[Eloise]

Thank you, Lotus!  

I’ve been sticking to this for about a month.  Guess we’ll find out.

[Troublewithnibbles]

Deuterium you say?  That’s some heavy stuff.

On another note:  I have been drinking a fair amount of green tea lately. I was poking around here last night and found a few posts that mentioned piperine giving the EGCG in the green tea a boost so started eating a packet of pepper each time I drank a mug of tea. The tea alone (unless the quercetin pills for covid have been helping) was causing an increase in my thighs’ fat deposits.

I also had read here that EGCG drives hormones out of their bonds with SHBG making them free and therefore useable.

Further reading revealed that it also pushes lipids out of adipose tissue and into the bloodstream.

So finally getting to my question about it. Given all this, can green tea alone effect significant feminization?  We know what it does to DHT also.

As always, thanks!

[Lotus]

So finally getting to my question about it. Given all this, can green tea alone affect significant feminization? We know what it does to DHT also.
As always, thanks!

Hi TWN, 

Hard to say with any certainty that green tea by itself can feminize. If you incorporated a PDE4 inhibitor it may peak my curiosity to run a cycle or two. But essentially inhibiting PDE4 boosts cAMP...which stimulates that estrogen pathway. Viagra is a PDE5 inhibitor, but doesn't stimulate cAMP like PDE4 does. PDE enzymes are classified into 12 families (aka as a superfamily of enzymes). 

For example, 
Quercetin (in green tea) is pro-aromatase, in the magnitude of 3-4 fold. It (quercetin) does this by stimulating Adenylyl Cyclase via the cAMP/PKA creb pathway, which I've explained in detail that this pathway an effective estrogen pathway, but let's consider cAMP/PKA creb pathway to be the best feminizing pathway to date. 

However, this is what we know about Adenylyl Cyclase, it catalyzes the conversion of ATP (adenosine triphosphate, aka cellular energy source) into the second messenger known as cAMP(cyclic adenosine monophosphate). And this increase in estrogen-activates gene transcription...in other words new breast growth. 

[Lotus]

I think we have an answer, Green Tea Extract- GTE inhibits prostate cancer by reducing the cell growth and blocks the androgen receptor. Green tea extract need to be @ 60-80% in EGCG polyphenols though. The dosage needs to be determined, recommend use is 2-3 capsules per day, I'm thinking it's slightly more (4-5?) from what this study says. Would this elimante the need for other anti-androgens?, possibly. Soooo- I see a good plan as follows: (though, it's up to you, it won't hurt my feelings).

1-pro-estrogen source
1-pro-aromatase
Green tea extract (imo 4-5 caps per day)
1-growth hormone source
Add the standard healthy fats, exercise, massage, pumping, etc.

Epigallocatechin-3-gallate EGCG, the major polyphenolic constituent present in green tea, imparts antiproliferative effects against both androgen-sensitive and androgen-insensitive human PCA cells, and this effect is mediated by deregulation in cell cycle and induction of apoptosis. GTE is potent inhibitors of type 1 but not type 2 5α-reductase. (−)Epigallocatechin-3-gallate also inhibits accessory sex gland growth in the rat. These results suggest that certain tea gallates can regulate androgen action in target organs.

EGCG (green tea) acts as an antagonist of androgen function, similar to the pharmacological inhibitor Casodex, which was used as a control.

So what does this mean?,........it means green tea acts like a pro-pharma class of anti-androgens named Casodex, as in brand name Bicalutamide-aka, a pure antiandrogen used in the treatment of prostate cancer:

Bicalutamide
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casodex

Green tea polyphenol EGCG blunts androgen receptor function in prostate cancer
The present study is one of the first few reports demonstrating the antiandrogenic action of a plant product and the first report showing the effect of EGCG, a naturally occurring polyphenol present in green tea, in inhibiting human prostate carcinoma cell growth. We have shown that EGCG effectively inhibits the transactivation functions and expression of AR by interfering with its stability as a result of decreased interdomain interaction (Fig. 5). We also showed that EGCG is a novel antagonisAR signaling, which can block AR-regulated gene expression and cell growth in human PCa cells. We thus suggest that EGCG could be developed as a chemotherapeutic agent against hormone-refractory PCa.

http://www.fasebj.org/content/25/4/1198.full

4-5 cups of green tea per day is a bit much, 2 cups per day is reasonable. And btw, EGCG is antiviral.

[Troublewithnibbles]

What do you suggest as a PDE4 inhibitor? 

[Jamie Lee]

Hi Lotus! Big fan of your work but a lot of people in the breast nexum discord ( a really good chatroom) have been requesting I invite you to join  (also anyone else can feel free to join) 
https://discord.gg/r68ucNe at this link here id also advise downloading it if you like  sorry to fill up your forum just thought this would be the best way to convey the message

[Lotus]

Apologies TWN for the late response. The research I look at these days has dramatically increased in complexity, I mean sheesh...I used to read about 20-30 science literature at a time, lol...now it's maybe half of that. Maybe because I narrow the field faster?, or maybe I'm just old, idk. So, now you know why Lotus takes so long to respond. 


