# Testosterone

Category: Hormones

Testosterone is the main male hormone, though it is present in females too.

11 passages · 2 authors · 1993–2023 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/testosterone

## Synthesis

**Testosterone** is the primary male hormone, though it is present in females, and Ray Peat considered it fundamentally protective, acting as an *anti-stress* agent for most of the lifespan. [Source 1, 3] Peat argued that testosterone, along with progesterone and thyroid, protects normal **mitochondrial function** through both local and systemic effects. [Source 1] He emphasized that a slow thyroid shifts the conversion of testosterone to estrogen, which is where degenerative problems begin. [Source 3] Dinkov has extended this by noting that in an endocrinologically compromised person, testosterone would not be his first choice; he would prioritize **DHT** and **thyroid** or **pregnenolone** to avoid the risk of conversion to estrogen. [Source 6]

Peat directly challenged the cultural stereotype that testosterone causes male pattern baldness or prostate cancer, stating there is no evidence that excess testosterone is responsible for either condition. [Source 2] He noted that the belief in testosterone as a cause for baldness is similar to the old, disproven belief that it causes prostate cancer, and that the idea of "increased sensitivity" to the hormone merely fills in for a lack of evidence. [Source 2] Dinkov has written that behaviors stereotypically attributed to testosterone, such as aggressiveness and lack of empathy, are actually driven by stress hormones like **cortisol** and **estrogen**, and that administered testosterone does not impair empathy. [Source 7] Peat pointed out that by age 50, men often show a deficiency of testosterone and thyroid, alongside an excess of prolactin and estrogen, which is the age when prostate enlargement often becomes noticeable. [Source 11]

Regarding supplementation, Peat cautioned that pharmaceutical testosterone forms usually provide huge excesses, as a very healthy young man might produce only 4 or 5 milligrams per day. [Source 3, 10] He stated that 1 or 2 milligrams of well-assimilated testosterone should give a tremendous boost, and that a full replacement dose for an 80 or 90-year-old man is around 15 milligrams. [Source 3, 10] Dinkov has argued that oral free/base (unesterified) testosterone is highly bioavailable and safer than synthetic anabolic-androgenic steroids, noting that even massive oral doses have shown no negative side effects on the liver and may actually cure advanced liver failure. [Source 8] Peat identified **thyroid** as the basic anabolic hormone, which directly activates protein synthesis and lowers cortisol, and Dinkov added that bodybuilders often overdose on androgens because they fail to address the thyroid angle and are trying to shut down stress hormones by flooding the system. [Source 10]

Peat explained that testosterone and progesterone are *estrogen antagonists* that inhibit carbonic anhydrase. [Source 1] He described testosterone as having chemical and functional properties of both estrogen and progesterone, giving males a short-term stability but a lack of adaptiveness in the longer range. [Source 4] In the context of cancer, Peat noted that in human prostate slices, testosterone did not stimulate cell division, and that a testosterone deficiency is a strong predisposer to prostate cancer. [Source 5, 11] He highlighted that estrogen plays a critical role in the genesis of precancerous lesions in the prostate, and that substances opposing estrogen, including testosterone and progesterone, promote differentiation. [Source 4, 11] For assessing health, Peat recommended the ratio of **cortisol to DHEA** as more useful than measuring estrogen and testosterone by themselves. [Source 9]

## People also ask

### How does thyroid function affect testosterone's role in the body?

Peat argued that a slow thyroid shifts the conversion of testosterone into estrogen, which he considered the starting point for degenerative problems, while thyroid itself acts as the basic anabolic hormone that supports protein synthesis and lowers cortisol.

### Why did Peat reject the idea that testosterone causes baldness or prostate cancer?

Peat stated there is no evidence that excess testosterone is responsible for either condition, noting that the belief in testosterone as a cause for baldness mirrors the old, disproven belief about prostate cancer, and that the idea of "increased sensitivity" merely fills in for a lack of evidence.

