Michael569

@Scholar could you share an update on the topic? Have you eventually found anything that helped?

? @Ingit my sympathies. I have a few people in the family either with ongoing or showing first signs. It is heart-breaking. It is important you don't blame yourself or feel fully responsible to become the primary caretaker for her. While she may need your support, it is important your life doesn't begin to revolve around your mother's condition as you'll grow to loath her for it. There are some good materials, videos and books on Dementia. Some really good videos shared above. If you are interested, you can educate yourself briefly on the condition, on what is happening and what are some potential elements that make it worse. To a certain degree you may have control over the progression however there is not yet an evidence of reversal being documented which saddens me greatly. But ultimately this condition is heavily affected by genes, upbringing and life long environment so consider what sort of support systems are available to your family. Wishing you all the best

Definitely don't need to spend all of that to match your requirements. Chat GPT is your friend to understand the specs in detail. Do you also want to game or is it purely work + graphic work? You need to aim for a decent integrated graphic card although you don't need the latest one. Most laptops come with a preinstalled one unless you're savy enough to add one yourself. Intel Core i7 processor unit is probably a good choice although Im not fully familiar with the individual sub-models but usually the built laptops will be calibrated well enough. You want a decently large SSD, I'd say at least 256Gb Or get something with a good split of SSD / HDD. As long as you use the processing of your SSD for the graphic operations and use HDD mostly for file storage you'll be fine. In terms of RAM, 32Gb is becoming a standard with higher tier laptops. I wouldn't go below 16 gig as you may run into memory distribution problems and lag. For brands unless you wanna go fancy like MSI or Razer or Alien, I'd probably stick to something like Assus, Dell or even HP. Have a look at each of their websites, filter by the cost and requirements and see what's there. Good luck! Watch a few vids, talk to AI but dont get stuck for months, most pre made laptops these days with decent specs are reliable.

Maybe the problem lies here. Why do you think the solution needs to come quick? Much of what is desirable to the labour market is hard to come by quickly. Desirable skills take years to acquire. Have you thought about bigger picture perspective? Are you lacking sufficient training or education? Could you be living in the wrong city / country? Do you need to finish College, complete a course to retrain etc? Is it possible that you have you trained your mind to only accept quick results? (e.g. listening to too much hustle culture content)

Hays would never contact you like this. They are one of the most reputable hiring agencies in the world. This is a scam. Recruitment Scam Alert | Hays Any WhatsApp job offer that offers quick buck without interview, proper documentation, third party screening etc is 99% likely to be a scam.

Ok i think it's time for a forum break once again 😅

Alright, well i appreciate the tag.. it was good to refresh a few things in endocrinology i forgot about so i appreciate that 🤜🏻🤛🏻 You can do that more often 😉 I'll leave it here, need to wash that french baguette with some British lard cream

fair point, words for words. Point stands. Why is temporary inhibition of 5AR (although I think its more like temporary reduction, inhibition indicates 100% loss of function) bad? You tagged me i this for a reason , right? even tho you knew I'd come after you with the hammer beating you for all your mechanistic speculative arguments Yes I agree, excessive soy (such as 1.2 litres of highly concentrated stuff) is a problem. Granted ! Soy in moderation is not a problem - can I get a concession on that? Eating a bunch of soy is NOT the same as being full of oestrogen, my god! Phytoestrogens aren't the same thing as biological oestrogens. That's an alpha and omega difference. Read into it. You're a scientist, you enjoy this shit so read a few clinical overviews of the phytoestrogen evidence. Let the research tell you the story rather than plugging up gaps in your knowledge with pseudoscience. Take it seriously and you'll see that all roads point the same direction. Being full of oestrogen which, I presume, means, your body is producing very high amounts, would either be some kind of genetic disease or a pituitary tumour or maybe even some sort of ovarian dysfunction or testicular tumour. The body doesn't just start pumping out hormones because you ate a tofu. Oh I am sure he has, that and PUFA has to be his favourite topics, that's where they can get lost in the pseudoscientific jungle. well, at least you're not a carnivore so that's good

delete? Soy doesn't delete anything. You can't just "delete" an enzyme that's coded by your DNA. If what you mean is temporarily reduce function of 5-Alpha Reductase then that's probably a good thing isn't it? But I don't care about mechanisms. Show me the outcome data. Show me the evidence (in humans) that soy products in moderation cause any endocrine problems? For each of those I have a study with 1000s of people showing protective effects. Ray Pete thinking all over again

