quercetin raises DHT levels?

I read in multiple places that quercetin raises DHT levels, even when used in conjunction with finasteride (!). In your opinion, is quercetin gonna have a negative impact on hair?

thanks!

magic-gro - I very much doubt there is any cause for concern.

Following quote I found on another site, which the question and answer to this was already asked and answered.

This is a pretty good answer, it is is below:

Q. I am a researcher in Australia and came across your website offering quercetin products. I note that quercetin interacts with finasteride, which may affect that product's effect in reducing hair loss: "Finasteride alone caused a significant decrease in serum DHT level and prostate weight. Co-administration of quercetin with finasteride prevented the finasteride-induced decrease in serum DHT levels." My question is; in your opinion, will this impact on the benefit of finasteride's reduction in hair loss by reducing serum DHT?

A. I have a summary of the study below. The amount of quercetin given the rats per body weight is much higher than what a person would normally ingest. I think rodent studies are helpful but I do not rely on them much since over the years I have seen very different or even completely opposite results in humans. The 100 mg per kg of body weight given to a rat would be about 7000 mg in humans. Even if 3 capsules of quercetin are taken, this would amount to 1000 mg, seven times less than in the rodent. This could make a significant difference. Add to this the different hormonal status in humans compared to rodents, different diets, sleep patterns, liver metabolism, etc. All this gives too many variables to make heads or tails (excuse the pun) from the results of this study. If I interpret the results of this study further, you can see that the different dosage of quercetin led to different levels of DHT, one dose let to a 125% increase, while another dosage led to a decrease to 73 percent of the control.

Reduction of rat prostate weight by combined quercetin - finasteride treatment is associated with cell cycle deregulation.
J Endocrinol. 2004 Jun;181(3):493-507.
Benign prostate hyperplasia and prostate cancer are major public health problems. We report herein that daily treatment of male rats with 50, 100 or 150 mg quercetin per kg body weight. Concomitantly, serum testosterone levels were increased by 1.79-, 1.83- and 3.48-fold, while serum dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels were 125%, 92% and 73% of the control. A slight increase in prostate weight coupled with dilated prostate lumens full of secretory materials were observed. Finasteride alone caused a significant decrease in serum DHT level and prostate weight. Co-administration of quercetin with finasteride prevented the finasteride-induced decrease in serum DHT levels but significantly enhanced the reduction in wet prostate weight, which was reduced by 26.9% in finasteride-treated animals to 31.8%, 40.0% and 48.2% after finasteride given together with the three doses of quercetin. The combined treatment altered cell cycle-regulated proteins in a wide spectrum. In conclusion, quercetin - finasteride treatments caused wide cell cycle deregulation in rat prostates, which, in turn, decreased the proliferation rate, changed the secretion activities of epithelial cells and resulted in a marked reduction in wet prostate weight. The results suggest that quercetin synergizes with finasteride to reduce the wet prostate weight through a cell cycle-related pathway, which may be androgen independent.

Does quercetin raise DHT level when taken
- alone (or with bromelain) ?
- with reseveratrol + curcumin ?
- with beta-sitosterol ?
- with saw palmetto ?
- with nettle root ?
- with beta-sitosterol + saw palmetto + nettle root ?

Do we have a guess why it raises dht? Increased 5ar?

No it probably displaces DHT from it's receptor site which would increase serum levels. That would also explain why it worked synergistically with finasteride for prostate cancer.

CausticSymmetry wrote: My question is; in your opinion, will this impact on the benefit of finasteride's reduction in hair loss by reducing serum DHT?

Great question CS! The answer is no. This is why Propecia is crap and doesn’t work. The reason why is that free-DHT cannot enter the prostate or sebaceous-glands, is because only free-testosterone can. I believe you have mentioned this before whereas giving a man with prostate-enlargement DHT-cream (which would obviously increase his free-DHT) surprisingly had better prostate function! Even thou progesterone-cream might have been a better choice.

Propecia does nothing to prevent the real cause of excess DHT (which is low-SHBG)! And it does nothing to prevent it from accumulating on SHBG… all is does is lower free-DHT, which would increase estrogen-production via aromatase-enzymes. If one were wise, he would just increase his SHBG, which would bind to free-testosterone and prevent if from being converted into either estrogen or DHT.

