No, trt levels - thats the only articles I read
Therefore, there is increasing evidence that testosterone acts negatively on the immune response in both bacterial and viral infections, and this powerful immunosuppressive effect could explain the greater susceptibility of males to infections including COVID-19, the lower incidence of autoimmune diseases in men than ...
Hmm, how do I word this
So, we have known for a long time that testosterone
per se has a generally negative impact on immune function (especially one 'arm' of it). Conversion to oestrogen helps buffer the impact (oestrogen boosts immune function, generally). But overall, this is theorized to be one reason women tend to live longer than men, and suffer less from even casual assaults on the immune system like common colds. Men really do suffer more. It's also why they theorize women are often naturally attracted to more muscular men - because it indicates (from an evolutionary POV) such men must have excellent immune function, since they thrive physically despite a relatively high testosterone level. And thus the kinds of genes they want to pass on to their offspring. Men who do not thrive with higher test levels will tend to be sick more often and die younger.
However, unless your goal is to be transgender or survive prostate cancer, reduce hairloss etc, you wouldn't really want to reduce testosterone levels to female levels because testosterone is also involved in mood, other aspects of health, libido, drive, etc etc (a whole bunch of things).
So yes, technically speaking, if you do TRT, you are going to increase the potential for the health risks implicit with having normal testosterone levels, full stop, including potential impacts on immune function. But your alternative is...? Worse mood, depression, lethargy, loss of muscle mass (leading to even worse immune function), early death, and so on. Hence balance is key.
My criticism of most of the TRT protocols you see around (even in HRT clinics) is that they don't resemble natural testosterone release in any way. A decent TRT protocol would involve daily peaks and troughs, which does not happen on standard once or twice-weekly TRT protocols (even less so on once monthly protocols!). Standard TRT does not provide anything like a physiological testosterone level. You get very high peaks, and then crash to nothing before your next injection. Daily spurts of testosterone are what's going to give you most of the good with less of the bad, and mimic a more physiological testosterone protocol. And probably also lead to fewer complications in terms of immune function and so on. However, it does require more time and effort and that's not something most are keen on - on balance. Hence 'TRT' as described in most studies isn't really TRT as we ourselves tend to think of it.
Does that make any sense?