All individual case studies , children who were probably fed too much soy by parents. That's obviously a bad idea. I'm more interested in protective effects of soy against chronic disease, some of those meta analyses I listed had over 5,000 - 10,000 participants. No to mention case studies are at the bottom of hierarchy of evidence for a reason. Still....very interesting to see that effect on kids in excess. Good learning lesson for sure dude hypogonadism is a medical diagnosis usually resulting from testicular trauma, testicular cancer or undescended testicles in boys. I think we are throwing around the terms a bit too freely. If what you mean is lower levels of testosterone then I'd want to see that in long term adult studies. good to know! Lots of men do have gnaecomastia who don't eat soy. I mean you see guys with manboobs all the time so clearly there is more going on. Simply being obese is likely a risk factor for it. ok so if that was the case, what would that mean? People who consume soy products become ...what? Look I know you have a great interest in endocrinology and I appreciate you have a good knowledge on it. I would even encourage you to go study something related to it. It is a fascinating subject and it was one of my favourite when I studies as well. But I think that's also become a bit of a barrier because you tend to be overly reductionstic seeing everything through the same lense. Endocrinology is tempting to use as an argument because it involves a lot of terms people don't understand that you can just throw around. But that won't fly here. If you are discussing the science you need to follow the hierarchy of evidence not randomly throw around endocrinology terms and pathways. You have to ask yourself - "if A causes B" then clearly most people who consume A regularly do get B? Do they? What's the evidence? Where is it? If I say a pathways XZY does this and then you say no, there is also pathway ABC that does the opposite. Who is right? How can we tell? That's why you have human outcome data.

Welcome back! Good to see you around again 👋🏻

somewhere out there I have some income from it but like yourself, not enough to sustain me. I'm rebranding my entire business now, so I've put a lot of things on hold, but it's almost ready to be published again. @Sandhu cheers!

