Does Propecia Lower Testosterone or Increase Testosterone for Body Building Strength?
Hi doctor. how are you. I have asked you questions before and you have replied to my answers, and I want to thank you for that. Keep up the good job.
Correct me if I am wrong. In this article that someone posted to you it states that finasteride lowers T levels(testosterone) as well.
here is the link: https://baldingblog.com/2010/09/13/mercks-fda-submitted-propecia-documents/Here is my question. I thought finasteride lowers DHT and increases testosterone by about 15% or something. Does finasteride lower testosterone as well? And how would this affect building muscle and body building?
please clarify this for me doc.
Propecia slightly raises testosterone initially but eventually your hormone levels should return to normal. The reports in the literature seems to go both ways. Some reports indicate a rise in Testosterone while others show a decrease. Unless you are a biochemist/pharmacist doing research, I do not think these are significant issues. Propecia will not make you into Arnold Schwarzenegger or Urkle.
You are trying to make sense and correlate biochemical hormonal variation with clinical issues that may not be related. If you are asking your question for pure scientific purposes, I would take a course a biochemistry for a better understanding or speak to a research pharmacist/biochemist. My desire to revisit my biochemistry days and contemplate professorial issues are not really there.
I do occasionally run into men who are heavily into weight lifting and body building and use anabolic steroids. One of them was convinced that Propecia made them weaker and gave them a disadvantage. A few have insisted taking Propecia to counteract the hair loss from their anabolic steroid use and didn’t report any changes in strength or muscle mass. But these are all anecdotal (non-scientific) and subjective stories. In my humble opinion, Propecia has negligible impact on testosterone and strength. Even the professional world of sports have taken the position that it is not a performance enhancing drug.
To be honest that study was limited mostly to reporting Testosterone in scalp tissues. Your total serum T is not exactly representative. Also for muscle building you are talking about the differences between free unbound testosterone and SHBG bound testosterone and a vast cocktail of other hormones mediated through training and nutrition – it’s a simple fact that just having a high serum testosterone does not correlate to a bodybuilder physique (many of which are built through vast gram quantities of steroids, IGFs, insulin and growth hormone).
DHT based steroids for instance are generally of a low anabolic ratio – whilst being highly androgenic – this means that they are normally taken to reduce estrogen like side effects and promote fat loss and aggression rather than building mass.
The vast majority of bodybuilders I know take propecia if they have any sign of MPB and as the doctor says a few have said it’s the propecia that impacted their ultimate gains – but they have no evidence for this, especially given most are a walking biochemistry experiment as it is with very few blood tests done.
As with any athletic endeavour it’s best remembered that testosterone is impacted more by alcohol and lack of sleep than just about anything else. Some men spend so much time agonising over minute fluctuations in a hormone profile that they don’t focus on the main aspects of the sport. In bodybuildings case this would be progressive training phases, cycled nutrition intake and adequate rest and recovery between workouts (and unless it’s natural competition – your test levels will be entirely dependent on your steroid dealer).