Friday, February 6, 2009

XXY: Memory is a function of estradiol

There is a common theme that Doctor's adhere to when viewing the XXY individual. In nearly every case the presumption of maleness is first and foremost among those assumptions. And the matter has been studied, albeit if you put all of the studies on XXY people in a stack, the stack wouldn't fill even a single biology text. Unlike most other syndromes not much is really known about XXY people.

I was reading through brain size and comparative function studies of XXY's and males, and the first aspect that stood out was that XXY individuals are only compared to males. And its not at all surprising (similar to a male to female study of similar origin) that the XXY people have smaller heads, smaller brains, smaller everything than the males do. I suppose its completely lost on the doctors studying this material the results for XXY people and females are remarkably similar.

Another study on XXY people pointed out clearly that the XXY brain functions in the same manner that a female brain does when scanned under MRI (magnetic resonance imaging, like a CT scan), that is the thought patterns follow a circle. Where in similar MRI studies the male brain follows a north-south path from the front to the back of the head. Rather odd for a group of people whom match the female brain path to be studied only as males, don't you think? The female brain uses estradiol and progesterone to manage and function.

A brief note about menopause, women are affected by this event, their estradiol and progesterone production slows or stops altogether. One of the side effects of this that is often missed, is that the individuals memory starts skipping small things. They experience forgetfulness. As time goes on, if their body does not produce enough estradiol and progesterone, their mind loses more and more memory access.

Is it any surprise that XXY people, experience this same memory loss in the absence of estradiol and to a lesser degree progesterone?

For XXY people:
It doesn't matter where you get the estradiol from. You can take testosterone or estradiol, but you need to take one or the other to maintain cognitive ability. If you take testosterone your body will convert the excess (thats everything over about 50 ng/dl, scale of 1-1200) into estradiol via the aromatase endocrine conversion. This is a natural function of your body, and it works just as well as taking estradiol directly.

Every-time I write targets, people take it as the holy grail. The understanding and the studies that support XXY health right now are few and far between. The rubbish is getting just as much press time as the scientifically sound studies. This is a work in progress, please understand that.

At this time the target for estradiol is 60 pg/ml, scale of 55-400.

For non-XXY people:
XXY people have a higher than male level of estradiol by default, we're born that way. Some of us are like me, whom naturally has 90 pg/ml, others have more or less. Let me put it this way, males exist and experience severe memory problems due to a lack of testosterone when their testosterone level gets down to or less than 300 ng/dl (scale 1-1200, and some would say 500).

My personal experience of Estradiol and Memory:
I have only ever had 70 ng/dl or less of testosterone. Now if I was depending on testosterone to have a memory, then I would be a vegetable, 1/4th or 1/8th or whatever of the necessary testosterone is not going to maintain the memory. Today my testosterone level is even lower, about 30 ng/dl, and my estradiol level remains high around 80 pg/ml. When my estradiol level falls to 35 pg/ml I start experiencing memory loss. When my estradiol level falls even lower, say 20 mg/ml I lose short term memory and start experience symptoms similar to Alzheimer's, the complete fragmentation of the long term memory and loss of short term memory.

It shocks people when I tell them with the above information, 30 ng/dl testosterone and 80 pg/ml estradiol, that I present and live on the male side of the gender binary. These numbers are not the end of the world! Get past the numbers...

2 comments:

  1. Please tell us who conducted the MRI studies and where we can get a copy?

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  2. I've seen that my mother sometimes doesn't realize what she does and it is so difficult for her remember many important things I'd supposed that it is for her menopause but she didn't want to believe me.
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