Intermittent Thoughts on Building Muscle: Estrogen, Friend or Foe of Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy? Plus: "Hey, Bro! Are You 'SERMing' Away Your Satellite Cells?"
Image 1: Iris Kyle's back is a living testostomy, ah... pardon testimony to the muscle building powers of estrogen ;-) Although we have identified a hell lot of verified and purported mechanisms by which testosterone, "the Big T" works its muscle building and fat burning magic, the results of the last installments of the Intermittent Thoughts was nevertheless not really satisfying. After discussing how testosterone programs stem cells to become muscle, not fat cells, how it increases the number of motor neurons and thusly improves the voluntary neuronal activation of skeletal muscle tissue etc., we were still left with the question whether it was actually testosterone of maybe its central or local aromatization or reduction to estrogen or dihydrotestosterone (DHT) which was responsible for the effects. Now, since estrogen is associated with "all things female" and I am a gentleman of the old school, I decided to start with the latter after realizing that i...
