Opioids lower testosterone

BlahBlah12

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Just one of many studies which show opioids lower testosterone and androgens.

Important quotes:
The effects of opiates, especially morphine, on
male rodent gonadal function and sex hormones
have been well documented. Marked decreases in
seminal vesicle and prostate weights, and significant
reductions in serum testosterone levels, have
been reported (Tokunaga et al, 1977; Bruni et al,
1977; Muraki et al, 1978; Meites et al, 1979).


Plasma androgen levels studied following the injection
of the opioid agonists morphine sulfate (0.5-1.0 m?/
kg), 13-endorphin (10-20 mg/kg), and ID-Ala2, D-Leu 1-
enkephalin (DADLE; 5-20 ?igfkg), and the opioid receptor
antagonist naloxone (0.5-2.0 mgfkg) in nonrestrained
adult male rhesus monkeys. Drugs were administered
and blood samples were collected through
indwelling jugular catheters. Morphine (1.0 mg/kg) and
DADLE (10.0 pg/kg) decreased androgen levels by 70%
and 34%, respectively. Significant decreases occurred
80 minutes after drug injections, and levels remained
depressed for 180 minutes;


http://www.andrologyjournal.org/cgi/reprint/5/5/339.pdf


ive always wondered why my hair thickened greatly along with my hairline when i was in the hospital for 2 months following an accident. Could it be the fact that i was on painkillers 3 times a day including morphine for the hospital duration had a positive effect on my hair?
 

stampede

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Heroin - the hairloss drug we've all been waiting for :punk:
 

Norsk

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I believe that treatment already exists. It's called castration.
 

GeminiX

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Norsk said:
I believe that treatment already exists. It's called castration.

Where do I sign? :woot:
 

harold

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The link between opioids and testosterone/DHT is interesting. It seems that testosterone is lowered because opioids cause the increased conversion of tesosterone to DHT - particularly in the brain/CNS. This triggers the HPTA to lower tesosterone production in turn. In fact finasteride has been shown to inhibit this effect and to some extent prevent the development of tolerance to the effects of morphine. Interesting also that lowered libido is a very common side effect of opioid treatment.
hh

Int J Dev Neurosci. 2005 Nov;23(7):621-6. Epub 2005 Sep 6.
In vivo evidence for an increase in 5alpha-reductase activity in the rat central nervous system following morphine exposure.
Amini H, Ahmadiani A.

Department of Pharmacology, Neuroscience Research Center, Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 19835-355, Tehran, Iran.

In the present study, the effects of acute and chronic morphine exposure on testosterone concentrations in the central nervous system (CNS) and serum were investigated in rats. Acute morphine administration (5 mg/kg, s.c.) reduced significantly testosterone levels in serum and spinal cord but not in the brain. Following chronic morphine administration (orally for 21 days), the brain testosterone was also significantly reduced as well as serum and spinal cord. Since, the decrease in testosterone levels following morphine exposure was more obvious in the CNS than serum, we suggested that it cannot be caused by only a direct decline in testosterone levels in periphery, and an increased local metabolism of testosterone in the CNS might be attributed in these effects. This hypothesis was supported with the findings that pretreatment with finasteride, a 5alpha-reductase inhibitor (5 mg/kg, s.c.) blocked testosterone elimination from the CNS following morphine exposure. Moreover, the serum concentration of 5alpha-reduced metabolites of testosterone, dihydrotestosterone and 3alpha-diol glucuronide was increased significantly following chronic morphine exposure, but not after co-treatment with finasteride. These results suggest that morphine exposure increase the CNS activity of 5alpha-reductase, which is an important metabolizing enzyme for testosterone.

Horm Behav. 2007 May;51(5):605-10. Epub 2007 Mar 2.
Finasteride, a 5alpha-reductase inhibitor, potentiates antinociceptive effects of morphine, prevents the development of morphine tolerance and attenuates abstinence behavior in the rat.
Verdi J, Ahmadiani A.

Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.

It has been shown that morphine increases 5alpha-reductase enzyme activity in the rat central nervous system; however importance of this finding on morphine analgesia, tolerance and dependence has not been reported. In the present study, we investigated inhibition of 5alpha-reductase enzyme on morphine effects using finasteride. To determine whether the 5alpha-reductase enzyme interact with morphine analgesia, finasteride (5 mg/kg, i.p.) was administrated with morphine (5 and 7 mg/kg, i.p.). The tail-flick test was used to assess the nociceptive threshold, before and 15, 30, 45, 60 and 90 min after drug administration. In tolerance experiments, morphine 20 mg/kg was injected i.p., twice daily for 4 days. The development and expression of dependence were assessed in the naloxone precipitation test 5 days after the morphine (20-30 mg/kg, i.p.) administration. We found that finasteride could potentiate the antinociceptive effect of morphine. In addition, chronic finasteride administration effectively blocked development of tolerance and dependence to morphine. Following chronic morphine administration, single dose injection of finasteride failed to reverse tolerance but prevented naloxone precipitate withdrawal syndrome. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a functional relationship between 5alpha-reductase enzyme and morphine.
 

Lucky_UK

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When I done my back in last year I was taking a lot of codeine, I was worried how this would affect my hair and if there would be any interraction with the finasteride I was taking.
 

stampede

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The body makes morphine out of codiene - this is how it works :)
 

Matt Skiba

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stampede said:
Heroin - the hairloss drug we've all been waiting for :punk:


I happen to know two brothers who are heroin addicts and have been for about 4-5 years, the older brother is 20 years old an I think he's been doing it every day since he was 16.

Their dad is balder than my dad, but both the brothers have perfect hair. I have even talked to them about this and they've told me hairloss runs heavily in their family.

