Pregnenolone Stimulates The Thyroid

[haidut]

@haidut
I know this is an old post but if i’m not mistaken the negative effects from PCN on thyroid may be due to the nitrile component. Nitriles are known goitrogens in cruciferous vegetables.

@Frankdee20
In my experience pregnenolone builds up in the system over the course of a few days with consecutive use, especially topically. If you try dosing every other day or every second day you may get a different effect. I got sides from using preg everyday as well.

I agree and when I asked Peat about PCN he had the same response - i.e. PCN is perceived as a toxin by the organism and should not be used. Pregnenolone should be able to do everything PCN does but without the toxicity.

 

[Phosphor]

Dredging up this old thread. I started 10mg pregnenolone a couple weeks ago because for some reason my hormones kind of disappeared. (Libido suddenly gone; I suspect that my compounded BHRT, which is made by a pharmacy that has students making the meds, was not what it should be. I've had wildly varying results from the theoretically same dose from that pharmacy before, and when confronted they are always extremely defensive and claim that everything is checked literally three ways. Well, maybe so, and perhaps it is their raw substances that vary widely. ) But -- upon starting another renewal of the Rx, no more libido. I had also stopped 400mg of 7-keto DHEA, but starting it up again did not bring back the libido. Gone, blooey. Rather than squabble needlessly with them I got 10mg of Pregnenolone. Nothing discernible happened, so I raised it to 20 this week, and then my energy level skyrocketed and then zero sleep last night. Zero. This has happened three times now....the first time was about 20+ years ago when a "vitamin MD" put me on 400mg of pregnenolone, based on the amount of estriol I had to take. The reaction to that dose was zero sleep for three days right off the bat, and I threw it out after taking smaller and smaller portions of that troche over time. Any amount seemed too much.

This time, I had stopped my 90 mg Naturethroid just at the same time I raised the preg to 20, and found I didn't miss the thyroid in terms of energy, attitude, or concentration ability. I came here to find out the half life because I've seen various things out there as to what it is (oral; the bottle says pregnenolone 10mg.) On the 20mg, the libido did go up very slightly but not anywhere near normal. Physically unresponsive.

Commentary welcome.

 

[invictus]

Pregnenolone is an activator of the so-called Pregnane X Receptor (PXR). Activators of this receptor has been shown to stimulate the excretion of toxic substances and lower cholesterol. This is one of the reasons Selye and his peers referred to pregnenolone and DHEA as "catatoxic" steroids. However, currently there is widespread belief in pharma industry circles that ordinary pregenolone has a half-life that is too short in order to be able to activate the receptor and maintain it active. In order to get around these imagined deficiencies of pregnenolone, a company synthesized a special type of pregnenolone called pregnenolone carbonitrile (PCN). It behaves identically to regular pregnenolone with the exception of having a much longer half-life. The important thing to note is that PCN is officially recongized as glucocorticoid receptor antagonist:
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/pro ... &region=US
"...Pregnenolone-16α-carbonitrile (PCN) is a glucocorticoid receptor antagonist and a PXR (pregnane X receptor) activator."
I emphasize this point for the people who still think that pregnenolone is somehow pro-cortisol and will increase stress hormones. It won't, but I am sure the debate will continue. For the record, the other well-known glucocorticoid receotor antagonist is DHEA.
Anyways, Peat has written about the effects of pregnenolone on thyroid and several people have asked him to provide a study that confirms the pro-metabolic effects of pregnenolone. I don't know if he has provided a study, but here is one that shows a hefty human equivalent dose of about 30mg/kg powerfully stimulates the thyroid and increases T4 synthesis.

[Effect of pregnenolone-16 alpha-carbonitrile on the activity of the rat thyroid gland and anterior pituitary] - PubMed

"...PCN, in daily doses of 20 mg/100 g per body weight exerted a marked stimulative effect on the rat thyroid. It was also found that the uptake of radioiodine in animals receiving PCN, was increased. Chromatographic investigations have shown that in PCN treated animals the biosynthesis of thyroid hormones was accelerated. There is evidence of histophysiological activation of the TSH cells of the adenohypophysis. It was concluded that there was no inhibition of the synthesis of thyroid hormones and that activation of the pituitary-thyroid axis under the influence of PCN, resulted from alteration of the peripheral metabolism of thyroxin."

An old but relevant thread. Can or does taking thyroid(T3) and pregnenolone induce a hyperthyroid state? Thank you.