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Testosterone
Hi Daniel & B.,
I am currently meeting an endocrinologist. I have met him twice and asked me to have bloods for diabetes, thyroid and glucose Tolerance Test. I will post the results here soon.
However, he now wants me to have testosterone related blood test and PSA.
I wanted to know from you are there any specific markers he should cover.
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2 Replies
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Hey @Naveed Aslam,
I’m not 100 percent sure what your endocrinologist is trying to find out, therefore I will give you some testosterone basics. My main focus will be on what to measure if your endocrinologist wants to rule out
low testosterone or
prostate issues
Testosterone basics:
There are different forms of testosterone in the body. Most doctors will usually measure total testosterone and free testosterone. Free testosterone is the unbound hormone that has the most influence on your body, but that’s usually a very small percentage of the total testosterone (1-3 percent!)
SHBG
Testosterone can be bound to proteins. Sex Hormone Binding Globulin or SHBG for short binds very tightly to testosterone. It can be high or low because of other hormone imbalances (insulin resistance and thyroid hormone imbalances for example)SHBG can therefore be an insightful marker.
DHEA
The body makes androgens from a precursor hormone called DHEA. DHEA is to create other hormones as well (like estrogen). Since DHEA is a precursor it can be an insightful marker.
Luteinizing Hormone
If testosterone is low, this could be caused by a problem in the testicles (this is called primary hypogonadism). In this case, the brain is “yelling” to the testicle to make testosterone by secreting a hormone called LH (Luteinizing Hormone). High values of LH and low testosterone values can therefore indicate this is a brain problem… and the most common reason for that is stress and sleep problems.PSA
PSA or Prostate Specific Antigen is often used to assess prostate issues. I’ve written about it before in a different post (just click here). The risk is usually determined by measuring the ratio between total PSA and free PSA.
Summary
The endocrinologist might have a certain goal in mind, but to evaluate testosterone levels or possible problems with prostate health here is a summary of the values that I’ve talked about:Total testosterone
Free testosterone
SHBG
DHEA
LH
Total PSA/free PSA ratio
I hope this information will be of use!
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@Daniel Schepers I’m not sure either. He did ask a series of questions related to testosterone back in March which lead to this blood test. To be honest, he should have asked me to have this test back in March. He forgot.
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