Ive been on trt for 2 years now and had a estrogen crash this fall. From that point on I've been trying to redial my Ai protocol, and at the moment, im at a point where i've decided to ditch my arimidex completely.
One of the thing that is worrying me is the fact that I cant seem to shake of the apathy/lethargy ive been experiencing after the crash.
I did some reading on this and found few interesting studies that showed how estrogen deprivation lead to apoptosis - cell death - of certain percent of your dopamine producing neurons.
The first study was done in ovariectomized female monkeys:
Estrogen Deprivation Leads To Death Of Dopamine Cells In The Brain
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001204072446.htm
"Without estrogen, more than 30 percent of all the dopamine neurons disappeared in a major area of the brain that produces the neurotransmitter, dopamine, "
"After both 10 and 30 days of estrogen deprivation, apparently 30 percent of the total number of substantia nigra dopamine cells are lost," Redmond said. "Furthermore, the density calculations showed that brief estrogen replacement restores the density of the total number of neurons in that area of the brain 10 days after the ovaries have been removed, but not 30 days later."
This second study was done in male rat's whoms aromatise enxyme was "shut off"
Estrogen deficiency leads to apoptosis in dopaminergic neurons in the medial preoptic area and arcuate nucleus of male mice
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555924
"Previously, we have reported that no such changes were observed in the hypothalamus of female ArKO mice. Thus, we have provided direct evidence that estrogen is required to maintain the survival and functional integrity of dopaminergic neurons in the MPO and Arc of male, but not female mice."
Now of course we should take these animal studies with a grain of salt. I think that if these result applied directly to human males, we would be seeing a lot more men - in different forum's - complaining about low dopamine symptoms despite normal E2 levels. That said these findings made me more cautious on using aromatize inhibitors.
One of the thing that is worrying me is the fact that I cant seem to shake of the apathy/lethargy ive been experiencing after the crash.
I did some reading on this and found few interesting studies that showed how estrogen deprivation lead to apoptosis - cell death - of certain percent of your dopamine producing neurons.
The first study was done in ovariectomized female monkeys:
Estrogen Deprivation Leads To Death Of Dopamine Cells In The Brain
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001204072446.htm
"Without estrogen, more than 30 percent of all the dopamine neurons disappeared in a major area of the brain that produces the neurotransmitter, dopamine, "
"After both 10 and 30 days of estrogen deprivation, apparently 30 percent of the total number of substantia nigra dopamine cells are lost," Redmond said. "Furthermore, the density calculations showed that brief estrogen replacement restores the density of the total number of neurons in that area of the brain 10 days after the ovaries have been removed, but not 30 days later."
This second study was done in male rat's whoms aromatise enxyme was "shut off"
Estrogen deficiency leads to apoptosis in dopaminergic neurons in the medial preoptic area and arcuate nucleus of male mice
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555924
"Previously, we have reported that no such changes were observed in the hypothalamus of female ArKO mice. Thus, we have provided direct evidence that estrogen is required to maintain the survival and functional integrity of dopaminergic neurons in the MPO and Arc of male, but not female mice."
Now of course we should take these animal studies with a grain of salt. I think that if these result applied directly to human males, we would be seeing a lot more men - in different forum's - complaining about low dopamine symptoms despite normal E2 levels. That said these findings made me more cautious on using aromatize inhibitors.
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