Anti-Androgenic Effect of ATD
A few month ago a study by Svensson ( Svensson. 2010 ) caused quite a fuss in the supplement world. The scientist had injected huge amounts of ATD into his laboratory rats and found that "the aromatase inhibitor 1,4,6-androstatriene-3,17-dione (ATD; 60 mg/kg/day s.c.) decreased behavioral disinhibition in testosterone-treated rats (without affecting accessory sex organ weights)". In view of the huge dosage, I simply ignored the results of that study until I recently stumbled across a whole bunch of papers which support the notion that ATD is in fact anti-androgenic, in that it does reduce testosterone receptor binding in the brain ( Kaplan. 1989 ). The negative effect of ATD administration on mating behavior and success (2x ejaculation) in testosterone treaded rats is alarming (cf. figure 1): Figure 1: Effect of ATD supplementation on sexual performance of hypogonadal rats treated with testosterone + propylene glycol (T+PG), testosterone + ATD (T+ATD) or ATD alone. ...