### What did Peat and Dinkov say about safe testosterone supplementation?

Peat cautioned that pharmaceutical forms often provide huge excesses, suggesting 1–2 milligrams of well-assimilated testosterone as a significant boost, while Dinkov argued that oral unesterified testosterone is highly bioavailable and safer than synthetic steroids, with massive oral doses showing no negative liver effects.

## Related concepts

- [Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/dehydroepiandrosterone-dhea/index.md)
- [Lipolysis](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/lipolysis/index.md)
- [Persorption](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/persorption/index.md)
- [Pituitary Gland](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/pituitary-gland/index.md)
- [Adrenaline](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/adrenaline/index.md)
- [Age Pigment (Lipofuscin)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/age-pigment-lipofuscin/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Glossary

Ray Peat · Glossary

> Testosterone
>
> Testosterone is the main male hormone, though it is present in females too.
>
> Progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid (T3 and T2) are protective of normal mitochondrial function, by both local and systemic effects.
>
> Testosterone and progesterone are estrogen antagonists that inhibit carbonic anhydrase.

### Source 2 — KMUD Hair Loss Inflammation and Osteoporosis 2012

Ray Peat · Interview · 2012

> **Andrew Murray and Sarah Johannesen-Murray:** Dr Peat, could you please let listeners know about your academic background?
>
> **Ray Peat:** I studied biology at the University of Oregon, specializing in physiology, especially reproductive physiology and quite a bit of biochemistry. But I considered myself an old-fashioned biologist, pre molecular biology in my way of thinking.
>
> **Andrew Murray and Sarah Johannesen-Murray:** I know you've spent a lot of time looking at hormones as a mode of activating our own bodies' mechanisms.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, my dissertation was on the effects of hormones on oxidative metabolism in relation to aging of the reproductive system.
>
> **Andrew Murray and Sarah Johannesen-Murray:** Why do men develop male pattern baldness? And is it due to testosterone?
>
> **Ray Peat:** I think the belief in testosterone as the cause is similar to the old belief that males got prostate cancer because of having testosterone — since males get a particular kind of baldness, it's easy to blame it on testosterone, but in fact there is no evidence showing that excess testosterone is responsible for it, anymore than excess testosterone causes prostate cancer. So that's where the idea of increased sensitivity came in, because there was no evidence of too much of the hormone...

### Source 3 — One Radio Network: Natural Healing

Ray Peat · Interview · Apr 29, 2019

> ## Male Hormones
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Can you explain how the male hormone system works?
>
> **Ray Peat:** It's simpler than female hormones because there isn't that powerful cyclic effect. Testosterone acts as an anti-stress effect for most of the lifespan. But if the thyroid is interfered with, a slow thyroid will shift you to the conversion of testosterone to estrogen. That's where degenerative problems start.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Do you recommend supplemental testosterone?
>
> **Ray Peat:** A pellet is probably better than an oily injection. Injections usually contain testosterone esters dissolved in vegetable oil with solvents like benzyl alcohol, which are toxic. I don't often recommend it because pharmaceutical forms provide huge excesses. DHEA as a precursor is easily available. A full replacement dose is around 15 milligrams, which an 80 or 90-year-old man might need.

