[mochaccino]

I didn't mean to seem like I'm concerned with androgens. I don't have any particular reason to be concerned right now. I actually just thought that you yourself were concerned. As for the hops, I never had any emotional reactions to hops, including when I used it for sleep as a teenager, so I'm not super concerned about the possibility of weepiness, but I'll keep an eye out.

You seem to be saying that you didn't intentionally recommend anti-androgens, but, either way, you did recommend them. If you really are correct in saying that people often combine multiple anti-androgens with hops than maybe they are unintentionally raising their free testosterone by inhibiting DHT to compensate for the effect of xanthohumol. How did you come to the conclusion that this was a common combination? I know you normally don't link to programs, but if you can remember any examples it would be extremely helpful. I'm going to try researching programs that combined hops with anti-androgens. I might focus on programs that included something for GLA too, since that might be a critical part of it, but I'm not sure. I really wanna see how the results of this combo are affected by various supps and dietary changes that encourage aromatization.

I also did a little more research on some of the supps I listed, so I thought I might as well mention it. It looks like both SP and PSO (is that a thing? ) inhibit DHT with beta-sitosterol. Also, you are correct that PSO does a little something extra on top of that. I just learned that it contains Delta-7-sterine, which blocks DHT receptors. I'm not sure if this is important for most BE programs. It sounds like it would only matter to people who are having noticeable problems caused by DHT, but I'm not sure.

Speaking of anti-androgens, I was extremely interested in stinging nettle since it seems to do such a wide range of things, but now I'm a little scared to use it, since I heard that it inhibits estrogen production. Uh-oh. I'm gonna have to look into this to find out whether it really does this to a significant degree.

I also looked into Barley grain (as opposed to grass), and it turns out that it contains a decent amount of azelaic acid which inhibits DHT. Barley also contains b-vitamins, and is just generally nutritious, but I'm not sure how much the vitamins matter if someone is willing to include to "normal" vitamin supplements in their program. Eve's program only included supps that are herbs or foods. I don't know if that's really relevant. Maybe you have something else to add about barley. The azelaic acid really interests me. Yet another DHT blocker! What does this mean? Hmmm Apparently sometimes 5-alpha reductase inhibitors act synergistically. There's a lot more info about that on boards that focus on acne or hair loss. I'm going to have to do a lot more research if I want to become knowledgeable about that aspect. Oh well

Last question. Why do you oppose genistein for BE? Overall, I think using a wider range of phytoestrogens might be a very good idea. If not alfalfa then what?

Update:
I found this on your board "I have some research somewhere that says that the genistein in soy inhibits T3 production in the thyroid." Luckily there are a bunch of other phytoestrogens to choose from. Maybe it would be ok in small doses? There are so many others that it might not be hard to avoid it entirely.