Well, testosterone is a sex steroid and gets into the bloodstream in its free form, gets into cells and it binds to cytosolic receptors. So a protein that’s swimming around the cytoplasm and the combination of the drug testosterone and the receptor become what’s called the transcriptional agent.
So this product then migrates to the nucleus, and inside the nucleus the combination of testosterone and its receptor adheres to different portions of DNA, thus producing what we call message RNA and thus ultimately taking ribosomes and adding amino acids and specific code to make a protein.
So this is called genomic. This is building proteins based on DNA code, all stimulated by the sex steroid. So there is no specific organ effect by testosterone. It's releasing proteins on bone, on skin, on muscle, on your liver, on your red blood cells, on your sexual interest, on your integrity of the nerve to the clitoris, on the erectile tissue in the clitoris, to blood vessels in the labia, I mean this is just a permissive context. As one ages and unfortunately starting in the 30s as a woman, repeated longitudinal studies would show that aging women, starting at age 30--hard to think of a 30-year-old as an aging woman--but at age 30 there are less testosterone synthetic events happening each year such that the value keeps falling.
So there’s less and less of those proteins made to keep those tissues healthy, and you can over the time eventually see changing in the quality and structure and function of genital tissues plus a higher prevalence of osteoporosis, osteopenia, plus a higher prevalence of less strength in the muscles plus some changes in skin, plus of memory, plus, plus, plus…
So testosterone has indication in Europe for low interest in women who are menopausal because of surgical removal of the uterus, but testosterone does much more.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services