fenugreek, testosterone booster ?

[allone]

two guys are talking about their opiate use and various problems thereof, for which i can relate, BUT this is not the place and its about fenugreek...
meanwhile a third guy is turning the thread back into a cooking class... but you know what, ill take it off topic too, fuck it!

SO, thanks Bravoncius Roxford for the valid information, much appreciated! I waited 10 years since I made the thread to get such informative reply BUT ever since then, I have figured its already baloney with Testofen's claim of some MADE UP molecule called Fenuside and SUPPOSEDLY their product contains 50% of this MADE UP PRODUCT. So easy to catch the SCAMMERS!

I have questions though as one might imagine. IF you take most polyphenols with bioperine, wouldnt that help? in fact, inhibiting various enzymes and slowing down their metabolism in most cases, wouldnt it help with positive results when it comes down to those many interesting polyphenols? i even made a thread about this, if you please read and comment here; https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/plant-polyphenols-lacking-bioavailability.889115/

I have an important question to ask then, regarding plants and their polyphenols, or as herbal junkies like to refer to as "antioxidants"; IF plants healthy shit is indeed not bioavailable and hardly useful for humans OR animals, then why is that fruits and vegetables are healthy and actually can help us live long, better? Must it not just be the vitamins and minerals as those are PLENTY in meat, nuts, legumes whatever. So, it must be other things in plants, like "antioxidants" aka polyphenols etc, right? In such case, it will make them very valuable and bioavailable for humans, no??

Second; about the "The only thing that has ever been proven to raise testosterone levels is a diet high in saturated animal fats". So basically you think there is no man who can produce testosterone being vegetarian? I have seen many cases which that is not true! I am trying to understand better this, please help me examine it.

 

[allone]

Fenugreek does nothing. The compounds found in FG, polyphenols, terpenes, organic acids, etc, have no physiological activity at boosting testosterone. Furthermore, these molecules have absolutely terrible oral bioavailability, so even if they did boost testosterone, considering that only trace amounts of them would make it into your plasma, and that most of them have systemic half-lives of less than one hour, you would get no "in vivo" effect from any of these compounds.

Just because a molecule shows activity "in vitro" at extremely high concentrations(micromolar to millimolar range) doesn't mean that it will have any in situ effects on our cells. The oral bioavailabiltiy of most flavonoids is 1% or less, with some having BV of 0.2% or less. We evolved with plants for millions of years, and our bodies are designed physiologically to not absorb most plant molecules, and the little that gets absorbed gets quickly destroyed and removed by the body through hepatic metabolism. The reason for this is that these molecules, if absorbed, would disturb metabolism, and the body really hates that because one of the keys to optimum health is homoestasis. Usually, plant molecules that show desirable activities in vitro are modified by medicinal chemistry to make them 100 to 1,000 X more potent and at least 50 X more orally active. The few molecules that are not modified need to be designed with special carrier system to make them orally active. A good example of this would be silibinin from milk thistle. It has strong anti-inflammatory actions. However, silibinin is not orally active, being mostly hydrolized in the gut and the little that gets absorbed is quickly conjugated and glucorinated in the liver and excreted. So they created an emulsified version using phospholipids in a special matrix of long-chained dextrose polymers that allows silibinin to have much higher oral activity, and silimarin produces plasma levels of silibinin 7 X higher than the same equivalent dose of silibinin taken from milk thistle. Another example is cycloastragenol, which is a potent activator of telomerase in vitro. The oral biovailability is 1-3% at normal doses, and increases to 25% at massive doses due to non-linear pharmacokinetics. There is a special formulation of CA called TA-65 which utilizes micronized CA in layers of hypromellose of different molecular weights in a hard shell and bioperine. The hypromellose layers allows the CA to reach the gut intact, and the micronization allows it to diffuse through the cell membranes of the intestines. Then, bioperine significantly inhibits the two livr enzymes that breaks down CA. TA-65 results in plasma levels of CA roughly 60 X greater than CA taken alone. It took ten years and cost millions of dollars to be developed because making most phytochemicals orally bioavailable is quite a bitch.

