Boron—Essential To Ray Peat Health?

[Blossom]

I was intrigued as well. And I didn't realize that thyroid hormones can increase blood sugar and SHBG, I thought it would have raised my blood sugar consumption, but apparently the body will always have a compensatory action when you introduce too much outside influence (even though I wasn't taking a lot of thyroid and my numbers seemed to say I could use it, TSH 2.5, FT3 and FT4 very bottom of the reference range, and body temps ranging from 96.7 -97.6)

I have similar thyroid lab numbers and typically high SHBG. Thyroid has always been tricky for me and I tend to only use a small amount in winter. I do better with thyroid surrogates most of the year.

 

[Sativa]

Boron is HIGHLY estrogenic. The bodybuilding community was crazy about it in the 1990s, but then they found out first hand that it raises estrogen (I think all 3 types) and dumped it. Boron has similar effects to cadmium, nickel, cobalt, etc and they are all estrogenic and carcinogenic in higher doses.
Peat is right that unless you are deficient you'd better not mess with it. See below for a study in men.

The effect of boron supplementation on its urinary excretion and selected cardiovascular risk factors in healthy male subjects
"...Supplementation with 10 mg B/d for 4 wk resulted in 84% of the supplemented dose being recovered in the urine. Plasma estradiol concentrations increased significantly as a result of supplementation (51.9±21.4 to 73.9±22.2 pmol/L;p<0.004) and there was a trend for plasma testosterone levels to be increased. However, there was no difference in plasma lipids or the oxidizability of low-density lipoprotein Our studies suggest that the absorption efficiency of B is very high and estimation of the urinary B concentration may provide a useful reflection of B intake. In addition, the elevation of endogenous estrogen as a result of supplementation suggests a protective role for B in atherosclerosis."

Did some further searching on boron on this forum, and found a post with some more claims on this: apparently boron not only increases E1 to E2, but also increases E2 conversion to E3 (estriol), which is a very weak estrogen. So if the source was correct (who knows, it was a doctor giving a TED-like talk), perhaps the net effect isn't as "estrogenic" as I made out. I've also read it inhibits the breakdown of E2 by a different mechanism, so meh I'm not sure myself. Anyway just adding this for completeness.

This is a great thread, in case people have missed it:
Nothing Boring About Boron

 

[Amazoniac]

Even though the overall impact may be positive, how does it affect iron given its effects on estroged?

 

[YourUniverse]

Borax as a laundry detergent..?