Sexual Desire and Its Connection to Aromatase in the Brain

Thanks to Dr. Nichols at tier1 for sharing this with me earlier.

Below is an article showing that aromatase in the brain is why men have libido. I bet the same holds true for woman. Not free t or dht. Estrogen the most controversial hormone in the man circle.

We’ve been saying it for a long time. There is zero evidence showing the need for AI while on TRT. It is bro science. Every piece of literature out there points to the fact that men need estrogen. Estrogen is very important for our health.

Again, if you ever feel the need to take an ai, modify the dose instead. You never know where your aromate is being blocked. whether the brain, heart, bones and etc.

Otherwise, let the body take care of the aromatase function and dont touch it. give it time and your body will adapt and symptoms will reside.

Another doctor by the name of Grant first mentioned to me that estrogen is produced and stays in and around the target tissue. Meaning It cannot be tested in the blood because it doesn’t go into the bloodstream.

Think about it. You might take an ai, blood levels show good levels, but your brain might have 10% of what it needs. Maybe its your heart that’s low on estrogen. Who wants to take that risk. TRT is supposed to be healthy. Maybe this is why there were so many heart attacks and strokes back in the 90’s when trt doctors were being sued left and right?

A snippet from the article below.

“This is the first key finding to explain how testosterone stimulates sexual desire,” said senior author Dr. Serdar Bulun, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Medicine. “For the first time, we demonstrated conclusively that the conversion of testosterone to estrogen in the brain is critical to maintain full sexual activity or desire in males. Aromatase drives that.”

Towards the bottom of the article it discussed men with low sex desire and says “A treatment to boost aromatase in this disorder could heighten sexual desire, Bulun said.” …

This is a win for the TRT world. It shows that society needs men with healthy hormone levels to keep society moving.

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Interesting article. Is it aromatase itself, or estrogen?

However, i don’t think it’s as easy as just lowering the dose. I would think this would keep the ratio TT/E2 the same.

Some need to use a device to modify the TT:E2 ratio differently than their body does naturally with exogenous test. That is done with something like an ai or dim.

Let’s not get all vicious with arguing. I’m just not sold the answer to everyone’s prayers is to just lower the dose.

I’ve been thinking about asking my provider for some estrogen. Still playing with test but my estrogen is always what I would consider low considering my TT/FT.

Have you tried adding some dhea? That could help increase your E if youre thinking it’s low. Worth a try.

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I was taking some a while back briefly. That was on a different protocol than what I’m currently doing. I may look into that as well. I’m just starting to think I’ve got other stuff going on causing no libido than just low test. It may be stuff that only time can fix, or may never be fixed as I think a brief stint of SSRI’s is what knocked it out.

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Are you primary or secondary hypogonadic?

My theory is that some men, being secondary, have other pituitary/hypothalmus hormones affected that hamper libido other than test/e2.

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I made a post, albeit a weird one, about getting drunk on a Friday, felt like death Saturday and had the best orgasm in several months on the Sunday. That was almost a few weeks ago and since my O’s are weak again. I’m about 5-6 weeks in to 50mg IM test cyp/3.5 days… and a PFS case.

Think this is clearly an estrogen boost from alcohol effect?

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What you’re describing has been noted by many on here. Why does a hangover give me libido? Happens to me too.

I have two thoughts on why, none backed by science… just my thoughts:

  1. Drunk sleep = lousy sleep. It’s possible that the next day, when your body NEEDS to function, it produces more dopamine/adrenaline to compensate for bad sleep, hence increase libido.
    OR
  2. Increase estrogen from the beer caused a better TT/E2 ratio and produced a rush of libido.
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No idea. I’ll google to see if I can find out how to tell the difference.

Here is one of my original labs prior to TRT. We did two, this being the first one. He wouldn’t treat me here because TT was too high, came back a week later and it was at 176 TT.

EDIT: correction, second time was 285 total and he started me on 125mg once a week I believe. Came back a couple months later and had blood done at the 3rd or 4th day after pinning and THAT one was 176 lol

WIth one LH test, it’s hard to tell what you are.

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