I'm not gonna lie, I've dabbled in drugs before, and it's weird but heroin actually kinda makes it really hard to orgasm and makes erections last longer during sex. It is also not uncommon to get an erection out of nowhere right after you do it, this is kind of odd and seems sort of contradictory to having lowered testosterone. Once the stuff wears off I kind of feel that libido is temporarily lower though.

I wonder if there is any sort of rebound effects on hormones after doing opiods, I'm gonna try and research this myself, but if anyone can draw this up for me I would much appreciate it!!

This is very ironic though.. I've kinda been dabbling in heroin lately again, and I think I might be noticing some new hair growth. This is actually kind of sad, heroin takes away all of the negative emotions associated with hair loss, and at the same time it stops it!?!? But yeah I've been feeling pretty low lately, and I know that drugs are no legitimate way to deal with these feelings so I have to stop. I also recently pretty much slept through my alarm clock, missed school and literally slept through the entire daylight hours of the day. So I know I must stop, it's also a good thing that I have a friend who is willing to give me subutex pills to take away all of the withdrawal symptoms

Also this might explain why keith richards, among many other rock stars, still have awesome hair.
 

BlahBlah12

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Came across this quote from this article:
[http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache...DHT+cortisol&cd=3&hair loss=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]

"Opioid induced hypogonadism is of particular interest in that the association between use of sustained release opioids and decreased levels of free testosterone (FT), total testosterone (TT), estradiol (E(2), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), luteinizing hormone (LH), and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) has been repeatedly found in studies evaluating sex-hormone levels and cortisol metabolism in both men and women treated with sustained release opioids, with the decrease reflective of opioid effects both centrally (hypothalamic and pituitary) and peripherally (at the level of the testes, ovaries, and adrenals) .(Daniell 02; Daniell J Pain 02; Daniell HW 07; Daniell 06; Oltmanns 05) Symptoms associated with hypogonadism include fatigue, depression, diminished libido, impaired sexual function and osteoporosis. Studies also have indicated that low estradiol and testosterone levels are associated with increased pain. (Smith 2006) while corticotrophin releasing factor has been shown to be antinociceptive (Mousa 2007). Although the literature on these topics is not yet developed to a point that allows definitive guidance, opioid-induced hypogonadism may be one of the factors which account for the lack of functional benefit seen in association with their use. "

I dunno, I had to get prescribed percocets recently for intense pain related to an accident i was in a while back and I was pretty confident taking them that they would be beneficial for my hair...but if you google "percocet and hair loss" you will find some posts that say otherwise. but speaking in terms of androgens it makes sense that opioids should in theory have an extremely beneficial effect on male balding
 

BlahBlah12

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not sure why it got cut off but heres what i wrote:

"Opioid induced hypogonadism is of particular interest in that the association between use of sustained release opioids and decreased levels of free testosterone (FT), total testosterone (TT), estradiol (E(2), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), luteinizing hormone (LH), and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) has been repeatedly found in studies evaluating sex-hormone levels and cortisol metabolism in both men and women treated with sustained release opioids, with the decrease reflective of opioid effects both centrally (hypothalamic and pituitary) and peripherally (at the level of the testes, ovaries, and adrenals) .(Daniell 02; Daniell J Pain 02; Daniell HW 07; Daniell 06; Oltmanns 05) Symptoms associated with hypogonadism include fatigue, depression, diminished libido, impaired sexual function and osteoporosis. Studies also have indicated that low estradiol and testosterone levels are associated with increased pain. (Smith 2006) while corticotrophin releasing factor has been shown to be antinociceptive (Mousa 2007). Although the literature on these topics is not yet developed to a point that allows definitive guidance, opioid-induced hypogonadism may be one of the factors which account for the lack of functional benefit seen in association with their use. "

I dunno, I had to get prescribed percocets recently for intense pain related to an accident i was in a while back and I was pretty confident taking them that they would be beneficial for my hair...but if you google "percocet and hair loss" you will find some posts that say otherwise. but speaking in terms of androgens it makes sense that opioids should in theory have an extremely beneficial effect on male balding
 

ClayShaw

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Matt Skiba said:
stampede said:
Heroin - the hairloss drug we've all been waiting for :punk:


I happen to know two brothers who are heroin addicts and have been for about 4-5 years, the older brother is 20 years old an I think he's been doing it every day since he was 16.

Their dad is balder than my dad, but both the brothers have perfect hair. I have even talked to them about this and they've told me hairloss runs heavily in their family.

I'm not gonna lie, I've dabbled in drugs before, and it's weird but heroin actually kinda makes it really hard to orgasm and makes erections last longer during sex. It is also not uncommon to get an erection out of nowhere right after you do it, this is kind of odd and seems sort of contradictory to having lowered testosterone. Once the stuff wears off I kind of feel that libido is temporarily lower though.

I wonder if there is any sort of rebound effects on hormones after doing opiods, I'm gonna try and research this myself, but if anyone can draw this up for me I would much appreciate it!!

This is very ironic though.. I've kinda been dabbling in heroin lately again, and I think I might be noticing some new hair growth. This is actually kind of sad, heroin takes away all of the negative emotions associated with hair loss, and at the same time it stops it!?!? But yeah I've been feeling pretty low lately, and I know that drugs are no legitimate way to deal with these feelings so I have to stop. I also recently pretty much slept through my alarm clock, missed school and literally slept through the entire daylight hours of the day. So I know I must stop, it's also a good thing that I have a friend who is willing to give me subutex pills to take away all of the withdrawal symptoms

Also this might explain why keith richards, among many other rock stars, still have awesome hair.

Or maybe one of their grandfathers has good hair.
I know people addicted to opiates (not heroin), and it usually doesn't end well.
Also, Rush Limbaugh is pretty bald.
 
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