In general, the plant compounds that are most orally active tend to be alkaloids. There are exceptions, of course. For instance, berberine is an alkaloid and has poor oral bioavailability. But, in general, alklaoids unlike most phytochemicals have very good oral bioavailability. The classic example is caffeine, which is the prototypical orally bioavailable molecule with an oral bioavailability of 99%, which puts to shame most pharmaceutical drugs. Caffeine is so bioavailable because of it's high solubility and the fact that it has both hydrophilic and lipohilic pockets, allowing it to readily cross cellular membranes. The reason why alkaloids have such good oral bioavailability is not because plants want to help us, but because they want to kill us. Plants don't make alkaloids to heal us, but because they don't want us to eat them. They are poisons that the plant develops specifically to bypass all the enzymatic and cellular barriers of our body and produce high plasma concentratons so that it is effective at killing us.

Fenugreek doesn't do anything. The only thing that has ever been proven to raise testosterone levels is a diet high in saturated animal fats. Fats in general increase testosterone, but monounstaturated fatty acids like oleic acid do not increase testosterone levels much because they also increase SHBG(steroid hormone binding globulin), which decreases free testosterone by binding it in plasma. But a diet rich in saturated animal fats is really bad for your health due to the effect that it has at increasing LDL cholesterol. Another thing that temporarily increases testosterone is d-aspartic acid, which increases lutenizing hormone. But the body adjusts to it after a couple weeks and levels plummet back normal.

You cannot "cheat" your levels of testosterone higher just like you cannot cheat your levels of dopamine up by taking more tyrosine or phenylalanine. The body has a bunch of feed back loops to keep levels of potent endogenous molecules within a threshold. This is why professional bodybuilders just shoot the stuff, because trying to raise it naturally is pointless.

Also, testosterone is an extremely powerful molecule with a bunch of physiological effects, and a lot of them are not desirable. Men live on average almost 8 years less than women, and one of the reasons is much higher testosterone levels. Testosterone switches the body from cellular preservation and autophagy to anabolism via several mechanisms that are not good for your health, such as increasing MtorC-1 activity, increasing plasma levels of IGF-1(cancer promoting), increasing the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver(because cells walls contain large amounts of cholesterols, so cholesterol is needed for the creation of new cells). Men have 20 X more testosterone than women, and they pay a high price for that: higher incidence of most cancers(except for breast cancer, which women have more), much higher levels of heart disease and infections(testosterone suppresses the immune system). You still need some testosterone, as too little T can cause accelerated ageing of the skin, muscles and bones, and too little T can lead to osteoporosis since men get all their 17-beta-estradiol via the conversion of testosterone via aromatase, and estradiol is necessary for bone homoestasis,. But you are still better off with as little as possible.

Testosterone is such a powerful molecule that the average male produces 5 mg of T a day, 99% of which is bound in plasma by SHBG. So men have only 50 micrograms of active T a day, and that is enough for all the male characteristics, such as facial hair, bigger muscles and more aggressive moods.

Maybe the best strategy for increasing T would be to take aromatase inhibitors like tamoxifene or aromastin, and 5-alpha-reductase inhibits like finasteride. But this is also risky for many other reasons. You should just inject the stuff. If you want to avoid needles, take oral steroids. Testosterone is not orally bioavailable, so the steroids that are are 17-alpha-alkylated ones like methandrostenolone, which are highly hepatotoxic.

shit, i meant to quote but double post, sorry

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

two guys are talking about their opiate use and various problems thereof, for which i can relate, BUT this is not the place and its about fenugreek...
meanwhile a third guy is turning the thread back into a cooking class... but you know what, ill take it off topic too, fuck it!

SO, thanks Bravoncius Roxford for the valid information, much appreciated! I waited 10 years since I made the thread to get such informative reply BUT ever since then, I have figured its already baloney with Testofen's claim of some MADE UP molecule called Fenuside and SUPPOSEDLY their product contains 50% of this MADE UP PRODUCT. So easy to catch the SCAMMERS!

I have questions though as one might imagine. IF you take most polyphenols with bioperine, wouldnt that help? in fact, inhibiting various enzymes and slowing down their metabolism in most cases, wouldnt it help with positive results when it comes down to those many interesting polyphenols? i even made a thread about this, if you please read and comment here; https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/plant-polyphenols-lacking-bioavailability.889115/

I have an important question to ask then, regarding plants and their polyphenols, or as herbal junkies like to refer to as "antioxidants"; IF plants healthy shit is indeed not bioavailable and hardly useful for humans OR animals, then why is that fruits and vegetables are healthy and actually can help us live long, better? Must it not just be the vitamins and minerals as those are PLENTY in meat, nuts, legumes whatever. So, it must be other things in plants, like "antioxidants" aka polyphenols etc, right? In such case, it will make them very valuable and bioavailable for humans, no??