So there's a few OTC PDE4 inhibitors and pharma meds I've found and one pro-aromatase unaffected by the PDE4 enzyme:

PDE4 Inhibitors 
Taurine 
Artichoke extract 
Bitter Orange (stay away from this one)
D1 agonists, (e.g. mucuna pruriens)
Pharma
β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR) agonists 
Rolipram
others are available, just google PDE4 inhibitors agonists 

other methods:
Resveratrol-RSVL is an agonist for the cAMP/kinase-A, but is unaffected by PDE.
(This is a new find...very interested in this one).

Forskolin stimulates adenylyl cyclase activity, (loosely translated, forskolin stimulates aromatase). But it also stimulates PDE4 in the brain. I know what you're gonna say...but Lotus how could it (forskolin) stimulate aromatase if it's not inhibiting PDE4 in the brain?, and my answer would be to stack artichoke extract (which is a PDE4 inhibitor) with forskolin. But so far, stimulating PDE4 via forskolin only occurs in the brain...remember, we want to inhibit PDE4, NOT stimulate it.


NOTES

There's four types of PDE4 enzymes (PDE4A, PDE4B, PDE4C and PDE4D), 
and of those there's a long and short form, the long form PDE4 inhibition is more selective for PKA (Protein Kinase A) phosphorylation. And for our purposes of NBE this phosphorylation process  stimulates aromatase.

PDE4D1 and PDE4D2 mRNA levels rise in response to increased cAMP and this transcription is driven by a cAMP responsive promoter (Swinnen et al., 1991;

Increased intracellular cAMP levels have been demonstrated to increase cellular PDE4 activity (see Houslay, 2001; Houslay et al., 1998 for reviews). This is believed to perform an adaptive role in desensitising cellular processes to increased levels of cAMP. The long-term elevation of intracellular cAMP levels has been shown to cause an increase in the levels of mRNA and protein expression for various PDE4 isoforms, in particular the PDE4D1 and PDE4D2 short forms (Erdogan & Houslay, 1997; Kovala et al., 1994; Sette et al., 1994b; Seybold et al., 1998; Swinnen et al., 1989; Verghese et al., 1995; Vicini & Conti, 1997) where a cAMP-controlled promoter has been identified (Vicini & Conti, 1997). However, a second cAMP-driven controlling mechanism that has been identified is the rapid activation of the PDE4D3 isoform that is achieved through direct PKA-mediated phosphorylation (Alvarez et al., 1995; Hoffmann et al., 1998; Sette & Conti, 1996; Sette et al., 1994a, 1994b).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1573369/

The long form stimulates more growth (mRNA synthesis) and protein expression, aka the potentiation of breast growth.

Inhibition of PDE4 protects neurons against oxygen-glucose deprivation-induced endoplasmic reticulum stress through activation of the Nrf-2/HO-1 pathway

Phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) is an enzyme that specifically hydrolyzes cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and, thus, regulates the concentration of intracellular cAMP.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6807264/

.

[Lotus]

Whoops, I forgot one, its quercetin (aromatase agonist). 

Quercetin acutely relaxes airway smooth muscle and potentiates β-agonist-induced relaxation via dual phosphodiesterase inhibition of PLCβ and PDE4

Quercetin is a naturally derived PDE4-selective inhibitor found in fruits, vegetables, and tea.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23873842

So, TWN... since you already have green tea (which has quercetin) in your program I'd consider doing a stack of either resveratrol or artichoke extract, though personally I'd go with resveratrol. 

Other choices I'd consider are taurine or mucuna pruriens. 

Do you take blood pressure meds?. 

[Troublewithnibbles]

No meds other than this tinkering. Lol

I didn’t realize that there was quercetin in green tea. I have actually been taking a quercetin/zinc supplement lately to keep the corona at bay.

Resveratrol is in red wine, correct?

I read somewhere since I had asked that aloe is also a pde4 inhibitor. So I have been rubbing some into my butt and hips the last few nights before trying to sleep.

Here is what I came up with last night based on the supplements I have on hand:  rubbed in olive oil followed by aloe. Took 5000iu of D3. 2250mg of msm. A single 3mg melatonin pill. One forskolin capsule. And a dose of GTE.

I know the GTE and forskolin can cause sleeplessness, but it didn’t happen last night.

I had read about luteolin in the artichoke extract, but didn’t have any on hand.

I didn’t use the d3 or olive oil on previous nights, but did have some serious growth sensations while trying to go to sleep. " alt="" title="">  I think the night shifter lack of sleep finally got to me last night.

[Troublewithnibbles]

I neglected to ask earlier. Are you reading any interesting, possibly earth-shattering NBE information lately?

Oh, and the q supplement is 800mg with 22 mg zinc