Therapeutic Testosterone Myths and Misconceptions- Part 2 w/ Dr. Scott Howell and Dr. Keith Nichols

Therapeutic testosterone has been plagued by myths and misunderstandings for years, including the effectiveness of natural testosterone boosters, the necessity of blood donation, and pellets being a worthy delivery system. How and why are all these things untrue? How has all this bad information wrongly informed FDA rulings and decisions? This episode is a continuation of my conversation with Dr. Keith Nichols and Dr. Scott Howell about the biggest myths and misconceptions about therapeutic testosterone. In this session we talk about FDA mandates, whether testosterone leads to polycythemia vera, and many other myths.

 

If the FDA had looked at the totality of the evidence, their decision would have been clear. -Dr. Scott Howell  

 

Three Takeaways

Quality of life is a fundamental that needs to be checked when clients are being treated.

Doctors who are against testosterone optimization aren’t optimized themselves, don’t stay current with the research, and weren’t trained properly on how to interpret the data.

You only need to therapeutically donate blood as an intervention if the hematocrit is too high in reference to your normal values.

At the start of the show, we talked about the black box warnings placed on testosterone packets by the FDA and why the basis of this mandate unethical. Next, we talked about natural testosterone boosters vs. pharmaceutical bioidentical testosterone, the value of pellet testosterone therapy as a delivery system, and why polycythemia vera is more genetics-based than it is related to testosterone.  

 

We also discussed:

• How doctors views on TOT are influenced by their training (or lack thereof)
• Testosterone and blood-cholesterol levels
• Why doctors confuse erythrocytosis and polycythemia vera

 

The biggest issue we have when it comes to testosterone and the myths and so-called controversies surrounding it are the way it’s studied and the people studying it. If mandates are being made based on a couple of studies and negative media reports, that isn’t just inadequate— it is downright unethical. Until the “experts” study the research in totality, whatever decisions are being made are misguided at best, and damaging at worst. We can only overcome this by demanding that physicians and experts stay current with the research and evidence-based medicine.

Guest Bio-

Dr. Scott is a leading global health epidemiologist, androgen researcher, and sport science educator. Go to tier1hw.com for more information and follow @periodization_ on Twitter.