[Lotus]

Hi M. Lotus.

I wanted to share this with you in a private message as I am not entirely sure of it's accuracy or completeness and I don't want to cause confusion on your thread. I am overwhelmed by the research you have done and your ability to educate and communicate and do not want to lead your thread in a direction that might be distracting. So, have a look and if you believe a portion of this may be helpful, then post as you see fit.

This is a portion of a post from The Transgender Boards. Of course the poster was immediately chastised by others in the community (pharmas) and no discussion ensued. I found it interesting and germane to your thread. It was posted in March, 2013.

As follows:

As I understand it- Aromatase is the ultimate deciding enzyme in sexual dimorphism. It converts Testosterone into Estrogen. Most studies on Aromatose are in the development of inhibitors to help reduce the proliferation of breast cancer. The quantity of aromatase pretty much determines what your balance of estrogen and testosterone is. Unfortunately, the literature on aromatase promotion is awful. It appears that Glycyrrhizin is the most effective aromatase promoter found in nature (licorice), but it's also dangerous. White Peony is the only other thing that I've been able to find (used to increase levels of aromatase in rats to test aromatase inhibitors). Aromatase promotion, fortunately, does not compete with anti-androgens or estrogens (though many plants contain all three), which makes it a desirable mechanism to exploit. I'm looking into acquiring Peony root to produce a sublingual tincture (coincidentally, alcohol is an aromatase promoter) that, hopefully, will help with that.

Most phytoestrogens compete with your naturally produced estradiol in binding to your limited estrogen receptors. In this sense, it's all about quality over quantity-- no matter how much soy or flax you eat, nothing will happen because isoflavones and lignans will only block your own estradiol. The only thing with literature to the contrary is Pueraria Mirifica, which, while not as potent as synthetics, actually appears to provide some net-gain of femininity.

The only other thing to look at is antiandrogens- most of these herbs have confounding effects, apparently. They contain a combination of phytoestrogens and antiandrogens, which in effect will typically do very little. In the case of Soy dominant cultures, however, there is a noticeable androgyny between men and women- of course, we're not approaching this from a pre-natal timescale, so Soy is worthless. Pygeum africanum and Spearmint look to be the best options. Other things that seem to help are DIM-containing vegetables, but most come with competitive estrogenic compounds that nullify the bonus- so I don't know of a good DIM-source or if DIM is a good idea... it can be found isolated though, which may make it viable.

In my minuscule amount of research and understanding of the goings-on- stuff like Black Cohosh and Saw Palmetto aren't likely to be effective at achieving any real results. They are used because they don't cause gender issues.

So...that's it.

Best wishes,

Zoe

I'll ask your permission to post the above even though you stated to do so!

Of course.