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Androgens, Estrogens and Male Libido
‘Deca Dick’ and Sexual Side Effects of Steroids
By William Llewellyn
Nandrolone decanoate is perhaps the most well-known offender. You may have heard of the infamous side effect called “deca dick,” often cited as the number one reason not to use this drug alone.
Although the response is a highly individualized thing (and therefore may vary greatly between one person and the next), some steroids are more commonly known for interfering with male libido and sexual functioning than others. Nandrolone decanoate is perhaps the most well-known offender. You may have heard of the infamous side effect called “deca dick,” often cited as the number one reason not to use this drug alone.
Deca, however, is far from the only steroid associated with this side effect. Primobolan and oxandrolone are also common offenders, as are others. It should not be a surprise that steroids can produce sexual side effects in users. Sexual functioning is highly dependent on the actions of sex hormones. All anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) are, of course, derivatives of basic sex hormones.
When we try to identify why it is that some steroids are more prone to causing sexual side effects than others, the most common answer is that some are less “androgenic” than others. This is the term for being more masculinizing, or supportive of male sexual development and functioning. Drugs like Anadrol, methandrostenolone, and the natural male androgen testosterone tend to be more “androgenic” (although only testosterone is technically classified as an androgen).
These steroids also are less likely to produce sexual side effects in men, and more likely to produce masculinizing side effects when administered to women. So our basic association seems to make sense. On the other side, those steroids most commonly associated with sexual side effects tend to be weakly androgenic. Again, the “low androgenic potency” model for predicting sexual side effects seems to fit, at least much of the time.
Some other evidence, however, has been making us rethink the androgenic potency model for explaining why some steroids are better supporters of male libido than others. More to the point, it seems that the estrogenic activity of the steroid must also be taken into account. On this line of thought, we have seen several studies supporting a direct role for estrogen in male sexuality.
For example, experiments with rats have shown that the aromatization of testosterone to estrogen (or even the direct administration of estrogen in some experiments) is necessary for male animals to properly develop neural circuits in sexual areas of the brain.1 It has also been shown that estrogen is needed for animals to exhibit traditional male behavior such as aggression, urine marking, and territoriality.
Another series of experiments also found that estrogen and androgens are necessary to support sexual motivation in male rats.2 The researchers used several different hormonal protocols to determine this. For example, testosterone + an aromatase inhibitor failed to maintain sexual activity. When testosterone was administered without the aromatase inhibitor, normal male sexual activity was noted.
The same type of association was seen with dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a steroid that cannot aromatize to estrogen. When given alone, DHT interrupted sexual activity. DHT is several times more androgenic than testosterone, so androgenic activity alone was insufficient. When estrogen was combined with DHT, however, normal sexual activity was restored. So at the end, only those protocols involving both hormones were shown to maintain sexual activity.
At one time, the whole sex steroid topic appeared to be very simple. The male body required testosterone to support its reproductive system. The female system needed estrogen. It seems, however, that this old model is far too simplistic, and has been drastically reworked.
In some regard, it may be that men need estrogen for their reproductive systems as much as we need testosterone. The same can be said of women and testosterone. We know that androgens are female sex steroids, too. In fact, it is clearly correct to say that the reproductive systems of both sexes operate with the use of both androgens and estrogens combined. Men and women just have vastly varying levels of sex steroids, and thus different dominant hormones, but both are necessary.
While this may be mostly an academic argument, it may have some practical ramifications, too. Most notably, it might make individuals consider the full spectrum of sex steroid activity when fine-tuning their cycles to adjust for side effects. On that note, we see that the three “libido-supporting” steroids we identified earlier also happen to be three of the most estrogenic steroids.
Testosterone and methandrostenolone both aromatize to estrogens, while oxymetholone is inherently estrogenic. Perhaps both the androgenic and estrogenic natures of these steroids are responsible for their abilities to support libido. In that case, one might think of estrogenicity the next time libido issues arise. Perhaps one of the non-aromatizable androgens like Proviron, Halotestin, or DHT would not be a quick fix.
William Llewellyn is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the use of performance-enhancing substances. He is the author of the bestselling anabolic steroid reference guide ANABOLICS and CEO of Molecular Nutrition. William is an accomplished researcher/developer in the field of anabolic substances, and is also a longtime advocate for harm reduction and legislative change. He built the website anabolic.org, an extensive online database of information on anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
References:
1. Estrogen masculinizes neural pathways and sex-specific behaviors. Wu MV, Manoli DS et al. Cell, 2009 Oct 2;139(1):61-72.
2. Sexual incentive motivation in male rats requires both androgens and estrogens. Attila M, Oksala R, Agmo A. Horm Behav, 2009 Sep 19. [Epub ahead of print].
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