Second; about the "The only thing that has ever been proven to raise testosterone levels is a diet high in saturated animal fats". So basically you think there is no man who can produce testosterone being vegetarian? I have seen many cases which that is not true! I am trying to understand better this, please help me examine it.

No need to be a condescending nazi. This post goes further back than 2010. I specifically asked if fenugreek was a relevant thing to use to combat any testosterone issues or hormonal issues stemming from opioid use and then friendly conversation followed, which subsequently brought some one else to in to provide some more useful info, so I won't apologize for it. After all, this forum does say "pharmacology", which includes medicines and interactions and there weren't many, if any experiences on here using fenugreek for anything.

Casual respectful conversation and discussion should be encouraged. Talking with people is a form of harm reduction in itself which is what this website stands for. I am thankful the other people who responded were friendly and kind. I am still new here profile wise but I have been very thankful this place exists for as long as it as and for as long as I've been using. Probably has saved my life a few times & it's sad that people should have to feel berated for having the balls to be themselves and speak. Let's stigmatize opiate users further by acting like they're irrelevant. Ironically, being told to be quiet by a person who's posted only 7 times within 12 years.

 

[draculic acid69]

When I was looking into testosterone boosters fenugreek kept popping up.testofen or fenugreek extract actually not so much fenugreek by itself.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

When I was looking into testosterone boosters fenugreek kept popping up.testofen or fenugreek extract actually not so much fenugreek by itself.

Same here. I saw some commercials for it and did some quick looking, but it seems like there are more claims made about it than there is actual research and what there is of it is sort of out of my realm. Was hoping maybe there were at least some sort of postive benefits that could come from taking it. I'm sure it's not terrible for you, or maybe it is. I had never even heard of fenugreek up until now, since I suppose it's not a very common dish in America or has never been around the people I've grown up around. So without knowing enough, I decided I probably won't even take it and will continue seeking alternatives and taking it day by day.

I just took care of a mom with cancer for 8 months and then my sister died from alcohol induced organ failure & I have neighbors that love keeping me up all the time. So at this point, who knows what my issues really are. haha But I should have known better than to think fenugreek would do a thing for any of it.

 

[allone]

When I was looking into testosterone boosters fenugreek kept popping up.testofen or fenugreek extract actually not so much fenugreek by itself.

gee i wonder why. maybe because plain fenugreek is inexpensive and all over the place and testofen is a brand name product advertised all over google. i already proved they are scammers. they claim some made up molecule called "fenuside" to be 50% inside their product. thats such crap!

 

[allone]

actually after going through google i found this webpage that sums up all 100 fenugreek studies with or without sponsorship; https://www.greenmedinfo.com/substance/fenugreek

and yes, the website is about some naturapaths and its full of crap, but those links are to REAL SCIENCE STUDIES. so, feel free to go through all of em and analyze. its going to be a while though

 

[Bravoncius Roxford]

two guys are talking about their opiate use and various problems thereof, for which i can relate, BUT this is not the place and its about fenugreek...
meanwhile a third guy is turning the thread back into a cooking class... but you know what, ill take it off topic too, fuck it!

SO, thanks Bravoncius Roxford for the valid information, much appreciated! I waited 10 years since I made the thread to get such informative reply BUT ever since then, I have figured its already baloney with Testofen's claim of some MADE UP molecule called Fenuside and SUPPOSEDLY their product contains 50% of this MADE UP PRODUCT. So easy to catch the SCAMMERS!

I have questions though as one might imagine. IF you take most polyphenols with bioperine, wouldnt that help? in fact, inhibiting various enzymes and slowing down their metabolism in most cases, wouldnt it help with positive results when it comes down to those many interesting polyphenols? i even made a thread about this, if you please read and comment here; https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/plant-polyphenols-lacking-bioavailability.889115/

I have an important question to ask then, regarding plants and their polyphenols, or as herbal junkies like to refer to as "antioxidants"; IF plants healthy shit is indeed not bioavailable and hardly useful for humans OR animals, then why is that fruits and vegetables are healthy and actually can help us live long, better? Must it not just be the vitamins and minerals as those are PLENTY in meat, nuts, legumes whatever. So, it must be other things in plants, like "antioxidants" aka polyphenols etc, right? In such case, it will make them very valuable and bioavailable for humans, no??

