Testosterone up, Higher Aromatase, Higher Estradiol?

Training Over 35 Lifter
1

My doc told me that my cholesterol came in WAY too low, it came in at 90. I’m a vegetarian and never knew I could be messing up myself by not eating cholesterol and eating tons of veggies. I do avoid soy.

I’m going to change all that now. For the past two days I’ve been eating 3 whole egg omelets every day and I think I might try some fish a couple of times a week now.

I wonder if 3 eggs is even enough, or if it is too much. I’ve searched all over to see how much dietary cholesterol impacts blood cholesterol, but haven’t found anything reliable.

This got me thinking… if my cholesterol goes up, could this cause my estradiol go up even higher because:

if I consume more cholesterol, my test could go up (if it doesn’t I’ll be really pissed!), if it goes up, my aromatase could go up, if aromatase goes up, my estradiol goes up even more.

Is this thinking correct or is it the case that I can scale up testosterone by upping my cholesterol intake and I might be ok on the estradiol side?

2


You are over analysing. Just get your fat intake corrected. You may have other diet induced deficiencies as well; and amino acid deficiencies. How are you getting B-12 in your diet now?

Take fish oil caps and also 2000-3000iu vitamin D per day. Use olive oil. You also need some saturate fats.

Total cholesterol = 90? If so, that is very dangerous.

Most cholesterol is made in the liver and only minor amounts are from cholesterol in food.

Cholesterol is the basis for vitamin D production, and all of the steroid hormones:

Your cell walls are made up of cholesterol, fats and proteins. You need these things to survive. Low cholesterol levels are associated with increase mortality from all causes.

3

You need to go wrestle a cow down right NOW, and have a BBQ. (Throw some bacon on there while you are at it)

That is waaaay to low. Like KSman said. Very dangerous.

[quote]jbaker2009 wrote:
My doc told me that my cholesterol came in WAY too low, it came in at 90. I’m a vegetarian and never knew I could be messing up myself by not eating cholesterol and eating tons of veggies. I do avoid soy.

I’m going to change all that now. For the past two days I’ve been eating 3 whole egg omelets every day and I think I might try some fish a couple of times a week now.

I wonder if 3 eggs is even enough, or if it is too much. I’ve searched all over to see how much dietary cholesterol impacts blood cholesterol, but haven’t found anything reliable.

This got me thinking… if my cholesterol goes up, could this cause my estradiol go up even higher because:

if I consume more cholesterol, my test could go up (if it doesn’t I’ll be really pissed!), if it goes up, my aromatase could go up, if aromatase goes up, my estradiol goes up even more.

Is this thinking correct or is it the case that I can scale up testosterone by upping my cholesterol intake and I might be ok on the estradiol side?[/quote]

4

[quote]KSman wrote:
You are over analysing. Just get your fat intake corrected. You may have other diet induced deficiencies as well; and amino acid deficiencies. How are you getting B-12 in your diet now?

[/quote]

I get fat from avocado (I eat 1-2 tbsp of guacamole every day with my night time bowl of stirfried veggies in olive oil), nuts, cheese, whey and casein shakes, and as of 3 days ago to fix my situation, eggs. I take centrum performance multivitamin, which I think should get me all my B’s… I just checked, it gets me 300% of B12. As for aminos, the eggs should help, and I take a whey protein shake and a casein protein shake daily (which by the way gets me some cholesterol, but I’ve been doing this forever, so it’s obviously not enough for me).

Already started doing that, as of last month, I started taking 6-8 caps of fish oil per day (1 gram per cap). That being said, this cholesterol level is about 3 weeks after I started taking this much fish oil. As for D, right now I take 1000 iu + 400 iu from my multi, but I’m going to up this to 3000 iu + 400 ie from my multi I think, that should protect me in that regard until my cholesterol gets back up.

I’ve decided to start eating 2-3 whole eggs per day in an omelet, this should get me 142-213 % of my cholesterol. Additionally, I agree with you on the saturated fat, perhaps this would stimulate my natural production via the liver. As gross and unhealthy as it sounds, whenever I go to starbucks, I now get a tea latte (with regular milk) and I ask them to put whipped cream on it. I figure now that I might somehow need that fat. I’ve historically only kept good fats at home, I eat one or two handfuls of a mix of cashews, almonds, some sesame sticks, and some pecans, but I obviously don’t have enough of the saturated fats. I’ve always worried about cheese because of I figured cows may have hormones injected, and I thought this might mess up my own hormones, but I’m eating cheese whenever I can as well now. I avoid sugars of all kinds right now, and generally speaking, I avoid complex carbs where I can as well since I find that it causes me to gain estrogenic fat.

I’m hoping that eating 2-3 whole eggs per day will fix me, and never shying away from saturated fats anymore.

I’ve been reading your posts KSman and I’ve learned alot so far. Any other advice would be much appreciated if you have any. If I increase my dietary cholesterol intake, that should definitely help, right? I’m willing to start eating some fish to start off, and eventually, I will train myself to eat some meat if I really need to in order to get healthy.

