PhilGoetz comments on My Way - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 April 2009 01:25AM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 17 April 2009 04:11:35PM 8 points [-]

you can choose your testosterone level on a daily basis, like choosing to get drunk or not. I can't imagine what that must be like.

You can do it. There are drugs that elevate your testosterone, and drugs that suppress it. I've tried both. I don't care for the suppression; it's like being tired. Elevation gives me insomnia. The effects of elevation probably depend largely on how quickly the drug you use is metabolized; androstenedione (the over-the-counter pro-testosterone in the US) breaks down quickly into DHT, and most of the bad effects of "testosterone" (baldness, aggression, prostate cancer) are directly caused by DHT.

Theoretically, a man could increase his health by taking an injectable synthetic anabolic steroid with a long half-life. This would suppress his natural testosterone, which has a half life around an hour, and replace it with something that gave him the benefits of testosterone without the harmful effects of DHT. AFAIK this is untested.

Comment author: Lojban 17 April 2009 04:17:44PM 1 point [-]

I've used androcur to reduce (a new one reducer was released recently) and androgel to increase. Removal of the testicles brought the level to near zero (adrenals produce some I think).