Second; about the "The only thing that has ever been proven to raise testosterone levels is a diet high in saturated animal fats". So basically you think there is no man who can produce testosterone being vegetarian? I have seen many cases which that is not true! I am trying to understand better this, please help me examine it.

Taking bioperine doesn't help that much because the problem with polyphenols is their multiple polar rings, which result in them being hydrolized in the gut before even reaching the liver. What makes polyphenols not orally bioactive is not so much that they do not survive liver first bypass metabolism - although that is a big part too, yes - but the problem is their poor solubility and that they are too polar. Also, they are not lipophilic, so they do not cross cellular membranes very effectively. Our cell membranes are mostly phospholipids, and molecules that are lipophobic do not penetrate cells properly.

So only between 1% to 10% of them gets through the gut, and then they undergo hepatic first by-pass metabolism and only 0.2% to 1% of the dose you took actually makes it to the plasma unchanged. And then, because these molecules are just a step or two from being small enough to be excreted, their half-lives are only 1 or 2 hours so that tiny amount that made through is glucorinated and completely gone in 3-5 hours. Polyphenols are garbage as potential drugs. Consider, for instance, resveratrol. Tests using resevratrol in vitro in large doses indicates that it is a SIRTUIN-1 inducer. Because of the huge potential health benefits of this, which would allow you to reap the benefits of caloric restriction without starving, they tried to use resveratrol as a drug. The problem is that only 0.5% makes it into the bloodstream unchanged, and that is broken and expelled from the body completely. The doses used in cell assays are in the oder of 10-50 uMOL. That would translate into oral doses of 5-20 grams to obtain the same effect observed in vitro. But that is assuming a 100% bioavailability. The actual dose is 200 X greater than that. Because that is completely impractical and even impossible, pharmaceutical companies tried to work the issue to increase the bioavailability. Sirtris Pharmaceutical tried to design a bucal delivery system, but there were many drawbacks. Another company tried to develop an emulsified version in an encapsulation of polyethylene glycol esters, but that still produced blood levels of RV about 100 X lower than needed even when they gave the subject multi-gram doses. After spending millions of Dollars they gave up.

As for why eating colored fruits and vegetables is good for you, it is because they get metabolized into uric acid which paradoxically has an alkalizing effect on the body. Much less than 1% of the anthocyanins, coumarins, chalcones present in them actually make it to your bloodstream, and even less makes it into your cells. There are exceptions. for instance, lycopene is not very orally bioavailable, but turned into a powder and mixed with oil and heated, increases it's oral bioavailability by more than 10 X. But then, lycopene is a hydrocarbon and not a polyphenol. And astaxanthin is also bioavailable, but again it is a terpene and not a phenol. Also, fruits and vegetables contain vitamins, minerals and soluble fiber, all of which are bioavailable and essential for health.

And you are missing the major point: even if the compounds in fenugreek were orally bioavailable, which they are not, that still would be no good because there is no evidence that they do anything.

If you want testostrone, then inject the stuff. Or eat a high fat, low fiber diet to increase the synthesis of your own test by the leydig cells in your testicles. There is also some evidence that higher levels of vitamins A and D might increase testosterone somewhat above normal, but evne that is speculative and most likely it just normalizes T in guys that are low on those vitamins.

You can't cheat your body into increasing this or that physiological function because the body is always struggling towards homoestasis, and it does not like excesses of anything.

 

[allone]

this is a pretty good article explaining how mobile and diverse polyphenols can be and their absorption; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2871118/

 

[Bravoncius Roxford]

Really, finasteride protects your hair and increases your testosterone? Do you know any numbers, guess it won't exactly be the MAOI of T - or is the 5-alpha route the major breakdown path of it? Need to consider that again.. It's just so overly expensive.

The depression / energy depletion, muscle wasting (and loss of libido, would I care for that) is just too bad and opioids are the only chem, maybe next to dissociatives which aren't sustainable currently with just K, DXM and memantine being prescribable, to completely suppress physical PTSD response/feedback.

