What can cause 3x normal range for SHBG ?

DeadCatBounce

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A friend of mine got his SHBG results sky high - 3 times the upper normal range. Normal to high T, very low free Testosterone (due to SHBG i guess) and non-existant Estrogen below the detectable limit. He has no symptoms though except being a hard gainer. He has no health issues and actually is one of the healthiest people I know with massive endurance and speed. But not much muscle in the upper body. His legs are strong due to lots of football.

Any ideas ? Tried googling but SHBG is super confusing for me and cannot understand.
 
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aniepodam

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Low sugar intake (keto maybe?), undereating, magnesium deficiency or anything else. Hard to tell.
 
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DeadCatBounce

DeadCatBounce

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Low sugar intake (keto maybe?), undereating, magnesium deficiency or anything else. Hard to tell.
He used to be long term super strict animal based Keto but stopped year or two ago. Wonder if the high SHBG can persist for so long...
 

Blossom

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I hope you get some helpful replies. I’ve always been interested in an explanation for this but I haven’t found any good answers.
 

Hans

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A friend of mine got his SHBG results sky high - 3 times the upper normal range. Normal to high T, very low free Testosterone (due to SHBG i guess) and non-existant Estrogen below the detectable limit. He has no symptoms though except being a hard gainer. He has no health issues and actually is one of the healthiest people I know with massive endurance and speed. But not much muscle in the upper body. His legs are strong due to lots of football.

Any ideas ? Tried googling but SHBG is super confusing for me and cannot understand.
Insulin is one of the most potent inhibitors of SHBG synthesis, so perhaps he can check his fasting insulin. Magnesium, calcium, vitamin D, zinc, iron and boron helps to lower SHBG. Perhaps he can have those checked as well. Otherwise, since he doesn't have hypogonadal symptoms, I wouldn't worry about it. Perhaps he can try divanil, which prevents SHBG from binding to DHT.
 

redsun

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A friend of mine got his SHBG results sky high - 3 times the upper normal range. Normal to high T, very low free Testosterone (due to SHBG i guess) and non-existant Estrogen below the detectable limit. He has no symptoms though except being a hard gainer. He has no health issues and actually is one of the healthiest people I know with massive endurance and speed. But not much muscle in the upper body. His legs are strong due to lots of football.

Any ideas ? Tried googling but SHBG is super confusing for me and cannot understand.
Sounds like he is very physically active and if he is a hard gainer he is likely not eating as much as he should. More animal protein and more starch to increase insulin and increase anabolism. By the way he is not going to build the upper body unless he really works it with heavy weight.

Likely, his SHBG can only get so low if he is a heavy exerciser but it should not be that high. Needs more food, more mineral rich foods like Hans mentioned. Red meat is preferable in this case since it is a better source of iron and zinc compared to other meats.
 
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Mike wolff

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Low sugar intake (keto maybe?), undereating, magnesium deficiency or anything else. Hard to tell.
That’s interesting I eat high protein medium fat low carb and my testosterone was 840 at 54 but my SHBG was 54 . Would increasing carbs lower this as I look back this all started when I went low carb
 

dadavid

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A friend of mine got his SHBG results sky high - 3 times the upper normal range. Normal to high T, very low free Testosterone (due to SHBG i guess) and non-existant Estrogen below the detectable limit. He has no symptoms though except being a hard gainer. He has no health issues and actually is one of the healthiest people I know with massive endurance and speed. But not much muscle in the upper body. His legs are strong due to lots of football.

Any ideas ? Tried googling but SHBG is super confusing for me and cannot understand.
High T3
 

Hans

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That’s interesting I eat high protein medium fat low carb and my testosterone was 840 at 54 but my SHBG was 54 . Would increasing carbs lower this as I look back this all started when I went low carb
Likely yes. Protein and carbs should lower SHBG. Thyroid and estrogen promote SHBG production. But if you have no hypogonadal symptoms, don't worry about it. SHBG doesn't "deactivate" testosterone, it actually transports it in the body and your cells can take up SHBG bound T.
 

aniepodam

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That’s interesting I eat high protein medium fat low carb and my testosterone was 840 at 54 but my SHBG was 54 . Would increasing carbs lower this as I look back this all started when I went low carb
Yes you could try as insulin decrease SHBG, so carbs, especially simple ones, should lower it.
 

