Pine pollen is thought to work as an adaptogen primarily through its content of phytoandrogens (androsterone, androstenedione, testosterone, etc)
These androgens are not well absorbed orally, making pine pollen only weakly androgenic, however, I believe I have a solution to this
There are only two viable methods for the absorption of the hormone component of pine pollen
1. Topical application as a gel or something similar (I found only very expensive one example of this) 2. Sublingual absorption, which is far as I can tell has never been optimized
It's fairly simple to use a tincture or something similar sublingually, but sublingual androgen absorption is still very limited unless they're complexed with an absorption enhancer
The best compound for this purpose seems to be hydroxyproply-beta cyclodextrin (HPBC)
HPBC has been shown to dramatically improve uptake of the various androgens found in pine pollen, causing them to behave more as water soluble than fat soluble
It seems to me the optimal pine pollen formulation would be a tincture complexed with HPBC taken sublingually
It should be noted that this could potentially have a stronger effect comparable to taking any of these hormones in much higher doses
Strangely as far as I can tell no one else seems to have come up with this idea, so there aren't really any experience reports in the subject
It's also worth noting some of these androgenic compounds are banned in performance sports and this might possibly be enough to trigger a positive drug test
I might experiment with this method of absorption myself at some point, for anyone else this isn't medical advice, just interesting info, take from it what you will
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Unbound iron in biology triggers a cascade of ROS formation known as a Fenton reaction, which ends in the creation of hydroxyl radicals (some of the most damaging free radicals possible)
This is why the body works to keep iron bound at all times, to protect itself
Iron metabolism is the body relies heavily on copper as an electron donor/acceptor, converting iron back and forth from the soluble ferrous form to the insoluble ferric form
This allows free iron to be absorbed and transported in the ferric form so it doesn't oxidize
Iron is then converted back to the ferrous form to be loaded into different protein structures, for example hemoglobin, where it acts as an oxygen transporter
Retinol is used to synthesize transferrin, which transports and clears free iron
I think I'm going to start experimenting an extended 5-7 day fast every 3-4 months
(thread)
When we constantly consumed carbohydrates and protein, pathways like mTOR and protein kinase A are activated
While this stimulates anabolic growth cascades like PI3K/Akt, it inhibits the catabolic detox process of autophagy which clears damaged cells and mitochondria
Once carbohydrates stores are cleared and insulin drops, mTOR is inhibited and catabolic pathways like AMPK are activated
Growth hormone is also increased 3-5x due to its inverse relationship with insulin, and this is thought to stimulate stem cell growth in the organs
Carnitine versus androgen administration in the treatment of sexual dysfunction, depressed mood, and fatigue associated with male aging pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15072869/
This trend of treating anything that sounds remotely new age as "anti-science" is really ridiculous
EMF an easy example, people who've never read a single piece of the literature on its health effects assume they know better than researchers who spent years actually studying it
It's one thing to disagree on the interpretation of a set of scientific data, but people will dismiss entire subjects they've never researched at all, just because they read an article "debunking" it written by someone who didn't really bother researching it either
That said, I also think many fringe nutrition/health communities fall into the opposite trap of thinking a small portion of the research is representative of the whole field, reinforced by the echo chamber effect of social media