### Source 4 — Nutrition for Women

Ray Peat · Book · 1993

> The primary male hormone, testosterone, has chemical and functional properties of both estrogen and progesterone; this combined function gives males a short-term stability (fewer goiters, migraines, etc.) but a lack of adaptiveness in the longer range (higher mortality in infancy and old age). The placenta is a central factor in the development of the brain, but there is very little known about possible differences between males' and females' placentas, and their effects on such things as the greater mortality of male fetuses and the greater variability of males' intelligence. Estrogen does block memory, according to animal studies as well as clinical experience: many of the women I see (especially if they have used birth control pills, have had special social problems, have eaten a vegetarian or soybean-rich diet, and if they have lived in a cloudy region) have very poor memory and a "foggy feeling in their head." High estrogen during pregnancy causes fetal brain damage and retardation. Too much unsaturated vegetable oil during pregnancy has the same effect. Both of these interfere with energy production: wasting oxygen, altering the effects of thyroid hormones, etc. Estrogen is the hormone for beginnings, a sort of biochemical eraser which can eliminate recently recorded information, restoring the underlying primitive capacity for growth. When we are threatened, by injury or aging, we need the capacity for renewal of cells. Estrogen promotes production of prolactin, a protein hormone, and its close analog, growth hormone. Ionizing radiation, aging, and oxygen deprivation all cause biochemical changes similar to those produced by estrogen. Excessive estrogen (and the prolactin excess it induces) can be dangerous. A few biologists are talking about a "death hormone" which appears in the pituitary at puberty — I suspect prolactin (or another estrogen-induced peptide) is the hormone producing the effects they see. In salamanders, prolactin initiates the process of limb regeneration. Various cancers depend on estrogen and prolactin. A variety of substances promote tumefaction, lump formation, growth without differentiation. Rather than being hormones of death, I think of these as "renewal hormones," hormones of potential immortality. Anything which produces tissue atrophy will tend to produce cancer. The important question is, what will induce differentiation and useful function in cancer cells?

### Source 5 — Ask the Herb Doctor: Heart III

Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 19, 2013 · http://l-i-g-h-t.com/files/herb-doctors-heart-III.mp4

> **Ray Peat:** That is now being recognized that testosterone has an anticancer value as well. Just recently, another study came out showing that a testosterone deficiency is a strong pre-disposer to prostate cancer.

### Source 6 — Generative Energy #102: Ray Peat's Popularity | Synchronicity | PUFA and Bowel Disease | DHT and Testosterone | Estrogen with Georgi Dinkov

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Jul 17, 2023 · https://open.spotify.com/episode/22fZxBBeQaEPARh9qZclcz

> **Danny Roddy:** Got it. I guess what I'm saying that occasionally I'm talking to somebody and they think like a testosterone is some type of panacea. They'll take it and then immediately fly off the handle.
>
> **Georgi Dinkov:** So again, I'm not telling you. It's not a panacea. If you're endocrinologically messed up, I mean, testosterone wouldn't be my first choice. It would be DHT and thyroid, or like DHT and pregnenolone. That's what I'm trying to get at.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** Obviously, anybody can do whatever they want. I'm just saying that I think there's like a type of order to this stuff that is... makes these things less risky you know and so if a person has a 95 body temperature and they're jumping into testosterone that that could be some level of risk so speaking of 95 temperature and then we'll talk about id labs um i'm just going to jump to this one do you know who brian johnson is No. He's like kind of the new Dave Asprey. And I could find a photo of him pretty easily. But he's like somebody that said they spent like millions of dollars on their health. And he's like this very far along biohacker. And I think in one of his videos, he said he had a 95 degree body temperature. So what is your take on that, Georgi? What does that mean when somebody