Neeters 27

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I say his liver is clogged. fatty liver or liver dysfunction would cause this, as it did with my ex husband. he ate a terrible diet. was skinny as a rail, had low T symptoms but had high T in bloodwork. and sky high SHBG rendering his T useless. his doc put him on Taurine, magnesium, vit D, and metformin, to slim the liver. apparently it worked, as the last time i ran into him, he had a moustache and beard, and his arms were hairy, whereas before, he had little to no hair anywhere...
 

Cameron

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Insulin is one of the most potent inhibitors of SHBG synthesis, so perhaps he can check his fasting insulin. Magnesium, calcium, vitamin D, zinc, iron and boron helps to lower SHBG. Perhaps he can have those checked as well. Otherwise, since he doesn't have hypogonadal symptoms, I wouldn't worry about it. Perhaps he can try divanil, which prevents SHBG from binding to DHT.
Hans I thought stinging nettle decreased dht? Can you clarify on how that is working in regards to dht 5-at and testosterone with divanil in stinging nettle
 

Hans

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Hans I thought stinging nettle decreased dht? Can you clarify on how that is working in regards to dht 5-at and testosterone with divanil in stinging nettle
Stinging nettle has been shown to lower DHT in vitro in prostate cells, so not sure if it will actually lower DHT in serum. Divanil doesn't inhibit 5-AR or lower DHT. It just prevents DHT from binding to SHBG.
 

Cameron

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Stinging nettle has been shown to lower DHT in vitro in prostate cells, so not sure if it will actually lower DHT in serum. Divanil doesn't inhibit 5-AR or lower DHT. It just prevents DHT from binding to SHBG.
Similar to rice bran I don’t think that always plays out especially considering shbg is not considered in context of a vitro study. Interesting
 
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DeadCatBounce

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In just 4 weeks on a VERY high sugar Ray Peat inspired diet by literally loading on fructose via 2l to 3l of very sweet freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee with sugar and we have success lowering the SHBG into the normal high range BUT his testosterone tanked and his Estrogen is now detectable, it was below the range before. Is this a movement in the right direction ?

Here are the results:

( 1-84 PTH)10.00pg/ml5.50 - 38.40

FT 34.86pmol/l3.20 - 6.80
FT 4 16.60pmol/l12.00 - 22.00
TSH0.950mIU/l0.300 - 4.200
Estradiol58.50pmol/l41.40 - 159.00
Progesterone<0.159nmol/lДо 0.474
Testosterone13.10nmol/l9.90 - 27.80
DHEA-S7.55µmol/l4.95 - 12.70
( SHBG )42.21nmol/l18.00 - 54.00

His T results are around 21-25nmol/l but now 13 ? The test was done a bit later just prior noon so this might have lowered them a bit but cut in half is quite strange, maybe the body is adapting to the sugar and lowered SHBG by lowering T ? He has no libido or any issues in this regard.

What you guys think about those results ? Does the thyroid look OK to you ?

BTW he also gained like 4-5kg of fat in just a month ( : His body is obviously not used to sugar after long term keto.
 

Vanset

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Very interesting that he has no symptoms with such high SHBG and not detectable estrogen. I guess this topic still remains a mystery? Also if he has no symptoms why change anything?
 
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DeadCatBounce

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Very interesting that he has no symptoms with such high SHBG and not detectable estrogen. I guess this topic still remains a mystery? Also if he has no symptoms why change anything?
In his case it is no longer a mystery - He lowered it using really big amounts of orange juice and some sugar in coffee. He was reluctant to get into high carb diet but now it payed off after I convinced him to give it a go. His SHBG is in normal range last time we checked even though in the upper range. posted it above.

He got a bit fat unfortunately( more like lack of definition and some visceral fat) but that is to be expected. I too became a bit weird looking the first 4-5 months, now I am almost as lean as when I was on keto/carnivore. With the added benefit of feeling really really good with almost infinite energy.

He is switching back to his old diet but eating a tiny bit of fruit now. In a month or two we will see how the blood markers are moving. He does not read any Ray Peat and this makes it hard to change his mind on carbs/sugar. Also he says he feels better on high fat but I suspect it is mainly vanity at play. And I was trying to convince him that his Thyroid will suffer but his TSH is slightly better than mine and turned out wrong ( : and he has no issues. So this makes it a lot harder. Whatever works ...
 

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