[arghwhat]

> Chemistry trumps psychology

To nitpick: The mind is applied biochemistry. Psychology intervenes in the chemistry, like many other activities do. The goal of that is to solve the root cause so that your future levels will be maintained at the right level, instead of just forcing the level by sourcing the respective chemicals externally.

A good rule of thumb in biology and particular any kind of hormone production and balance is "use it or lose it" - if you start regularly receiving something externally, internal production will scale back and atrophy in response, in many cases permanently.

[fwipsy]

Psychology can change neurochemistry but only in certain limited ways. Many people are on antidepressants long term because that's the only thing that works for them. Taking antidepressants is already stigmatized enough. People should just do what makes them feel best over the long run. Your rule of thumb does not trump hard-won personal experiences.

We don't really know how SSRIs work, but there's some evidence that it's through desensitizing serotonin receptors, not directly addressing the lack of serotonin. If so, "use it or lose it" doesn't apply; long-term adaptation is the point, and SOMETIMES does persist after quitting.

[Roark66]

>A good rule of thumb in biology and particular any kind of hormone production and balance is "use it or lose it" - if you start regularly receiving something externally, internal production will scale back and atrophy in response, in many cases permanently.

There are ways to "hack it".

For example, ~6 months ago I started trt (testosterone replacement). It was the best decision health wise ever. I feel way better psychologically, first time in my life I managed to stick with cardio training for so long (before 3 months was the most). There are other benefits too.

So what about the "loose it" part? Well there is a hormone called HCG one can take a twice a week to trick one's balls into producing some natural testosterone. Its use prevents atrophy and infertility.

[arghwhat]

> Some cancerous tumors produce this hormone; therefore, elevated levels measured when the patient is not pregnant may lead to a diagnosis of cancer and, if high enough, of paraneoplastic syndromes. It is unknown however whether this production is a contributing cause or an effect of carcinogenesis.

Interesting.

Well, I don't think you'll be able to avoid testicle atrophy even if it minimizes it, but the important part is understanding the tradeoff. Particularly, that adding testosterone will cause changes throughout your entire body (including, for example, shortening life expectancy a bit), and that adding other hormones to the mix will likewise cause changes around the entire body and not just one single process or organ.

But it's your body, your life, your priorities and decision. I also wouldn't consider it a good decision health-wise to take steroids to get huge, but I have no problem with someone deciding that absurd bulk is their main goal in life and worth the tradeoff.

[Roark66]

>Well, I don't think you'll be able to avoid testicle atrophy even if it minimizes it

I only take 250iu twice a week. 6 months in I can't see any atrophy. Some people take it every other day.

This hormone HCG is very interesting. In fact it is what many urine pregnancy tests test for. I wonder if I did a pregnancy test it would cone out positive :-)

But, the reason why I'm talking about it is to explain that it works the same as another hormone called LH produced by the pituary gland that regulates natural testosterone production by testes

So when one takes external testosterone the mechanism through which body shuts its production down is by shutting down this LH hormone.

By taking HCG ones testes are told to make testosterone. Not a lot of it, but it seems to be enough to prevent atrophy so far.

> Particularly, that adding testosterone will cause changes throughout your entire body (including, for example, shortening life expectancy a bit), and that adding other hormones to the mix will likewise cause changes around the entire body and not just one single process or organ.

For sure. Many of these effects are very positive. For example I was a little pre-diabetic, this has improved a lot (but one may argue via exercise - then again I manage to be consistent with the exercise thanks to psych. changes caused by the testosterone).

Another is these psychological changes. I feel more "stable". I never was really unstable, at least I never noticed, but it feels better. Like, whatever happens I can most likely solve it kind of feeling, even when things go wrong.

Finally about the shortening of lifespan. I think I offset this by exercising, but another factor is getting regular blood tests. The doc monitors things like hematocrit etc. I'm told to drink a lot more water, to measure blood pressure even though I never had high pressure etc to keep it in check.

I think most problems happen with people that do not realise their blood gets "too thick", they get high blood pressure, miss it for years and end up with circulatory system issues.

It is a tradeoff. Not everything is ideal. One negative side effect I did get is worse skin until I found a procedure to exfoliate/moisturise and so on. It's a bit of a pain in the arse as before I'd just have quick showers. Now it takes longer. But so far it is worth it.

[pixl97]

>A good rule of thumb in biology and particular any kind of hormone production and balance is "use it or lose it" -

Very basic and very often wrong rule, so take it with a grain of salt.

Insulin for example is the opposite. "lose it then use it" would be a general rule for type 2 diabetics where insulin resistance commonly due to weight gain is the primary problem. Losing the weight leads to better uptake and usage. For a type 1 "lose it then use it" you typically lose the ability to produce insulin to an an autoimmune disorder, then are stuck using insulin for the rest of your life.

The body itself typically attempts to main homeostasis, but at population scales this is something that is going to have a massive range of ways it shows up. Evolution, at grand scales, doesn't care if you survive as long as enough of your population survives and breeds. At the end of the day you might just be one of those people that was born broken and to work properly you need replacement parts/chemicals. A working medical system should be there to figure out which case is which.

[arghwhat]

> Insulin for example is the opposite.

You're describing entirely orthogonal issues. In case of insulin resistance, your natural production is running full blast with demand exceeding supply because the consumer stopped caring about the hormone. In case of autoimmune disease, the natural production was killed - you can neither use nor lose what is already dead, and even if some capacity was left it will either soon be killed or atrophy under external insulin, but it will not be mourned.

So no I would say it is exactly the same - "use it or lose it" - but that does not mean that there is never a reason to manually overrule your body's attempt at homeostasis through direct manipulation. It just means that there is a very significant consequence to the process.

> The body itself typically attempts to main homeostasis, but at population scales this is something that is going to have a massive range of ways it shows up.

As a somewhat sidenote, this is also why I dislike the idea of trying to classify people into "normal" and "divergent/atypical". In my eyes we're all normal people and an entirely normal aspect of being a human is that we all differ and have individually specific needs by virtue of being built by a trillion micro-meter sized workers, each with their own hand-copied version of the blueprint, only caring about the millimeter of you in their immediate vincinity and not really talking to any of the others.