Sure, finasteride increases your testosterone...while making your DHT plummet through the floor. DHT(dihydrotestosterone) is the most potent endogenous ligand of the androgen receptor, and it is responsible for a lot of the psychological male characteristics, as well as some of the physical characteristics such as facial hair and lower subcutaneous fat. While testosterone is important for fertility and anabolism, it is DHT that actually makes you a male. Potent 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors like finastride and dutasteride produce pseudo-eunuchism. Basically, they turn you into an eunuch except that you still have your balls. Dutasteride is even worse since it inhibits 2 of the 3 5AR enzymes, while finasteride inhibits only type I.

The only thing that consistently increases testosterone is a high fat diet of monounstaturated and saturated fats. Polyunstarated fats actually lower testosterone. The reason for this is that, when calories and especially concentrated calories like fats(9 calories per gram) are ingested, the body takes the opportunity to breed. This goes back to Darwin;s Theory of Evolution, where an organism has essentially two choices when it comes to enhacing the survival of the DNA inside cells: tp preserve the body or to pass on the genes via reproduction. When calories are scarce, sex hormones are lowered since it is unlikely that offspring would survive in a calorie-scarce environment. Conversely, high calories signal that it's time to breed. Saturated animal fats are especially potent at increasing sex hormones since they both increase SH synthesis while at the same time lowering SHBG. But a diet rich in butter, lard and bacon is really, really bad for your cardiovascular health and longevity snce it is also por-inflammatory.

 

[atara]

bupe is effective in eliminating a good part of negative thoughts but it doesn't lift mood at all, so I realized it only in retrospection and being on it felt pretty useless as it lacks the stress/tension lowering effects of full agonists. We definitely need a selective kappa antagonist which leaves mu and delta alone.

So you switched to morphine?

What's wrong with e.g. buprenorphine + antidepressant? Morphine is just going to keep retraining your opioid receptors to function outside of normal, which makes the problem last longer. Maybe kratom doesn't last so long?

Hell, couldn't you use bupe maintenance and smoke weed for fun?

The reason for this is that, when calories and especially concentrated calories like fats(9 calories per gram) are ingested, the body takes the opportunity to breed.

It's true that monounsaturated fats -- olive/avocado/almond etc -- are relatively healthy testosterone-boosting foods and saturated fats produce the same effect with some side effects. However, quoted sentence obviously isn't why polyunsaturated fats produce different effects.

Polyunsaturated fats are usually linoleic acid which is metabolized to the neurotransmitter arachidonic acid. This is what produces other effects. Linoleic acid isn't common in foods that can be eaten without processing, except peanuts. Other sources of concentrated linoleic acid require machinery to extract: corn/soybean/rice bran oils must be concentrated from a plant that is normally low in fat while safflower/grapeseed/etc are tiny, hard seeds that could never be processed by hand. Apparently our evolutionary history didn't train our bodies to manage very high intakes of LA.

Potent 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors like finastride and dutasteride produce pseudo-eunuchism. Basically, they turn you into an eunuch except that you still have your balls.

This is not true when considered in the specific case of men who actually have androgenic alopecia. In this case 5ar2-inhibitors make the biochemistry more normal. However, hair loss is not reversible in areas where it has been gone for more than a year. The body produces a natural 5ar2 inhibitor called epitestosterone which is severely lacking in men with AA -- the ratio of T/E is 3-4 times higher in bald men:

Biochemical Roles of Testosterone and Epitestosterone to 5α-Reductase as Indicators of Male-Pattern Baldness

In establishing a theory to predict male-pattern baldness, we investigated the correlation of testosterone, epitestosterone, and dihydrotestosterone w…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[dopamimetic]

Oh, there might actually be something about my nutrition. I eat mostly vegetarian and very little fat, just don't like heavy (or overly sweet) foods and love vegetables and fruits. So next to no protein either but always thought this would interfere with muscle buildup but not with general 'shape', endurance and subjective energy when the people are raving about healthy diet by every occasion.

Good to know about DHT. Knew that these 5-alpha inhibitors shouldn't be taken before a certain age but thought that e.g. the beard root cells would stay once they're there.
Wouldn't morphine - which inhibits testosterone production significantly - lead to the same changes with added muscle wasting? That, lack of energy (and libido if I wouldn't welcome its decrease) are the only physical adverse effects I got and was 2+ years on it.

So you switched to morphine?
What's wrong with e.g. buprenorphine + antidepressant? Morphine is just going to keep retraining your opioid receptors to function outside of normal, which makes the problem last longer. Maybe kratom doesn't last so long?