I believe the same goes for estrogen. Many people think that increasing free-estrogen is bad, but how else are you going to excrete it, if it's bound to SHBG? One of the many roles of SHBG is to extend the half-life and prevent the metabolic-clearance of steroids. The stronger the binding affinity to SHBG, the slower the metabolism/excretion. DHT is known to have a much higher binding affinity to SHBG than any other steroid; three-to-five times as much as testosterone! DHT is good in the sense that it is a very (if not the most) potent estrogen-antagonist, but unfortunately, due to its incredibly high binding-affinity to SHBG, it is a testosterone antagonist as well.

The beauty of the thousands upon thousands of phytonutrients like quercetin is that they are able to increase-SHBG, modulate beneficial estrogen-metabolism (2-methoxyestrogen) and reduce estrogen from accumulating on SHBG, thus increasing it's metabolic-clearance-rate. This will leave more room for testosterone to bind, which once bound cannot be converted into estrogen or DHT... thus increasing your total testosterone level.

I think displacing estrogen and DHT from SHBG is a very crucial hormonal-step to take. Interestingly enough, Ketoconazole (the active ingredient in Nizoral-shampoo and Revita-shampoo) was shown to "selectively displace estradiol and DHT from SHBG", Zinc is known to bind to SHBG and in doing so displaces DHT and estradiol, I believe this is the main function of why zinc is crucial for prostate health and healthy testosterone-levels. Phytoestrogens like beta-sitosterol, flaxseed-lignans or many different flavonoids are known to displace both DHT and estrogen, while also increasing SHBG production.

Hope this helps.

baller234 wrote:it probably displaces DHT from it's receptor site which would increase serum levels..

Correct!

MisterE, I've been reading up on SHBG and there's a very interesting inverse relationship between bone mineral density and SHBG.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that polymorphisms in the SHBG promoter predict serum levels of SHBG, androgens, and glucuronidated androgen metabolites, and hip BMD in men

The weaker your bones the more androgens and SHBG your body has to supply to work on them. And what makes strong bones?

action<reaction wrote:And what makes strong bones?

I would say IGFBP-bound-IGF1.


SHBG is inversely associated with diabetes, cardiovascular-disease, PCOS, acne, etc.


Having high levels of IGFBP's and SHBG is absolutely crucial for hormonal-balance in favor of testosterone-dominance.

misterE wrote:

action<reaction wrote:And what makes strong bones?

I would say IGFBP-bound-IGF1.


SHBG is inversely associated with diabetes, cardiovascular-disease, PCOS, acne, etc.


Having high levels of IGFBP's and SHBG is absolutely crucial for hormonal-balance in favor of testosterone-dominance.

Can we continute this debate in the minerals thread? I would love your feedback on a few thoughts I have, the last couple pages I have a lot of small posts, I'd be grateful if you read them and threw out some ideas,

action<reaction wrote: And what makes strong bones?

I would say estrogen. It has been speculated that the only reason testosterone increases bone mineral density is because it converts to estrogen via aromatase locally in the bone tissue.

baller234 wrote:

action<reaction wrote: And what makes strong bones?

I would say estrogen. It has been speculated that the only reason testosterone increases bone mineral density is because it converts to estrogen via aromatase locally in the bone tissue.

I think (thou I'm not 100% sure on this) estrogen prevents osteoclasts but does not stimulate osteobalsts unlike other anabolic hormones; testosterone, insulin, IGF-1, even progesterone has receptors in osteoblasts. Estrogen also increases the closer of growth-plates in the bones.

What are bones made of?

Bones are made of protein, minerals, and vitamins. Minerals present in bones are: calcium, potassium, manganese, magnesium, silica, iron, zinc, selenium, boron, phosphorus, sulfur, chromium, and dozens of others. In order for bones to absorb the minerals, vitamin D must be present in the diet.

What I'm getting at is an increased endocrine response to failing bone mineralization, in a simple way of putting it.

Yeah but he was asking about bone desnity. Testosterone may make bones grow but it isn't estrogen that keeps bones dense? Aren't menopausal women at increased risk for osteoporosis because of a lack of estrogen?

baller234 wrote:Yeah but he was asking about bone desnity. Testosterone may make bones grow but it isn't estrogen that keeps bones dense? Aren't menopausal women at increased risk for osteoporosis because of a lack of estrogen?

