Responses of Different Doses of Testosterone Injections on Body Composition, Strength, etc.

[Nelson Vergel]

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Comment: 125 mg per week was the lowest dose that provided statistically significant changes in lean body mass and fat mass.​

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PAPER ATTACHED​

Testosterone dose-response relationships in healthy young men.​

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Bhasin S, et al.​

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Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2001 Dec;281(6):E1172-81.​

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Full paper PDF attached below.​

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Abstract​

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Testosterone increases muscle mass and strength and regulates other physiological processes, but we do not know whether testosterone effects are dose dependent and whether dose requirements for maintaining various androgen-dependent processes are similar.​

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To determine the effects of graded doses of testosterone on body composition, muscle size, strength, power, sexual and cognitive functions, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), plasma lipids, hemoglobin, and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) levels, 61 eugonadal men, 18-35 yr, were randomized to one of five groups to receive monthly injections of a long-acting gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist, to suppress endogenous testosterone secretion, and weekly injections of 25, 50, 125, 300, or 600 mg of testosterone enanthate for 20 wk.​

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Energy and protein intakes were standardized.​

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The administration of the GnRH agonist plus graded doses of testosterone enanthate injections resulted in mean nadir (lowest level in the week) testosterone (ng/dL) concentrations of:​

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253 for 25 mg/week​

306 for 50 mg/week​

542 for 125 mg/week​

1,345 for 300 mg/week​

and 2,370 ng/dl for 600 mg/week​

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Fat-free mass increased dose dependently in men receiving 125, 300, or 600 mg of testosterone weekly (change +3.4, 5.2, and 7.9 kg, respectively). The changes in fat-free mass were highly dependent on testosterone dose (P = 0.0001) and correlated with log testosterone concentrations (r = 0.73, P = 0.0001).​

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Changes in leg press strength, leg power, thigh and quadriceps muscle volumes, hemoglobin, and IGF-I were positively correlated with testosterone concentrations (meaning they increase proportionally with increase T dose), whereas changes in fat mass and plasma high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol were negatively correlated (they decreased with higher T doses).​

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Sexual function, visual-spatial cognition and mood, and PSA levels did not change significantly at any dose. (This is surprising, but we should remember these are young healthy men who had normal testosterone at start of the study).​

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We conclude that changes in circulating testosterone concentrations, induced by GnRH agonist and testosterone administration, are associated with testosterone dose- and concentration-dependent changes in fat-free mass, muscle size, strength and power, fat mass, hemoglobin, HDL cholesterol, and IGF-I levels, in conformity with a single linear dose-response relationship. However, different androgen-dependent processes have different testosterone dose-response relationships.​

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How long does testosterone take to show effects?​

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Download Attachment​

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The post Responses of Different Doses of Testosterone Injections on Body Composition, Strength, etc. appeared first on Testosterone Wisdom.

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[Crat33]

Hey Nelson, love this post. I’ve been on TRT now for approximately 3 and a half months at 140 mg a week (.08 mg injections 7 days a week IM) with 1,000 IU HCG a week (500 iu twice a week). I’m still getting breakouts on my face and I’d like to lower my dose. It sounds like 125mg is the lowest dose to still get all the desired effects from TRT, am I reading this correctly? Thanks brother

 

[slicktop]

Hey Nelson, love this post. I’ve been on TRT now for approximately 3 and a half months at 140 mg a week (.08 mg injections 7 days a week IM) with 1,000 IU HCG a week (500 iu twice a week). I’m still getting breakouts on my face and I’d like to lower my dose. It sounds like 125mg is the lowest dose to still get all the desired effects from TRT, am I reading this correctly? Thanks brother

Huh? .08 x 7 ≠ 140mg per week. You'd have to be at 20mg per day in order to be at 140 a week with daily injections.

 

[Crat33]

Huh? .08 x 7 ≠ 140mg per week. You'd have to be at 20mg per day in order to be at 140 a week with daily injections.

**I meant .08 ml’s which equals 20 Mg’s a day!!!

 

[slicktop]

**I meant .08 ml’s which equals 20 Mg’s a day!!!

ooooooh wait, is your test 250mg per ml?

 

[Crat33]

That’s affirmative.

 

[Crat33]

So my new protocol I’m thinking of starting would be .1 ml 5 days a week for a total of 125mg. I feel great, however I’m suffering from some acne, so I wanna lower my dose, and it sounds like 125mg is the lowest I’d wanna go without missing out on all the benefits

 

[slicktop]

On other forums that are geared more towards anabolic benefits and not TRT like here, HCG has a reputation for causing acne in men on HCG monotherapy. You may want to consider lowering your HCG dose instead of messing with your testosterone. Lots of guys on here found HCG to be too wild of a roller coaster and skip it altogether, but luckily I tolerate it well. Unless your primary goal of HCG is fertility, there's almost no difference in therapeutic effectiveness for all other aspects in men in dosing as low as 400iu total per week. There's a really good study supporting this that I posted somewhere (it convinced me to drop my HCG dose considerably) but I'm not finding it right now.
Anyways, I personally wouldn't do 5 t shots a week just because that spacing seems weird to me, but the "old" Crissler method was kinda similar, where patients would inject HCG on a day where they weren't doing a t shot, so it could work for you.

 

[wondering]

So my new protocol I’m thinking of starting would be .1 ml 5 days a week for a total of 125mg. I feel great, however I’m suffering from some acne, so I wanna lower my dose, and it sounds like 125mg is the lowest I’d wanna go without missing out on all the benefits

A benefit to sexual function and mood was not tied to this dose.