5

Hi,
When I see a patient with chos. that low I know they are malnurished.
You’ve made good changes.
All of what KSman suggested is good.
I would just add nonhydrogenated coconut oil for saturated fat, and more butter.
Retest in 3 months.
Dr.Tim

6

[quote]drtim wrote:
Hi,
When I see a patient with chos. that low I know they are malnurished.
You’ve made good changes.
All of what KSman suggested is good.
I would just add nonhydrogenated coconut oil for saturated fat, and more butter.
Retest in 3 months.
Dr.Tim[/quote]

Hi Dr. Tim,

I forgot to mention that I eat coconut about 3-4 times a week, I have about a handful of raw coconut (along with coconut water daily). I’ll up my intake of that as well. As for the butter, I’ll definitely try to get some of that in somewhere too, that’s great advice. Thanks for the 3 month time frame, I was just going to ask how long I need to keep up with eating all this before knowing whether it is working, you read my mind!

7

[quote]jbaker2009 wrote:

Any other advice would be much appreciated if you have any.
[/quote]

You have not talked about your general health, mood, energy/drive/initiative, libido, sleep, cold tolerance etc. So hard to go further. Did you get any hormone testing done yet?

Again, until cholesterol levels are normalized, everything else is secondary.

8

[quote]KSman wrote:
jbaker2009 wrote:

Any other advice would be much appreciated if you have any.

You have not talked about your general health, mood, energy/drive/initiative, libido, sleep, cold tolerance etc. So hard to go further. Did you get any hormone testing done yet?

Again, until cholesterol levels are normalized, everything else is secondary.[/quote]

My general heath – well, what prompted all this was me going to my doctor to complain about gyno that I’ve had since age 10. I used to be an obese as a kid at 230 lbs. Around the age of 18 till around the age of 22, I cut all my weight down to around 160, at that point, I was very lean, but my chest fat still remained. I’m now 28 at 172 lbs, my chest fat much MUCH less than before now that my body fat is down to around 16.5%. My doctor said the problem is mainly of loose skin and some fat remaining which is why my nipples are rather low on my chest, and while I haven’t seen a surgeon, I know that fixing loose skin is very involved and will result in tons of scarring, so I am reluctant to get it done. My doctor suggested I should just live with what god gave me, and that it’s not a big deal really. This all had been making me depressed, so that’s why I went to the doc to get checked out. I was hoping he’d prescribe me an aromatase inhibitor, I even told him I think I needed it, I wanted Arimidex and wanted him to get it for me so that it would hopefully be safe and supervised by him. That prompted him to do a check of my hormone levels.

I called him on friday, he only told me about my low cholesterol, he said the hormone stats are still being processed (he was waiting for a free test number I think). He told me #1) my prolactin and I think progesterone was normal, #2) my LH was high #3) my FSH was low and he didn’t understand why (I wonder if it had something to do with me not having sexual activity for a full week) #4) my estradiol was on the high end of the normal range. He told me to call back on Monday and discuss the rest, although he did tell me already that he won’t prescribe me an aromatase inhibitor since he feels the benefit to me with be very minimal as my problem is mainly with loose skin.

Now as for libido – when I went to the doctor, I was depressed and I felt no desire to have anything sexual for about a week prior to that blood test. Normally, like right now, I would say my libido is pretty high. I have to get it up and going 1-2 times a day in order to feel satisfied. I sleep around 7 hours a day right now, I am basically never tired during the day, and I have tons of energy. In the gym, I am extremely energetic, I workout 6 days a week and generally do alot of deadlifts, squats and bench. As I am continuously trying to lose weight, I have recently been having success with low intensity cardio…

9

Good points Ksman,

I would suggest he get specifically Vitamin D3, and take a little higher of a dose, at least 5000IU a day. You especially want softgels, not powdered form.

10

[quote]Wise Guy wrote:
Good points Ksman,

I would suggest he get specifically Vitamin D3, and take a little higher of a dose, at least 5000IU a day. You especially want softgels, not powdered form. [/quote]

For cholesterol vegeterians diet have alot of phytates in them that bind zinc, magnesium,chrmoium. Manganese defieincy results in lower cholesterol levels in clincal studies with both males and animals. Fiber binds with fats which cholesterol comes from. Veggies diets are very high in fiber low in protein, low in fat. Centrum is not going to cut it. So do not beleive that bull crap get a good multivitamin such as from douglas labs which is what Dr’s recommended or dr cranton…You need multivitamin in chelated form other wise it will get flushed out with all the fiber you have been taking or bounded to fat. If worse comes to worse there are cholesterol tabs available which if my cholesterol does not come up from 115 from eating red meat, whole organic eggs , butter and EVOCC then I am going to go that route. Cell membranes ingredity is essential for life and hormone and neurotransmitter receptors.

