I am trying to gather peoples experiences with the following:
Selenium,
DIM,
Milk thistle
Vitamin A
Resveratrol
These things reduce AR expression. Some increase testosterone levels too. We know we have high nuclear levels of AR which these decrease. It could be reducing it helps in the long run.
I tried milk thistle for a while and did not notice any benefit.
Every time I drink huge amounts of wine, I feel 100% the next few days. Wine contains resveratrol as you probably know. Also after the 1st month -that I felt like shit- I started eating lots of cruciferous veggies (DIM) and then in a month, my recovery began. Don’t know if they’re related though, could be the time of course.
Could someone explain why AR overexpression leads to low androgenic activity? I’d have thought more receptor sites would increase androgen effects, not decrease.
Funny you wrote that Dannyfc. I was about to write the same question since I don’t understand this either. I’ve been looking at using a few chinese herbs that are known to reduce AR expression and are being investigated for possible role in helping reduce prostate cancer, but not sure what the prevailing wisdom is regarding our condition as it relates to AR expression.
Which herbs are those? Ihatepropecia702 claimed to recover after fasting (and a lot of other things) and taking chinese herbs.
None in particular at this moment. Thankfully there are a few docs looking at the healing power of plants for prostate cancer because the chemicals they’ve been pumping people full of for years does not seem to be working really well. Once the studies come out we may have a better idea of what is going on with our ARs, but I’m hoping too someone can explain dannyfc’s question regarding AR expression.
And other question is that I was taking to my doc about oxidative stress. I feel like I read a study linking oxidative stress to lower AR expression. I assume most of us have high OS levels, but I thought the prevailing theory was that we had over expressed ARs. Has that been substantiated yet or is that still speculation?
The Harvard study should be published within the next few months. Hopefully that will clarify a lot of things.
Yeah sorry 19 to highjack the thread. I’ve been looking at supps that lower AR. Just important for me whether that has actually been confirmed. Penile tissue it looks like, but is that necessarily the case throughout the entire body?
Yes it is only from penile tissue. From the epithelial and stromal layers.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24959691/
So it is possible that increased AR expression leads to hypersensitivity of the receptor to low levels of androgens. When we take finasteride we likely increase AR expression. When we stop finasteride our bodies ramp up production of DHT and so you have lots of androgens binding to a hypersensitive receptor. It is possible that a post translational modification takes place after the receptor shutting down AR signalling and the activation of androgen responsive genes. This idea would explain why people have only a minimal response to androgens and even perhaps a negative response.
Normally yes increased androgen receptor would lead to more androgen activity. But we modulated things when we took the drug.
I also want to add forskolin and Vitamin E both affect AR too. Forskolin affects ligand binding though so affects the binding of testosterone to receptor. This is likely not a good idea.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12032296
So in summary these things affect the receptor.
Selenium,
DIM,
Milk thistle
Vitamin A
Resveratrol
Vitamin E
Forskolin (probably avoid this one)
Worth noting that cdnuts took Resveratrol as a PCT after AndroHard.
Just a bit wary as these things have negative impact on libido for healthy people. It’s quite a leap of faith to actively look to lowering AR expression, maybe it could help but until we fully understand it may leave us worse off.
Libido is the least of my worries. If I couid sleep well at night, reduce fatigue, and eliminate that unprovoked anxiety, Id be a happy man while science catches up to this. Yeah sorry for the tangent but it is all very confusing. Sounds like increasing or decreasing AR expression are both questionable moves. I’m at the point where I’m ready to add to the blunders of home brew and give a random herb a shot that is known lower AR expression and do some other things seemingly beneficial. So 19 you aw saying that we reconfigured our bodies so that our current AR expression operates opposite to how it normally would. So that means jury is stop out how manipulating them at this point would make us feel?
Tanshinones, phytochemicals derived from a Chinese medicinal plant (danshen a.k.a. red sage), inhibit nuclear translocation of AR in the presence on androgens:
Y. Zhang, S.-H. Won, C. Jiang, H.-J. Lee, S.-J. Jeong, E.-O. Lee, J. Zhang, M. Ye, S.-H. Kim, and J. Lü, “Tanshinones from Chinese Medicinal Herb Danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge) Suppress Prostate Cancer Growth and Androgen Receptor Signaling,” Pharm Res, vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 1595–1608, Jan. 2012.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11095-012-0670-3
Related discussion on tanshinones:
http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/13/10/13621/htm#b258-ijms-13-13621
Sounds like an MOA that could help with PFS, but I’m hedging my bets until the research is published.
My plan is to reduce AR and then keep testosterone in high normal range.
It is true there is potential for doing this to make you worse. Some might feel more comfortable waiting.
It is possible for example unless you hit the mechanism by which things are overexpressed you could make things worse.
I’m gonna try a few of them. Resveratrol in the past did seem to increase testosterone levels too but it worsened my brain fog. I’m gonna retry it with progesterone in short bursts to help with the fog.
Good luck with the protocol. But it hasn’t been established yet that AR is ovrrexpressed all throughut the body, has it?
minoxidil/rogaine downregulates AR s. which we have high after PFS.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4039155/
Amazing. We could save our hair and get rid of PFS at the same time.
Just to warn that people have experienced adverse reactions to minoxidil.
Hi 19, great posts, and good luck with the protocol. Do let us know what you are trying and how you are doing.