I was reading through the forum archive and
I found a discussion between Bill Roberts and
John Berardi about the biochemistry of bound
testosterone. But I have a couple follow up
questions: what determines how much SHBG a
person has? Or looking at it from another
angle, what determines how much bound T a
person has as a percentage of Total T? And
finally, is there any known way to block the
effect of SHBG, or otherwise increase the
percentage of free T. (Yes I know Tribex can
do this. Are there any other known methods?)
This would be useful for anyone who has good
total T reading, but weak free T. Thanks.
Most of your questions imply that you did not accept the arguments I made and don’t agree with my conclusions. That’s fine, but since the discussion with John was pretty extensive and I thought I said everything then about as well as I could, it would seem that rehashing it would get nowhere.
To summarize though, I believe your questions have the causes and effects reversed. Free T is not caused by the total, SHBG, and percentage, but rather is independent; and total is caused by the amount of free and the amount of SHBG. And furthermore, the total does not have a direct effect on activity of testosterone. If you accept this then the questions are like asking, “If the phases of the moon control muscle growth, how should you time your training with the lunar cycle?” Once the premise is accepted that moon phases do NOT control muscle growth, the question no longer applies. I think the same is true here.
No, it’s not that I was rejecting your
arguments, it was that your arguments were
not clear to me by how you explained them. Now
that you have restated your response in a
different way, I understand the point you were
trying to make; and likewise, I now understand
why the questions I asked don’t make sense -
assuming your arguments are correct. I have no
reason or evidence to think otherwise.
Basically, you did exactly what I was hoping
for, which was a clarification of what you
previously said. Thanks.
Well, thanks! Sometimes you never know when
a restatement which seems (to yourself) to say nothing new, just to be a shorter and less detailed version, will be clear to others when the original wasn’t. Glad it worked out that way!