Testosterone and metabolism

[CellularIconoclast]

My anecdotal experience supports this. I don't think Ray was very bullish on copper supplementation, but in my experience it alleviated "low estrogen" symptoms from AI usage. Also many estrogen blockers coincidentally lowers ceruloplasmin. Methylene Blue is an example of this. Coffee also seems to alleviate "low estrogen" symptoms despite in theory being anti estrogenic, and if your theory is correct then the anti-iron effect of caffeine explains this.

Before seeing this post, I've recently been taking copper to balance zinc supplementation, which I take mostly to speed up recovery from the numerous colds I get, from having a kid in the 1st grade. Will keep doing so / experiment with its interaction with the AI.

Overall, I feel a lot better off of the AI for a few weeks, until estrogen gets too high. I'm not sure if the negative effects are from the AI itself, or just from it suppressing estrogen too much. Annoying to me that I need the AI, since my testosterone levels were naturally this high in the past, and I didn't need it then.

 

[Wolf]

Any info on why boron should be helpful in this case? I haven't looked into it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712861/

Prevention of Vitamin-D Deficiency​

Boron has been shown to increase serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25[OH]D3) in animal studies4,24 and of vitamin D–deficient individuals in human studies.25,26 In a clinical trial25 in which middle-aged men and women (n = 15) were placed on a low-boron diet, which was also marginal in magnesium and copper status, for 63 days (0.23 mg B/2000 kcal), 25(OH)D3 rose significantly after boron supplementation (3 mg/d as sodium borate) for an additional 49 days. Levels of 25(OH)D3 rose from an average of 44.9 nM after the 63 days of boron deprivation to 62.4 nM after the 49 days of boron repletion, a 39% increase.

Similar results were seen in an open pilot study of middle-aged individuals (n = 13) predetermined to be vitamin D deficient (serum 25[OH]D3 < 12 ng/mL). Levels of 25(OH)D3 were studied during boron supplementation of 6 mg/d for 60 days using calcium fructoborate, Ca([C6H10O6]2B)2·4H2O, a boron-containing complex that occurs naturally in fruit.26 The study took place in Serbia with supplementation beginning in October and concluding by January; in other words, the study occurred during the fall transition to winter, a time when vitamin-D status would be expected to worsen. Yet, with boron supplementation, 25(OH)D3 levels rose significantly, with an average rise of 20%.27

How does boron exert its hormonal effects? In sum, boron increases the biological half-life and bioavailability of E2 and vitamin D.

Boron Increases Half-life and Bioavailability of Sex Hormones and Vitamin D.​

Boron’s beneficial effects on bone metabolism are due in part to the roles it plays in both producing E2 and in increasing its biological half-life and that of vitamin D. Regarding 17β-estradiol, the simplest and preferred pathway for its production is reduction of the keto group of estrone by a tetrahydroborate salt, potassium borohydride.28
Regarding vitamin D, Miljkovic et al27 proposed in an excellent paper in Medical Hypotheses that boron suppresses the activity of 24-hydroxylase, the microsomal enzyme primarily responsible for catabolism of 25(OH)D3. A number of recent papers, which are discussed in the following text, have provided evidence to support this hypothesis.
The hypothesis by Milijkovic et al27 also accounts for boron’s well-recognized upregulation of 17β-estradiol levels in women, including postmenopausal women receiving hormone replacement therapy, because catabolism of 17β-estradiol is also achieved by microsomal enzymes catalyzing vicinal hydroxylations (eg, 24-hydroxylase). This suggests a more general hypothesis: Nutritional boron can inhibit a range of microsomal enzymes that insert hydroxyl groups vicinal to existing hydroxyls in steroids, which include enzymes that catabolize 17β-estradiol, 25(OH)D3, and 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1α,25[OH]2D3).29 As noted by Miljkovic et al27:

Boron readily forms covalent complexes with cis-vicinal dihydroxy compounds. Thus, it is conceivable that it can form such a complex with 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, the end product of the reaction of 25(OH)D3 with 24-hydroxylase. This postulated complex might either act as a competitive inhibitor of the 24-hydroxylase reaction, or alternatively, perhaps could act to down-regulate expression of the enzyme. Another possibility is that boron is a direct inhibitor of the enzyme at very modest concentrations; indeed, boron can inhibit numerous enzymes …

Therefore, boron’s beneficial hormonal effects are likely to be a result of its general impact on vicinal hydroxylations of steroids.

There's definitely more there, but overall I have noticed a beneficial effect. Its effects on hormones are definitely interesting, but at the 6mg or so I've dosed it in the form of Boron Glycinate[Albion, Swanson] I never really noticed any negative effects.