhibiting DHT formation rather than blocking its effects in skin tissues forces testosterone to aromatize into estrogens. Aromatase is responsible for the alternative conversion of testosterone to 17B-estradiol. 17B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase is another steroid-metabolizing enzyme present in tissue. It converts testosterone to androstenedione and estrogens. Lignans are powerful inhibitors of 17B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... query_hl=4

 

[Bryan]

Men at younger ages who suffer from "Androgenetic Alopecia," male pattern baldness have lower circulating SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin) and higher androgens than normal. Elevated testosterone, for example, causes SHBG synthesis to decrease, whereas high estrogen stimulates SHBG production.

One wonders in a case like this where there are multiple kinds of feedback loops going on, which effect is actually causing the other effect? It's not at all obvious...

Flax Lignans were found to modulate 5-alpha-reductase isozymes 1 and 2 in differing extents (30% and 75% respectively).

Yeah, in some in vitro studies. Don't expect eating flax to lower your DHT by anywhere near those amounts! :wink:

Flax secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG) works, not lowering serum 5-alpha-reductase like Finasteride or Dutasteride, but instead bind to it. Lignans inhibit 5-alpha-reductase selectively and irreversibly binding with 5-alpha-reductase, thereby blocking conversion of testosterone to DHT. Enterolactone is found to inhibit 5-alpha-reductase up to 80%.

Same comment as above.

Bryan

 

[newguy2006]

Designed to have specific side effects, that makes zero sense.

Designed to have specific INTENDED effects.

Also dutasteride was not designed for hair loss...

How do YOU know what it was designed for? Maybe it was designed for a spectrum of potential uses (including hairloss), just like finasteride was.

Bryan

No one "designed" anything. All anyone did was "discover" that finasteride could be used to effectively treat male pattern baldness. To say this drug was "designed" or "synthesized" in a lab is pretty ignorant.

Sure it may have intended effects - you get that inherently when you market it as an male pattern baldness drug. But that doesn't make its unintended effects any less real.

 

[Bryan]

No one "designed" anything. All anyone did was "discover" that finasteride could be used to effectively treat male pattern baldness. To say this drug was "designed" or "synthesized" in a lab is pretty ignorant.

WRONG on all three counts, Junior. Finasteride is one of a long list of such drugs that Merck designed in an effort to find one that had the desirable characteristics they were looking for: something that inhibited 5a-reductase effectively, but didn't block the androgen receptor.

And nobody "discovered" that it could be used to treat male pattern baldness. They already knew all about that potential use before they ever even synthesized it in the laboratory for the first time.

Sure it may have intended effects - you get that inherently when you market it as an male pattern baldness drug. But that doesn't make its unintended effects any less real.

Again: its effect on male pattern baldness wasn't "unintended". Do your homework.

Bryan

 

[sublime]

Men at younger ages who suffer from "Androgenetic Alopecia," male pattern baldness have lower circulating SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin) and higher androgens than normal. Elevated testosterone, for example, causes SHBG synthesis to decrease, whereas high estrogen stimulates SHBG production.

One wonders in a case like this where there are multiple kinds of feedback loops going on, which effect is actually causing the other effect? It's not at all obvious...

I am not sure Juptier was stating that "matter-o-factly". It was a generalized statement on what one of the symptoms seen in individuals with hair loss at a younger age.

Flax Lignans were found to modulate 5-alpha-reductase isozymes 1 and 2 in differing extents (30% and 75% respectively).

Yeah, in some in vitro studies. Don't expect eating flax to lower your DHT by anywhere near those amounts! :wink:

That's an improvable statement.

Flax secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG) works, not lowering serum 5-alpha-reductase like Finasteride or Dutasteride, but instead bind to it. Lignans inhibit 5-alpha-reductase selectively and irreversibly binding with 5-alpha-reductase, thereby blocking conversion of testosterone to DHT. Enterolactone is found to inhibit 5-alpha-reductase up to 80%.

Same comment as above.

Bryan

Same comment as above.

 

[powersam]

when you say thats an 'improvable' statement did you mean that he could have said it better? or that he couldnt prove his statement?

you could prove it quite easily really, go to doctor and get your dht levels tested. eat flax for a few weeks and get it tested again.

time and time again substances with promising in-vitro study results have shown very poor performance where it actually matters.

 

[sublime]

I am saying that stating "Don't expect eating flax to lower your DHT by anywhere near those amounts" is a poor statement to make since he does not know either way.

 

[Bryan]

So you think that drug companies like Merck and Glaxo have spent literally HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of $$$ to produce patentable drugs to inhibit 5a-reductase, when all people really had to do was eat some flax to get the same effect??

Sorry, I don't buy it. I'd give you 1000-to-1 odds against that hypothesis! :wink:

Bryan