31 Y/O, Hormones and Cortisol Out of Whack

Hey all,

Natural lifter - current metrics about 215 lb 6’0 male around 20% BF (mediocre diet to blame)

Had a 6 point hormone panel done and my levels are totally messed up. Took the DUTCH test so unit are a bit different than most people quote.

Testosterone - 50 ng/mg (lower end of range)
Estrone and Estradiol - 16 and 2 ng/mg respectively (very top of range)
5alpha androstenadiol - 500 ng/mg (double the max of range - maybe partly responsible for my hair loss…)
And cortisol - low all day and night
Thyroid hormones - TSH a bit higher than desired but other than that thyroid looks good

Gut health is good based on stool samples, and vit d is good. Only mineral I’m deficient in is extreme selenium deficiency. A tad low in iodine as well

How the heck did I get so messed up? Any advice for getting back on track so I can make some decent gains in training and have a stronger libido? Natural or prescription meds… would prefer not to use propecia to combat my extreme dht or arimidex for estrogen but I’d thats my only hope… well then I’d go for it.

Appreciate any input

You came here for advice and didn’t post any labs, labs have more meaning than saying thyroid looks good, according to whom do thyroid labs look good, your doctor? People tend to put way too much confidence in their doctors and end up suffering for it for years.

1 Like

Deficiencies in both of these can impact thyroid heath. You should read KSMan’s posts on thyroid support.

1 Like

I will take a peek when I’m home from vacay for sure. I know existing ranges are way to wide and I believe I was on the better side of them but not quite ideal.

Will update this thread when I’m back - just to confirm you think low thyroid or high tsh will affect the hormones or cortisol or both ?

Thanks I will check his post forsure

When thyroid function is low TSH is expected to be high, your pituitary gland is trying to tell (yelling) at your thyroid to produce more hormones and it’s not working, so TSH then increases hoping the thyroid gets the message to produce more hormones. Over time TSH will increase further until the thyroid responds, I’ve seen guys with TSH levels 4 times higher than the top of the range.

It’s the same deal as the pituitary gland sending LH to the testciles to produce more T, if not enough T is being produced LH continues to increase until more T is made. If the testciles are damaged they will never get the message and LH will skyrocket.

Gotchya. Pretty sure my TSH was around 2.5… not fantastic but also room for improvement. Need to double check my labs forsure though

Some doctors use 2.5 as the new cut off point for treatment believing anything passed 4.0 to be too late to take action.