Yes, in Women there is an estrogen that aids in bone density.
This is why females may lose their hair after menopause, their bodies have to upkeep bones hormonally somehow, and potent androgens possibly come into play.

baller234 wrote:Yeah but he was asking about bone desnity. Testosterone may make bones grow but it isn't estrogen that keeps bones dense? Aren't menopausal women at increased risk for osteoporosis because of a lack of estrogen?

No no no... lack of progesterone. When menopause hits, estrogen falls, but it doesn't fall as fast or as low as progesterone does. Women become estrogen-dominate during menopause despite having low estrogen levels. The reason why is due to the high estrogen to progesterone ratio.

The late Dr. John Lee, the doctor who coined the term "estrogen-dominance" has made light of this phenomenon for years and has really been the front-man in progesterone-awareness and estrogen-dominance.

So what you believe, can we take quercetin (500mg) 1/per day to block prostaglandine d2 or we will have problem with dht???

GEORGEX6 wrote:So what you believe, can we take quercetin (500mg) 1/per day to block prostaglandine d2 or we will have problem with dht???

This question was addressed recently. The short answer is that Quercetin is anti-inflammatory and despite a rise in DHT in prostate tissue when used with a 5-AR blocker, the prostate shrunk even more effectively. This bodes well for Quercetin.

I've been using it steadily for some time without any negative effects whatsoever.

Does this mean that while on finasteride one should not be supplementing with quercetin. I'm currently weaning myself off the fin.

RPM wrote:Does this mean that while on finasteride one should not be supplementing with quercetin. I'm currently weaning myself off the fin.

To the contrary, it appears that Quercetin try to normalize the androgen while boosting the anti-inflammatory action.

In other words, Quercetin improves on shrinking the prostate despite reducing the DHT effect of finasteride. Moreover, Quercetin inhibits CRH, which is probably a bigger factor than DHT.

CausticSymmetry wrote:

RPM wrote:Does this mean that while on finasteride one should not be supplementing with quercetin. I'm currently weaning myself off the fin.

To the contrary, it appears that Quercetin try to normalize the androgen while boosting the anti-inflammatory action.

In other words, Quercetin improves on shrinking the prostate despite reducing the DHT effect of finasteride. Moreover, Quercetin inhibits CRH, which is probably a bigger factor than DHT.

CS,

What dose is good? I was taking 500mg by Now but it has been discontinued for some reason. That seems to be a really high dose. Many of them have bromelian added.

Paradox wrote:

CausticSymmetry wrote:

RPM wrote:Does this mean that while on finasteride one should not be supplementing with quercetin. I'm currently weaning myself off the fin.

To the contrary, it appears that Quercetin try to normalize the androgen while boosting the anti-inflammatory action.

In other words, Quercetin improves on shrinking the prostate despite reducing the DHT effect of finasteride. Moreover, Quercetin inhibits CRH, which is probably a bigger factor than DHT.

CS,

What dose is good? I was taking 500mg by Now but it has been discontinued for some reason. That seems to be a really high dose. Many of them have bromelian added.

I second that, I have been taking 500mg Quercetin for close to 6months but it was for other reasons like finding a natural source for vitamin C (this was on that popped up) and the flavonoids. When all this came out about month ago I with PGD2 I did up it to twice a day, last week I ran out of the 500mg I had and picked up some w/bromelain from Vitaminshoppe its got 250mg Quercetin and 125mg of Bromelain per capsule, since reading that bromelain aids in absorption of I alternate 2-3 per day. Is the Bromelain addition good or any cause for alarm, stick with Quercetin only?

sc871,

Hopefully CS will answer the dosage part but I can tell you that bromelain is no cause for concern (no harm). It is a beneficial digestive enzyme that can only help. The question is; is it necessary?

Once again, thanks for the insight CS.

The dose depends on the type of Quercetin used. Generally, a single dose will provide a long half-life in human plasma at 16 to 17 hours. (J Nutr. 2000 May;130(5):1200-3.)

The effect is dose-dependent, would try 500 to 1,500 mg per day and evaluate the effect.