Bupe didn't alleviate craving - for dissociatives though but the full agonists do much better at that. They come with a price for sure and indeed going back on bupe is an idea I have. Currently I'm on just kratom which appears not to suppress hormones as much by far but it's an emergency solution because I'm mostly out of reach of prescriptions at the moment and does just take the edge off. My doc is a day travel away, don't have local contacts and insurance wouldn't pay either so trial and error would be expensive.

 

[allone]

i personally upped my testosterone by using zinc, and at one point adding DHEA. yes, those two work either separately or combined. plus adding high fat, high calorie food might be helping it as i did that as well. Most of all, I used source of fat as Fish oil. But i also experienced stable levels of testosterone just using the mentioned supplements and plain berries. abstinence from fatty foods didnt lower it and it seems certain berries might help keep it stable, from personal experience with actual data from blood work.o
well, that was before. since restarting opiates it has been going down recently. but each time i quit them, in 3 days time it shoots to extremities. i have used opiates to suppress and release it like wild beast many times lol!!

here you can experiment yourself with all those articles; https://ergo-log.com/testosteroneboosters.html
whats cool about the site, they use actual studies to analyze them and mention if sponsored at the end. for example, this sponsored study on fenugreek claims testosterone is increased in women; https://ergo-log.com/fenugreek-extract-raises-testosterone-levels-in-women.html

 

[atara]

Oh, there might actually be something about my nutrition. I eat mostly vegetarian and very little fat, just don't like heavy (or overly sweet) foods and love vegetables and fruits. So next to no protein either but always thought this would interfere with muscle buildup but not with general 'shape', endurance and subjective energy when the people are raving about healthy diet by every occasion.

Scientific data on the effects of dietary protein does not lead to a straightforward "good/bad" answer. Anecdotally, I feel better eating a relatively high-protein diet and most of the people I know whose bodies I would imitate do so as well. While there are certainly cases (in documentaries etc) of people achieving good results w.r.t. body composition without a high-protein diet, in my personal experience the vegetarians whom I've met (all!) do not look anything like I want to look.

How you eat protein can be more important than the raw quantity. More than about 30 grams in a meal just gets oxidized by the liver. But the body can benefit from up to five "protein meals" in a day! Many people eat very little protein at breakfast and lunch and try to make up for it at dinner -- this doesn't work. See e.g.

Dietary protein recommendations and the prevention of sarcopenia: Protein, amino acid metabolism and therapy

To draw attention to recent work on the role of protein and the amount of protein needed with each meal to preserve skeletal muscle mass in ageing.Ageing does not inevitably reduce the anabolic response to a high-quality protein meal. Ingestion of approximately ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Recent Perspectives Regarding the Role of Dietary Protein for the Promotion of Muscle Hypertrophy with Resistance Exercise Training

Skeletal muscle supports locomotion and serves as the largest site of postprandial glucose disposal; thus it is a critical organ for physical and metabolic health. Skeletal muscle mass is regulated by the processes of muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and muscle protein breakdown (MPB), both of...

www.mdpi.com

I suspect this is why the infamous "gallon of milk per day" bulking method works so well (as it did for me). Getting your protein from a gallon of whole milk (fat slows digestion) forces you to spread out your intake across the whole day, which maximizes protein utilization.

Bupe didn't alleviate craving - for dissociatives though but the full agonists do much better at that.

If buprenorphine doesn't treat cravings, another drug may be indicated. However, you said "it doesn't lift mood at all". Opioid replacement therapy isn't supposed to treat depression. SSRIs etc are a better choice for that.

 

[Bravoncius Roxford]

Scientific data on the effects of dietary protein does not lead to a straightforward "good/bad" answer. Anecdotally, I feel better eating a relatively high-protein diet and most of the people I know whose bodies I would imitate do so as well. While there are certainly cases (in documentaries etc) of people achieving good results w.r.t. body composition without a high-protein diet, in my personal experience the vegetarians whom I've met (all!) do not look anything like I want to look.

How you eat protein can be more important than the raw quantity. More than about 30 grams in a meal just gets oxidized by the liver. But the body can benefit from up to five "protein meals" in a day! Many people eat very little protein at breakfast and lunch and try to make up for it at dinner -- this doesn't work. See e.g.

