I've actually had reliable internet for a few months now, but been too busy to return here, and, besides, too poor to actually do any NBE.
I'm still too poor, but some new research that has come out recently indicates that most of the common anti-androgen herbs we've been using are also anti-estrogenic as well. This might work out for those who are slightly high or even into estrogen dominance, but if you're like me and low on BOTH E and P, while high on T, things could get iffy.
One thing I've found that is an exception to this is something no one has used yet that I'm aware of, and that is any plant or other source of naturally occurring coumarin. This is the natural chemical originally discovered in yellow sweetclover that was making cattle hemorrhage when the plant was infested with certain fungi which naturally converted the chemical to what led to the production of the synthetic coumadin.
Coumarin, however, has an entirely different repertoire of medicinal effects and NO PROVEN TOXICITY, unlike coumadin and other converted "coumarins".
One of these noted effects is that it is a very powerful natural androgen receptor antagonist. It won't affect serum T, but it WILL absolutely DESTROY androgen receptors. Period. This would have the net effect over time of inducing CAIS (Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome).
Since coumarin itself is exceptionally bitter, even in foods that it's found in we'd never naturally consume anywhere near enough of that food to actually get medicinal effect. The more coumarin a food has, the less of that food you're naturally going to use in your recipes. Examples of foods it's in in no particular order are cassia cinnamon, tonka bean, peppermint leaf, and reishi/lingzhi mushroom, as a brief list, there are more.
Medicinally, the two notable sources are tonka bean and reishi/lingzhi.
Now, here's where I'm NOT finding the info I want. Tonka beans are EXPENSIVE. To get enough tonka bean to achieve medicinal effect would cost between $50-$100 A WEEK, and that's with straight up dried bean. Now, reishi on the other hand, costs significantly less, whereas I source tonka beans at $50/lb, I source reishi at $25/lb, however, it's unknown as far as I can tell what the concentration of coumarin in reishi is. I know it's present in medicinally notable concentration, but no more precise information than "it's there". Tonka beans are the highest recorded in a plant source. Reishi is the highest in a fungal source that ISN'T tainted by conversion to less desirable forms for our purposes. If you want a blood thinner, then you want the converted stuff, but if you want something to induce CAIS, you want the untainted stuff. Sadly, while every source of information I can find agrees that reishi has high coumarin content and NO tainting, none of them are telling me WHAT that content is. And this is important for more than one reason. If it's low enough, it might potentially be too low, because: unlike tonka bean whose worst side effect is the same as any legume, gas or bloating, reishi contains some potentially toxic compounds known as mycotoxins. Almost all mushrooms contain some amount of mycotoxins, but reishi is particularly high, high enough that it's considered a psychoactive mushroom. Overdosing on mycotoxins can be lethal.
So, what I'm wanting is for help in trying to track down the ppm or mg/g of coumarin in reishi. The latter format is actually more readily useful to me, but the former isn't that difficult to convert. It shouldn't be proving this hard to find, but, then again, I had Dr. Dukes to tell me how much coumarin tonka beans had, there is no such exhaustive resource for mushrooms. I'm going to keep trying, I haven't focused my research into the USDA resources yet, I've been doing more generalized and unfocused searching first. If anyone has access to any non-public resources, those could prove useful, as I am limited to only what is in the public domain and it is possible this information is hidden behind paywalls or other similar "professionals only" walls.
Now, all the above aside, I do want to make sure people realize that I'm not saying you SHOULDN'T use any of the already known anti-androgens. I am saying that if you've tried them and they either didn't help at all or didn't help as much as you thought they ought to have, perhaps you're facing the same battle I am with ridiculous T levels and highly sensitized androgen receptors, which is a lethal combination for affecting NBE chances.
By the way, another exception I found is white peony. However I think it's already been sufficiently covered by myself and others why white peony (peoniflorin being the active compound) doesn't work that well. If you think what I've discovered about coumarin is prohibitive, white peony is worse. It's a very effective androgen blocker on several levels, upregulation of aromatase, downregulation or 17-beta-HSD, downregulation of 5-alpha-reductase, and androgen receptor antagonism... however the required dose is so high that it's literally impossible to reach, and I'm not just talking about cost, I'm talking about actually consuming that many grams of rhizome (improperly referred to as root by most people, the roots are actually trimmed away from the rhizome and unused, rhizome is literally underground stem).
If you can get rhizome and then make tea or tincture with it, you MIGHT be able to get enough by drinking only true white peony tea instead of water or other liquids or by consuming literal shots of tincture. Note here, however, that teas that are commonly referred to as "white peony" are actually just conventional white tea with a fanciful name. It's like green tea, but even more immature. They literally pluck the stem and buds JUST as they bud of conventional tea and that's "white peony tea". Making a tea of real white peony rhizome is completely different. Any benefits from "white peony tea" are going to be exactly the same as from green tea, which while not none, are NOT peoniflorin EITHER.
There's also the matter that unless you have ovaries, the only benefit you WILL get from white peony is AR antagonism. This point doesn't apply to MOST users of this forum, but there is a subset of the subset of this forum who are male and who refuse to acknowledge this point. Coumarin only does AR antagonism as far as sex hormone effects are concerned, but it's found in far greater potency, and it works for everyone. The only two inhibitors to its use so far that I've found are cost (for plant sources) and possibly mycotoxic properties for mushroom source. We need to figure out the coumarin concentration in reishi before I can ascertain exactly how much using reishi would cost, if it's even possible to do so whilst avoiding mycotoxic effects.
