Thread by @Karkazis

A journalist just asked if lowering T will definitively result in loss of muscle mass.
decreased muscle strength. T is related to these factors but it's not a simple dose response relationship where increase T and these factors increase and lower T and these factors decrease.

It depends on far too many factors. What is the level of testosterone that the person's body is used to? How much is it lowered and how? How does their individual body respond to the lowered level? How much is being converted to other hormones?

It’s not just a matter of the testosterone level circulating in the body but the location, density, and sensitivity of the receptors to testosterone, for example. Some studies show responses vary by location.

Hormones do not work in isolation so others will vary once T is lowered. What are the possible anabolic effects of those hormones? E.g., hormonal mechanisms underlying women’s & men’s strength gains might differ: the anabolic effects of progesterone might be impt for women.

Some have said the hormone to pay attention to re strength it not T but perhaps DHEA-s, which is the precursor to T & many other steroids. What other factors like the method of lowering T, training regimen or environment that also impact these factors might be at play?

So the first link is T reduces X and Y. The implication is that those decreased factors result in reduced performance. But that is also far more complex and the sports science literature is filled with examples that complicate or else provide evidence against that hypothesis.

The pat story about how T fuels male-typical athletic performance is a powerful distraction from T itself, occluding the fascinating, diverse, and contingent actions of T.

T doesn’t drive a single path to athletic performance, nor even a small set of processes that can be linearly traced from more T to more ability. It’s neither a sufficient nor even necessary ingredient.