Dietary protein recommendations and the prevention of sarcopenia: Protein, amino acid metabolism and therapy

To draw attention to recent work on the role of protein and the amount of protein needed with each meal to preserve skeletal muscle mass in ageing.Ageing does not inevitably reduce the anabolic response to a high-quality protein meal. Ingestion of approximately ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Recent Perspectives Regarding the Role of Dietary Protein for the Promotion of Muscle Hypertrophy with Resistance Exercise Training

Skeletal muscle supports locomotion and serves as the largest site of postprandial glucose disposal; thus it is a critical organ for physical and metabolic health. Skeletal muscle mass is regulated by the processes of muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and muscle protein breakdown (MPB), both of...

www.mdpi.com

I suspect this is why the infamous "gallon of milk per day" bulking method works so well (as it did for me). Getting your protein from a gallon of whole milk (fat slows digestion) forces you to spread out your intake across the whole day, which maximizes protein utilization.


If buprenorphine doesn't treat cravings, another drug may be indicated. However, you said "it doesn't lift mood at all". Opioid replacement therapy isn't supposed to treat depression. SSRIs etc are a better choice for that.

There is some evidence that excessive intake of protein might be carcinogenic and pro-senescent due to excessive phosphorylation of the MTORC-1(mechanistic target of rapamycin) pathway, which shuts down autophagy allowing misfolded cellular proteins to accumulate, and by triggering excessive amounts of cellular mitosis, while increasing somatostatin and IGF-1 levels. There is a fascinating lecture by doctor of medicine, David Sabbattini, on this topic. This eventually led to the elucidation of the mechnisms of autophgy by other researchers, who's work won the Nobel Prize in medicine a few years letter; Here is the lecture: part 2

There is a molecule called sirolimus that was isolated from a fungus that grows in the soils of the Eastern Islands. It is a macrolide that is an extremely potent inhibitor(IC50 0.1 nMOL) of the MTORC-1 and MTORC-2 complexes. In fact, it gave the name to the protein kinase itself. Despite it's relatively low oral BV due to poor solubility of around 15%, rapamycin is so potent that a single 1 miligram dose inhibits 90% of the protein kinase in muscle, bone and nerve cells. One of the interesting things about rapamycin is that it causes severe immusupression. In fact, it was approved by the FDA in 1999 specifically to stop organ rejection in organ transplant pateients. And yet, rapamycin despite being an immunosuppressant actually increases both the number and variety of immune cells, as well as that of stem cells. It also causes cellular renewal by potent induction of autophagy. Both in vitro as well as in vivo, autophagosomes can be observed forming in cells treated with rapamycin. Rapamycin is the only substance that increases lifespan in all model organisms. Sirtris pharmaceutical tested SIRTUIN-1 inducers that are 1,000 X more potent than resveratrol(and 100 X more bioavailable), and while those increased lifespan in nematodes, there is no gain in lifespan in complex vertrebates. But rats treated with rapamycin live 50-60% longer, and rhesus monkeys live 10-15% longer.

This effect of rapamycin on longevity has raised the interest of researchers. However, using rapamycin as a longevity drug is not acceptable. The side effects are severe and in some cases even life-threatening, and include pulmonary edema, serious chronic infections, deep vein thrombosis, bone necrosis and hyperglycemia. The hope is that the studies on rapamycin will help to elucidate the mechanisms of ageing.

Here is another interesting thing: vegetarians and especially vegans consistently have a higher life expectancy, lower incidence of cancer and all degenerative diseases compared to heavy animal protein eaters. It has been postulated that this is due to upgraded autophagy genes due to lower phosphorylation of the MTORC-1 pathway by their die which is very low in branched chain amino acids. Vegetarians also experience less telomere attrition with age compared to heavy animal protein eaters,, although the difference in this is slight and not very statistically significant.

 

[allone]

Ok, thats pretty cool but what does it have to do with fenugreek and testosterone in general?

BUT, since we are on the topic, personally, i do not understand the whole fascination with living long. i dont think i understand why a person would like to live 100 and beyond? sure, nobody wants to die. but trying to avoid dead by being the LIVING DEAD, is better option?? I dont think Ive ever seen a happy centenarian or someone who is like HELL YEAH IM NOT DEAD YET IM HAPPY! Like literally, there are tons of youtube videos of 100+ people just wishing they are dead already. There is also this story; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...nd-hopes-to-change-views-on-assisted-suicide/
The guy literally talked about HOW SHITTY IT IS TO BE THAT OLD. He makes many valid points. A lot of people 100+ dont make any points, because too fucking dead already to even rationalize or make any thoughts!

