SHRINKAGE BY HORMONES

One day during my freshman year in high school, after P.E. class, a classmate asked me if I thought all baseball players or just those who were breaking home run records used exogenous testosterone and other anabolic steroids. I told him I didn’t know who was juicing and who wasn’t. I shrugged, “I guess you could check the size of their testicles. If they’re small, then they must be using steroids.’’

“Is that how they test for it?’’ He was incredulous.

Even as teenagers, we knew that ball players took steroids to build muscle mass, increase speed and enhance strength. We also heard that the side effects included shrinking of the testicles. We always wondered how small they could shrink. Would they become the size of a pea or raisin? Would they shrink even more if cold water was added into the mix? Neither of us knew why or how this happened.

When athletes or body builders inject anabolic steroids, usually testosterone, their testicles have been shown to shrink because they are no longer required to produce and secrete testosterone into the blood stream. The hypothalamus gland functions to release Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) to stimulate the pituitary gland to produce and secrete luteinizing hormone (LH). In turn, the pituitary signals the testicles to produce and release testosterone (see Figure 18). If there is already too much testosterone in the blood stream due to the testosterone injection, none of this is needed and the hypothalamus involutes (shrinks). The pituitary receives a negative feedback message to decrease the release of LH, which lessens the stimulation of the testicles. The pituitary gland itself begins to shrink, but we cannot see it because it is located deep at the base of the brain.

All hormone replacement therapy — whether synthetic, bio-identical, or xeno (foreign) in origin — prevents a person’s own glands from regenerating to a point where they can produce hormones when the body needs them. Most medical doctors and non-holistic health care practitioners who prescribe exogenous (from outside of the body) hormones almost always overdose the patient, which leads to the suppression and subsequent weakening of their endocrine glands.

The reaction of involution also occurs in people who are prescribed thyroid hormones like Synthroid which contains the synthetic version of the thyroid hormone, thyroxine (also known as T4). Allopathic medical doctors dose patients on Synthroid to the point that pituitary gland suppression occurs. One function, among many, of the pituitary gland is to regulate thirst and dryness of the mouth, so many patients who are overdosed on pituitary suppressing medications may develop thirst irregularities and other pituitary gland health challenges. Synthroid also prevents the thyroid from regenerating, because the thyroid gland is no longer required to produce endogenous (of the body) thyroxine (T4) hormone, just as exogenous testosterone causes the testicles to stop hormone production and shrink.