11

You’ve got some solid advice here so far…

I have been vegan and mostly vegetarian
maybe 3 or 4 years ago I added back fish and increased my eggs.
I do dairy as well but found whey shakes
dont work for me.

My last doc’s visit my cholesterol was 153.
he didnt bother explaining any hormone levels
because he said they where solid.
Im 37.

basically I think more fat, and more greens
yes more greens can help
even with vegetarians a low fat level
you need to akalize the blood.

Even vegan/vegetarians with great diets
can miss out on some stuff.

stuff that I take or have taken in the past
and has made me feel so much better/energetic
( not all at once)
fish oil
calcium/vitaman D
Zinc
and a greens supplement
I eat miles of brussel sprouts spinach ect
but the greens, really made a difference.

good luck
kmc

13

you been mis informed Transfat increase cholesterol and also insulin AKA processed sugar combined with fats. I wish I could raise mine from 120 to 180, but nothing seems to be working no matter how much red meat, organic eggs, butter EVCOO I comsume, with oxbile supplements as well. It just is not budging.

14

[quote]Hardasnails wrote:
you been mis informed Transfat increase cholesterol and also insulin AKA processed sugar combined with fats. I wish I could raise mine from 120 to 180, but nothing seems to be working no matter how much red meat, organic eggs, butter EVCOO I comsume, with oxbile supplements as well. It just is not budging.[/quote]

HAN, as knowledgeable as you are on other boards its great to see you posting here. Only 9 posts since 2002? We need to get that post count up! :wink:

18

[quote]KSman wrote:
jbaker2009 wrote:

Any other advice would be much appreciated if you have any.

You have not talked about your general health, mood, energy/drive/initiative, libido, sleep, cold tolerance etc. So hard to go further. Did you get any hormone testing done yet?

Again, until cholesterol levels are normalized, everything else is secondary.[/quote]

Just FYI I finally got my results mailed to me by my doctor, and now that I’ve had a chance to analyze it myself I realize there are things he did not tell me on the phone. Everything is normal except for a few items:

Everything was normal in the standard blood panel except for this:

URIC ACID: 3.5 L (normal range 4.0-8.0 mg/dL)
CHOLESTEROL TOTAL: 99 L (normal range 125-200 mg/dL)
BILIRUBIN, DIRECT: 0.3 H (normal range <= 0.2 mg/dL)

Here is my hormone stats (I’m posting all of this):

LH: 3.8 (normal range: 1.5-9.3 mIU/mL)
FSH: 1.2 L (normal range: 1.6-8.0 mIU/mL)
PROLACTIN: 6.5 (normal range: 2.0-18.0 ng/mL)
ESTRADIOL: 89 H (normal range: <= 64 pg/mL)
ESTROGENS,TOTAL,SERUM: 94 (normal range : 130 OR LESS pg/ml)

TESTOSTERONE,TOTAL: 1051 (normal range: 250-1100 ng/dL)
TESTOSTERONE,%,FREE: 1.20 L (this is low, normal range: 1.50-2.20 %)
TESTOSTERONE,FREE: 126.1 (35.0-155.0 pg/mL)

So the cholesterol, I have been working on eating 2-3 eggs a day for the past 2 weeks every night. I’ve been eating coconut, alot of nuts, and i never skip out on high fat in my coffee tea (half and half or whipped cream). This is hopefully going to get me back in range on my cholesterol. FYI my HDL on my cholesterol is actually 60, while my LDL is 32. Bilirubin, I have no idea what this is, last year I didn’t have this show up. Bilirubin total was 1.2, normal, but at the high end of the range of 0.2-1.2 mg/dL. I don’t get why my doctor said nothing about it. He told me my blood test said my liver is fine, maybe because of the other stats.

My FSH was low for some reason, I wonder if it was low because I hadnt had sexual activity for a week (I was depressed). My estradiol is obviously high, I have been taking ZMA nightly, and am seriously considering trying some arimidex (maybe some tiny tiny dose), but I’m not sure how to obtain it, and how to take it unsupervised by a doc. My doc already made it clear that he will not give me an aromatase inhibitor. The only thing he told me to do was avoid soy and don’t avoid cholesterol containing foods.

I’m up for further advice on anything else I should be doing if you guys have any more tips. Thanks alot.

19

LH and FSH are released in pulses. Lab results are a matter of timing. I would put that concern aside for now.

I have never seen an Estradiol lab range that high. Less that 54 is what we normally see.

With your TT, FT and E numbers you fit the profile of a guy on TRT with high T and E out of control. I think that you should try starting adex at 1mg/week. Have you read about adex over responders?

Adex dosing is easy to manage and you can do a better job than a doc who never does it in his/her practice. You get lab tests for E2 and adjust the dose. You need to get labs from a lab that does not have such a bogus range as they may be producing different results, not just a different lab range.

20

I would suspect that vegans, by definition, all either do, or eventually will, have low testosterone.

No way around it.