EDIT: Just did the USDA search and they don't even include reishi in their database, under any name.
I'm still too poor, but some new research that has come out recently indicates that most of the common anti-androgen herbs we've been using are also anti-estrogenic as well. This might work out for those who are slightly high or even into estrogen dominance, but if you're like me and low on BOTH E and P, while high on T, things could get iffy.
One thing I've found that is an exception to this is something no one has used yet that I'm aware of, and that is any plant or other source of naturally occurring coumarin. This is the natural chemical originally discovered in yellow sweetclover that was making cattle hemorrhage when the plant was infested with certain fungi which naturally converted the chemical to what led to the production of the synthetic coumadin.
Coumarin, however, has an entirely different repertoire of medicinal effects and NO PROVEN TOXICITY, unlike coumadin and other converted "coumarins".
One of these noted effects is that it is a very powerful natural androgen receptor antagonist. It won't affect serum T, but it WILL absolutely DESTROY androgen receptors. Period. This would have the net effect over time of inducing CAIS (Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome).
Since coumarin itself is exceptionally bitter, even in foods that it's found in we'd never naturally consume anywhere near enough of that food to actually get medicinal effect. The more coumarin a food has, the less of that food you're naturally going to use in your recipes. Examples of foods it's in in no particular order are cassia cinnamon, tonka bean, peppermint leaf, and reishi/lingzhi mushroom, as a brief list, there are more.
Medicinally, the two notable sources are tonka bean and reishi/lingzhi.
Now, here's where I'm NOT finding the info I want. Tonka beans are EXPENSIVE. To get enough tonka bean to achieve medicinal effect would cost between $50-$100 A WEEK, and that's with straight up dried bean. Now, reishi on the other hand, costs significantly less, whereas I source tonka beans at $50/lb, I source reishi at $25/lb, however, it's unknown as far as I can tell what the concentration of coumarin in reishi is. I know it's present in medicinally notable concentration, but no more precise information than "it's there". Tonka beans are the highest recorded in a plant source. Reishi is the highest in a fungal source that ISN'T tainted by conversion to less desirable forms for our purposes. If you want a blood thinner, then you want the converted stuff, but if you want something to induce CAIS, you want the untainted stuff. Sadly, while every source of information I can find agrees that reishi has high coumarin content and NO tainting, none of them are telling me WHAT that content is. And this is important for more than one reason. If it's low enough, it might potentially be too low, because: unlike tonka bean whose worst side effect is the same as any legume, gas or bloating, reishi contains some potentially toxic compounds known as mycotoxins. Almost all mushrooms contain some amount of mycotoxins, but reishi is particularly high, high enough that it's considered a psychoactive mushroom. Overdosing on mycotoxins can be lethal.
So, what I'm wanting is for help in trying to track down the ppm or mg/g of coumarin in reishi. The latter format is actually more readily useful to me, but the former isn't that difficult to convert. It shouldn't be proving this hard to find, but, then again, I had Dr. Dukes to tell me how much coumarin tonka beans had, there is no such exhaustive resource for mushrooms. I'm going to keep trying, I haven't focused my research into the USDA resources yet, I've been doing more generalized and unfocused searching first. If anyone has access to any non-public resources, those could prove useful, as I am limited to only what is in the public domain and it is possible this information is hidden behind paywalls or other similar "professionals only" walls.
Now, all the above aside, I do want to make sure people realize that I'm not saying you SHOULDN'T use any of the already known anti-androgens. I am saying that if you've tried them and they either didn't help at all or didn't help as much as you thought they ought to have, perhaps you're facing the same battle I am with ridiculous T levels and highly sensitized androgen receptors, which is a lethal combination for affecting NBE chances.
By the way, another exception I found is white peony. However I think it's already been sufficiently covered by myself and others why white peony (peoniflorin being the active compound) doesn't work that well. If you think what I've discovered about coumarin is prohibitive, white peony is worse. It's a very effective androgen blocker on several levels, upregulation of aromatase, downregulation or 17-beta-HSD, downregulation of 5-alpha-reductase, and androgen receptor antagonism... however the required dose is so high that it's literally impossible to reach, and I'm not just talking about cost, I'm talking about actually consuming that many grams of rhizome (improperly referred to as root by most people, the roots are actually trimmed away from the rhizome and unused, rhizome is literally underground stem).
If you can get rhizome and then make tea or tincture with it, you MIGHT be able to get enough by drinking only true white peony tea instead of water or other liquids or by consuming literal shots of tincture. Note here, however, that teas that are commonly referred to as "white peony" are actually just conventional white tea with a fanciful name. It's like green tea, but even more immature. They literally pluck the stem and buds JUST as they bud of conventional tea and that's "white peony tea". Making a tea of real white peony rhizome is completely different. Any benefits from "white peony tea" are going to be exactly the same as from green tea, which while not none, are NOT peoniflorin EITHER.
There's also the matter that unless you have ovaries, the only benefit you WILL get from white peony is AR antagonism. This point doesn't apply to MOST users of this forum, but there is a subset of the subset of this forum who are male and who refuse to acknowledge this point. Coumarin only does AR antagonism as far as sex hormone effects are concerned, but it's found in far greater potency, and it works for everyone. The only two inhibitors to its use so far that I've found are cost (for plant sources) and possibly mycotoxic properties for mushroom source. We need to figure out the coumarin concentration in reishi before I can ascertain exactly how much using reishi would cost, if it's even possible to do so whilst avoiding mycotoxic effects.
EDIT: Just did the USDA search and they don't even include reishi in their database, under any name.