Hey, maybe its just me, but I think contributing to life as much and best as you possibly can and die much younger is a lot more amazing than just ending up being useless centenarian. I was going to do shitload of things by now and finish my damn life but the fucking depression and addiction issues have slowed me down a lot. If i ever get out of this goddamn satanic phase, Ill just go around the world and spread love

 

[atara]

Yeah, I've heard the IGF-1 song and dance from many sources. I didn't know vegans were playing correlation bingo with their telomeres now, that's interesting.

However on further investigation I haven't been convinced by people demonizing this hormone. It's reminiscent of the earlier nutritional life extension furors -- first it was antioxidants, then it was calorie restriction, then it was methionine restriction, then it was IGF-1. In every case people were looking at tweaking knobs on an incredibly complicated machine because it gave favorable changes on just a few outputs.

It's one thing to try to put the body on its natural course of development; it's another thing to second-guess physiology altogether. If we needed more antioxidants, why don't we just produce them? If IGF-1 is so bad, why not encode for less?

At one point it was recommended for all older adults to take aspirin because it prevents heart attacks. Then the recommendation was retracted because it increases the chance of death from injury. Turns out you don't always want blood to be thinner and it clots for a reason.

IGF-1 is like this. It serves a purpose in the body. It promotes growth and increases immune system activity. Low IGF-1 activity is a classic symptom of prediabetes. Yes, it increases cancer cell proliferation. But if getting rid of cancer was that simple, Evolution would have done it already.

Another example: THC is known to slow the growth of some cancers in vitro. But when this was tried in vivo, the cancers grew faster. What happened? Well, THC activates the CB2 receptor which is immunosuppressive and dampens the body's own response to the tumors.

Rapamycin also inhibits the immune system:

Sirolimus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The struggle to increase human lifespan is likely to be a long research project requiring a substantially deeper understanding of physiology than we have now. Unlike other animals, there is some reason to believe humans were actually selected for longevity: we live much longer than our closest relatives, and old humans play important roles in human social networks, while among most animals, the elderly simply become irrelevant or are killed for status.

So simple changes that promote longevity in animals whose bodies aren't even trying to live very long might not actually do much for us. Vertebrates as a whole almost never live much longer than humans. Individuals who suggest dietary changes will alter human lifespan beyond its current observed limits are almost guaranteed to be selling a book.

And yeah, maybe there are downsides to protein. In fact, there are almost certainly downsides above some level, but we don't know what that is. But come on, "excessive mitosis"? We don't have a fucking clue about when our cells should divide. Unless it's obviously terrible, the most modern medicine can say is "that's interesting".

Oh, and by the way, vegans and vegetarians don't actually live longer. Well, actually, vegetarians tend to do better than vegans.

Vegetarian diet and all-cause mortality: Evidence from a large population-based Australian cohort - the 45 and Up Study

The vegetarian diet is thought to have health benefits including reductions in type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Evidence to date suggests t…

www.sciencedirect.com

Mortality in vegetarians and nonvegetarians: detailed findings from a collaborative analysis of 5 prospective studies

ABSTRACT. We combined data from 5 prospective studies to compare the death rates from common diseases of vegetarians with those of nonvegetarians with similar l

academic.oup.com

(But I do a disservice by even posting these links!)

 

[allone]

since you guys hijacked the thread, ill ask you this, whats such fascination with living to 100+?

 

[dopamimetic]

since you guys hijacked the thread, ill ask you this, whats such fascination with living to 100+?

To live with 100+ like you do now with 30-40, that's the fascination I guess. More time, not more suffering as we have currently. I'd love to have more time, if you make it to seem unlimited, remove the factor of seeing at first impression how old/young the other is, society would undergo deep changes. It might become what we see in Altered Carbon though.

 

[atara]

Ok, thats pretty cool but what does it have to do with fenugreek and testosterone in general?

Sorry I got diverted, but I do think that when discussing muscle growth as a goal of nutritional supplements, whether it's via testosterone or anything else, dietary protein is pretty hard to ignore.

A more realistic supplement for testosterone is vitamin D:

Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on Testosterone Levels in Men

Thieme E-Books & E-Journals

www.thieme-connect.com

You can get it from mushrooms that have been exposed to UV light including sunlight, which is an interesting alternative to taking pills:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/derm.23321

However, I haven't yet found a practical way to irradiate my mushrooms.