### Source 7 — Testosterone does NOT impair empathy in men

Georgi Dinkov · Article · Sep 6, 2019 · https://haidut.me/?p=527

> I am sure most readers are quite familiar with the cliche that testosterone (T) is what drives stereotypical “boy behavior” – aggressiveness, carelessness, impulsive behavior, risk taking, cheating, and of course the militaristic attitude characterized by lack of (or reduced) empathy. As I mentioned in several previous posts, most of these behaviors seem to be driven by stress hormones like cortisol and estrogen, while T seems to have a more or less opposite effect than what the stereotype describes.
>
> [references]
>
> This new study combines the results of two intervention trials and concludes that T does not impair empathy. The reason this study holds much more water than previous ones is that it actually administered T to the test subjects, and as such can distinguish between correlation and causality. In fact, it used several different doses to determine if T has dose-related effects – i.e. maybe it does not impair empathy in lower doses but does so in higher doses. Yet, no such effect was discovered and the study concludes that other observational trials claiming that T drives stereotypical male behavior are “statistically underpowered”. I think a much more accurate statement would be that those studies were fraudulent or at the very least cleverly manipulated (p-hacking anyone?) to demonstrate the desired effect. Namely, that high T is undesirable for males because it makes them unruly, stubborn, aggressive, etc. Of course, the suggested remedy is estrogen and that has been administered to men for decades as part of the “chemical castration” therapy for prostate cancer, or unknowingly to males in the entire population in the form of estrogenic, anti-thyroid endocrine disruptors (e.g. BPA, gossypol, etc) in the food/water supply. We all know how well that went…and actually still keeps going despite the evidence that T actually cures even very advanced prostate cancer.
>
> [references]

### Source 8 — Oral free/base (unesterified) testosterone is more effective and safer than synthetic AAS

Georgi Dinkov · Article · Sep 18, 2019 · https://haidut.me/?p=563

> A number of my blog readers contacted me over the last 2 weeks and urged me to write this post in response to the recent FDA approval of the first oral testosterone (T) product in the USA. The approved product will contain the testosterone ester undecanoate in the form of tablets.
>
> [references]
>
> Well here is my take on this recent FDA decision. Most males will end up getting examined by an endocrinologist (endo) at least once in their lifespan, usually in regards to prostate health or declining virility due to aging (or iatrogenic reasons). If the patient is lucky enough to be considered worthy of conversing with by the medical authority in the room, the patient will often hear lengthy lectures on TRT and how oral T (and other AAS) is ineffective. As such, most endos will demand that their patients submit to injection hormonal therapy, which often results in elevated estrogen, gyno, blood count abnormalities, etc. This attitude from the vast majority of endos is not a coincidence – i.e. it stems directly from official FDA dogma/policy formulated decades ago and still in use today. It is beyond baffling to me why FDA and the medical profession would accept that steroids like pregnenolone, DHEA, progesterone, etc are highly bioavailable when administered orally yet somehow steroids like T, DHT, and various other synthetic derivatives are not. The only conclusion I can draw is that FDA purposefully tries to poison the field and steer the public away from oral route, which is easy and accessible for most people. In contrast, when it comes to injections most people depend on doctors to both prescribe and administer them.
>
> Well, hopefully my readers who are more open minded will show the studies below to their doctors and demand an answer as to why this travesty continues. As the studies towards the end of the post demonstrate, not only is free/base T orally bioavailable, but even massive doses (400mg daily) have no negative side effects on the liver and in fact accelerates the activity of several liver detox enzymes. The latter effect is highly sought-after by Big Pharma and many drugs are currently being developed/tested with the hope that such a liver-metabolism-enhancing compound will be brought to market as it has tremendous potential for treating everything from obesity, to gyno, to side effects of toxic chemotherapy.

### Source 9 — Ray Peat Email Advice Depository — Post 520

Ray Peat · Email · Oct 6, 2018

> **Question:** For a 39 year old male do you think checking testosterone levels is of any use as a marker for optimal health? I've never had a comprehensive list of lab work done that was actually useful so far and I wanted to do my own "check up" to speak to complement the other metrics I currently use (i.e- body temp, pulse, mood, sleep quality, digestion, etc.) Here's what I'm considering: - Full Thyroid panel that includes rT3 (free and/or total?) - Vitamin D levels - Estradiol - Testosterone levels (not sure which to make sure is being measured) Signs and Symptoms: - not fully rested in morning - belly fat - desire to be recluse more than usual - focus and concentration can waver a bit. I eat pastured eggs, coconut oil, butter, liver, coffee, bone broth, low fat cheese, white button mushrooms, milk, oj, etc. Adding oysters soon and getting more magnesium via cooked greens. I focus far more on calcium being higher than phosphate now, low daily pufa, adequate protein, low starches and they seem to make a difference. I take T3 (6-9 mcg,) occasional pregnenelone, aspirin , progest-e before (experimenting with 3 drops before bed the past few nights which seems to help me sleep deeper without any anti-androgenic signs so far.) Thank you
>
> **Ray Peat:** I think the ratio of cortisol to DHEA is more useful than estrogen and testosterone by themselves.

