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[Scott Stevenson]

Having trouble figuring out where to post this so I'll ask here.
Dr. Stevenson, i was listening to episode 22 of muscle minds (about 45 minutes in) and you were describing how by running a trt dose of test to "check the sexual function box" while running high doses of other compounds can lead to potential androgen receptor competion, especially with something that has a higher receptor binding affinity than test.
While perusing the boards i wound up discussing this with someone who stated that they had info suggesting an increase in availible androgen receptors in response to higher androgen levels.
Would you be willing to direct me to some reference material i could read on the subject?
Additionally, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Hey Bud!

So, I don't really do drug talk here as AAS are illegal where I am, but discussion of TRT would be a medical issue.

Still, you're asking a question about pharmacology, so this would go in the Western and Conventional Medicine Forum: Integrative Bodybuilding - Conventional & Western Medicine (including Preventative)

The place to start looking for more on androgen receptor up regulation would be in google.scholar.com or http://www.pubmed.com

Google Scholar

You'll find some interesting stuff there showing indeed that higher androgen levels tends to UPREGULATE the androgen receptor. If you listen to the show, you'll hear me talk about the megalin receptor, which binds the combination of SHBG plus Androgen (or other steroid hormone). Chances are, there is something going on here to coordinate the signaling of the AR and megalin receptor (which is not typically considered in the grand picture of androgen action).

If we think simplistically about androgen action being mediated by androgen receptor density - more AR --> more androgen actions - then this up regulation phenomenon does not fit with the law of diminishing returns which would suggest that there is some plateau of the effect of increasing androgen levels as doses are increased. If AR levels simply increased and all other signaling were the same (same signal "strength" / androgen receptor) then more androgens would create an exponential increase in AR signaling and side effect and muscle growth would increase exponentially with increasing Androgen levels.

Guys on super high doses would be tremendously hairy (but often bald) superhuman, debilitatingly muscular monsters with enormous, tumorous hyperplastic prostate glands. Barring some AR signaling defect, everyone could conceivably become a "hyper responder" to gear if only the doses were high enough.

But that doesn't happen, as there is downstream signaling (events after steroid binding and AR receptor dimerization in the nucleus) that can modify action, extranuclear receptors to consider, the megalin receptor (and a sink for binding free androgen to both SHBG and serum albumin), interaction with glucocorticoid (and estrogen and progestin) signaling, etc.

-S