Woah your SHBG is insanely high that is messed up. Mine was 52 and the clinic I’m with thought this was really high and holding back my free testosterone. I felt TERRIBLE with that.
Funny thing is your total testosterone is pretty good, in fact it is above the reference range on Australian labwork. But your SHBG being so high is making you almost have a form of hypogonadism. None of your testosterone is free to act in your system.
I ended up starting TRT to permanently alter my hormone profile for the better. This increase in testosterone lowered my SHBG, leading to more free and total testosterone. On injectable TRT I lowered it by 25 points. Cream lowered it by 15 points.
One thing you could try is proviron, which is an oral steroid. It is known to lower SHBG quite well. It might be possible that you take this for a short period and it allows your hormones to adjust.
There are other supplements as well you could try like boron and others that supposedly lower SHBG, but nothing is as surefire as TRT and/or proviron.
Longer term TRT is healthier. Proviron in a short burst should be ok but I can’t say for sure if it would fix the issue.
Depending on your age you might want to just get on TRT. But do look into ways of lowering SHBG first. Your diet will be a factor as you said before. I know the carnivore diet and possibly keto diet can cause high SHBG as well, it’s funny veganism can do the same.
You should start taking a protein powder to supplement if you are not already. It would be convenient if you were open to using a whey protein isolate because of its amino acid profile, this might be what you need. But I’m not sure if you’re vegan for moral reasons. If you’re vegan for health reasons, consider broadening the diet with whey protein isolate, 1 scoop in morning and 1 in evening.
The point I’m making is you have a lot of options. I’d start with dietary, then supplements, then either proviron or TRT.
Thanks. The SHBG seems to explain the osteopenia and it is bit of mystery what caused it, but doctor thinks the underlying reason is caloric restriction.
What I will try now to increase SHBG:
I try to eat a bit more and also increase the amount of fat I get
9mg boron per day (previously 3mg)
No CR mimicking medications
Grudgingly, I replaced my soy intake with whey protein
Will test again in November and see if these actions have an impact on my SHBG
Moreover, to combat my osteopenia from other angles, I also:
Doubled my vitamin D supplementation to 4000 IU
Added plyo exercises to my gym routine, runs with a weight vest to my cardio program, and daily dog walks with the weight vest
You could likely still keep taking rapamycin and just drop the acarbose by the way. Acarbose directly restricts calories where rapamycin just mimicks it from what I understand.
But maybe stop both and reintroduce rapamycin by itself after you’ve solved this issue.
Thyroid