### Source 10 — #61: Bodybuilding and Steroids  |  Progesterone for Men?  |  Basic Bioenergetic Therapies with Ray Peat

Ray Peat (with Georgi Dinkov) · Interview · Jun 27, 2021

> ## Anabolic Steroid Stacks and Health
>
> **Danny Roddy:** If you had to build the most amount of muscle while preserving health, what would you use? A listener asks about testosterone base, Masteron, and low-dose Trenbolone.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Even with natural testosterone, I think people are generally overdosed. A very healthy young man might produce 4 or 5 milligrams of testosterone per day, so 1 or 2 milligrams well-assimilated should give a tremendous boost. With DHEA, teenage production is 12 to 15 milligrams. By the time a person is 30 or 40, 5 milligrams will bring them up to a normal level.
>
> **Georgi Dinkov:** A younger man clears estrogen much more effectively than an older person. An older person tends to be overloaded with estrogen and cortisol. Simply adding testosterone might not fix the issue if stress hormones are too high. I think bodybuilders overdose because they aren't addressing the thyroid angle and are trying to shut down stress hormones by flooding them with androgens.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Thyroid is our basic anabolic hormone. It directly activates protein synthesis, lowers cortisol, and inhibits the effect of cortisol on aromatase.

### Source 11 — Prostate Cancer

Ray Peat · Article · 2013

> In human prostate slices, several hormones (including insulin, and probably prolactin) stimulated cell division; testosterone did not, under these experimental conditions. Contrary to the stereotyped ideas, there are suggestions that supplementary androgens could control prostate cancer, and that antagonists to prolactin and estrogen might be appropriately used in hormonal therapy.
>
> By the age of 50, men often show an excess of both prolactin and estrogen, and a deficiency of thyroid and testosterone. This is the age at which enlargement of the prostate often becomes noticeable.
>
> Estrogen's role in prostate growth and cancerization is clear: …simultaneous treatment of intact…rats with testosterone and estradiol-17beta for 16 weeks consistently induced a putative precancerous lesion, termed dysplasia, in the dorsolateral prostate of all animals. Since treatment of rats with androgen alone did not elicit the same response, we concluded that estrogen played a critical role in the genesis of this proliferative lesion.
>
> Progesterone and pregnenolone also decline in aging men. Several studies using synthetic progestins have shown that they effectively shrink the hypertrophic prostate, and the saw palmetto remedy for prostate enlargement has been reported to contain pregnenolone, or something similar to it. These materials might be expected to reduce conversion of testosterone or other androgens to estrogen.
>
> The prostaglandins were discovered in prostatic fluid, where they occur in significant concentrations. They are so deeply involved with the development of cancers of all sorts that aspirin and other prostaglandin inhibitors should be considered as a basic part of cancer therapy. The prostaglandins have local and systemic effects that promote cancer growth. (The prostaglandins and related eicosanoids synthesized from polyunsaturated fatty acid precursors have been implicated as modulators of tumor metastasis, host immunoregulation, tumor promotion, and cell proliferation.)
>
> Estrogens cause elevation of free fatty acids, and there are many interactions between the unsaturated fatty acids and estrogen, including their metabolism to prostaglandins, and their peroxidation. Estrogen's roles as free-radical promoter, DNA toxin, carcinogen, tumor promotor, modifier of tissue growth factors, anti-thymic hormone, etc., as well as its local effects on the prostate gland, have to be kept in mind.

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