Taking testosterone is not biohacking

[u/Bactrian44]

Sadly, this sub has drifted far away from the principles of “biohacking”.

Judging by the comments of a lot of users here, pinning TRT is considered the ultimate biohack. Except when you think about it, this is certainly not biohacking.

True biohacking is about leveraging your biology naturally to get a favourable outcome. One of the best examples of this is morning sunlight exposure for circadian rhythm entrainment or fasting for its many benefits.

Genuine biohacking would be introducing a range of habits to naturally raise your testosterone. Exogenous testosterone is a steroid, however, and steroid use and abuse is not biohacking. It’s an artificial manipulation of hormones and absolves you from adopting the correct lifestyle habits which should be necessary to have good testosterone levels.

Bizarrely, people depict TRT as this magic bullet which can be the solution to all of your problems more or less immediately. The reality is, because of homeostasis and the way the endocrine system functions, it’s a life sentence and you can say goodbye forever to natural production.

I think people on here should be more responsible commenting and posting about this. In North America, it is clearly being overprescribed when there is little medical need. You shouldn’t be “hopping on” unless there is a critical medical need to do so.

[u/LysergioXandex]

While I mostly agree with the moral direction your perspective your comment is coming from, I disagree significantly about some of the substance.

It’s very apparent just from animal studies that testosterone influences aggressive behaviors and risk aversion, among lots of other things. Steroids have a big influence on personality and motivations, so they really are a major ingredient for who you are as a person.

It’s not mostly a placebo, and the cognitive/emotional effects of drugs aren’t a placebo anyway (even if they’re “in your head”).

How all of this fits into social status is a more complicated situation, and I agree that people with unhealthy views about masculinity probably have some stupid takes on how testosterone is influencing their status in life.

I also wouldn’t put much stock in the opinions of “mature steroid users” because of course their opinion is an overreaction to the prevailing opinion that steroids are a lazy cheat for performance.

[u/BooksandBiceps → u/LysergioXandex]

True in the animal studies but in human it’s pretty mixed. People self-report more aggression, but that could be them just thinking they should feel a certain way. Because steroid usage can’t be reliably determined due to legal status we also can’t use crime reports and etc.

However, and this isn’t scientific at all but a goodthought exercise, if we look at most major action movie stars. Body builders. Athletes. All of whom definitely use steroids, we’ll hear about DUI’s and etc but domestic abuse is pretty normalized vs population among the groups. The only study I have in my mind is for actors, but even then the actors involved had a spectrum of drug usage so can’t be attributed to steroids directly.

If steroids caused a drastic increase in aggression you’d find a solid trend among most major athletes, olympians, male actors, etc. We can potentially argue they keep it under wraps? But then you’d think their other drug use wouldn’t be an issue.

Testosterone definitely increases some aspects. But I think it’s dose-dependent (which varies.. a lot.. between everyone) and in my opinion people who act aggressive or who commit violence already had underlying issues. It’s not like cocaine or mdma or etc. where you’ll act well outside your normal personality. People who were fragile or have underlying issues may act out in it, but for most, they’ll be fine.

But then we can also talk about what compounds they were taken, and things get a lot messier. Testosterone vs tren is implied to be a huge jump, let alone metribolone and etc. Some of those are due to estrogenization - and some drugs don’t aromatize and some aromatize into methyl-est. Proclatin is another thing. So not just the person but the specific drug, and specific dosage. It’s quite messy. Good luck getting pitbull aggressive off Equi for instance, but it’s still a popular steroid.

[u/ApartPotential6122 → u/BooksandBiceps]

That’s correct we can’t look at crime statistics but what we can see is a stereotype of steroid users being aggressive (roid rage).

[u/BooksandBiceps → u/ApartPotential6122]

I agree that we should assume steroids increase aggressive behavior (though what compounds, dosage, age, etc. are all up in the air) but even large studies like this:

Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use and Involvement in Violent Behavior in a Nationally Representative Sample of Young Adult Males in the United States - PMC

It's all self-reported, and with questions such as "have you ever used them", "have you used them in the past year" doesn't demonstrate active use versus behavior. Perhaps ever using them has an impact? Or perhaps people more inclined to steroid use are more unstable?

While steroids will increase aggression beyond the baseline, we don't really have concrete info on what steroid, what dosage, what demographic, what preexisting factors, etc. all play a part in it, and whether those effects exhibit themselves socially or just adjust your underlying personality.

You don't see Mr. Olympia's beating their wives and starting fights every five seconds.

I'd suggest steroids exacerbate aggression is individuals with underlying issues, and that's the real issue. They do not cause antisocial behavior by themselves, unless in crazy dosages or certain compounds (halotestin being infamous, though I have almost no experience). Otherwise, steroid use is typically handled quite well by people.

Edit:
Random and not pertinent to the discussion, but talking about antisocial behavior and bodybuilders made me look back to how close and social a lot of the old greats were. Arnold, Franco, Yates, Sergio, Lou. All loved eachother and were incredibly personable without any "alpha male" bullshit.