This is an interesting case study, haven't seen that one before. I mean the thing that immediately jumps up is "why would someone drink 1.2L of soy milk", right? . But it seems people do so let's play along. The study vs soy isoflavones in soy milk on average In the case study on NCBI they say: The patient had been consuming approximately 1.2 L of soy milk per day for around 3 years until he had stopped June. The estimated isoflavone content of this amount of soy milk was 310 mg/day, according to the nutrition facts label. This is an interesting finding. According to USDA ARS - database source (I'd consider that a reliable source), you have about 7.85mg of soy isoflavones per 100ml of "soy drink" (page 24, line item, 99043). If you multiply this by 12, you will get about 94.2mg of soy isoflavones per 1.2l of soymilk. The study says 310mg in about 1.2L , which works to be about 26 mg of isoflavones per 100 ml. This is about 3 times the amount of isoflavone as a common soy milk (soy drink, item 99043). Immediately, this tells me that what he drank was some sort of concentrated formula like a fortified soy drink or a soy protein or something with added isoflavones. Maybe it was recommended to him for prostate cancer risk...who knows? We don't care. The conclusion is - what this guy was drinking was NOT a soy milk. An whatever it is, it was not supposed to be drank at those volumes. It was stupid and he paid the price. Its like giving your baby 3 times the recommended baby formula every day. Its gonna lead to some weird stuff. So yes, I agree with your conclusion @Schizophonia that at such humongous amounts, soy isoflavones can be some nasty effects on your endocrine system. Too much of a good thing. How much soy isoflavones do you get from diet? Going back to the USDA database, let's say an average soy consumer would eat 200g of tofu per day, 1 teaspoon of miso with soup and 250ml of soy milk with coffee (I'm making these numbers up) 250mg tofu - the values seem to differ but I've picked line item 99529 with 22.05mg per 100g portion. - total (2.5*22) = 55 mg miso - 1 teaspoon - line item 16112, 89mg / 100 mg so say a teaspoon is about 4 grams so you get basically less than 1mg of isoflavones and then soy milk we already talked about 7.85mg * 2 = about 16mg total daily soy intake - 55 + 1 + 16 = 72mg I am also assuming that this person goes up and down right? They don't drink the same thing. Sometimes they drink oat milk. Sometimes they eat tempeh instead of tofu or maybe even chicken or pork if they're not vegan. So let's say they average out at 65mg of isoflavones per day? That means it would take this person between 4-5 days to achieve the same volume of isoflavone as the guy in the study. So I would say that in normal amounts, you're unlikely to see soy having effects on testosterone. But in excess for a long time, such as what this guy did, it may be too aggressive, and your testo might start going down indeed. But it seems to go away once the food is discontinued. It was interesting to see him developing gynaecomastia tho, I wonder if this was from the soy drink or not. I'd like to see more on this. (for anyone who is confused about this) Soy isoflavones, phytoestrogens, oestrogens and hormones - what's the difference Soy contains molecules called phytoestrogens. Phyto - meaning plant and oestrogen being the main mammalian sex hormone in women (and to some degree in men) responsible for sexual maturation, puberty, menstrual cycle, development of secondary sexual characteristics, etc. In men oestrogens play a role in sperm production for example. When looked at under an electron microscope, the molecule of phytoestrogen looks almost exactly like the oestrogen that the human body produces. Phytoestrogens are divided into a few classes such as isoflavones, stilbenes, coumestans etc. For this example we only need to talk about soy isoflavones as those are found in soy. Why is it said that soy is bad and causes cancer? We know from the evidence that certain cancers like breast cancer and ovarian cancer in women are strongly driven by excessive oestrogen in circulation. This is because these tissues have a high concentration of Oestrogen Receptors Alpha, and most biological oestrogens dock into these receptors. In a growing woman, this is desirable. The expression of Oestrogen Receptor Alpha (meaning when oestrogen docks into it) helps cells divide, increases tissue growth, and increases the speed of sexual maturation. It helps a young woman hit puberty, grow breast tissue, trigger the menstrual cycle and prepare for future pregnancy. Where oestrogen starts becoming problematic is when it is very high later on in life such as during 30s 40s and 50s. Because excessive stimulation of Oestrogen Receptors Alpha can stimulate growth of tissue and whenever that happens, the risk of cancer goes up. And because soy isoflavones look like oestrogens, it was thought that if we have more of them in the body, it will be the same as having more biological oestrogen. Which is not true because of ....Oestrogen Receptor Beta It was found that although soy isoflavones look like oestrogens, they primarily dock to Oestrogen Receptor Beta. Different from Alpha. A docking to this receptor is associated with reduced growth of tumours, reduced inflammation and generally protective effects against cancers. This is also how Tamoxifen, a common medication for Breast Cancer patients, works as well and it is why it is so incredibly effective. Soy isoflavones from tofu, tempeh, soy and miso do exactly the same and this is why they are considered protective. It is why: isoflavones reduce risk of breast cancer isoflavones reduce risk prostate cancer - because soy reduces DHT levels in men and also because of beta receptor stimulation isoflavones reduce risk of lung cancer because Beta receptors are also found in lungs isoflavones reduce risk of gastrointestinal cancers and colorectal cancers Consider that many of these studies are done in Asian populations where soy has been consumed for centuries and cancer development has only increased after introduction of western food Soy and Testosterone This one is a bit more tricky and I need to dance carefully around this topic because there is very little research. Most research on soy is done on women and older men because that's where those effects are very beneficial and where soy can help save lives. Judging from that study shared in this thread it would seem that extremely high amounts of soy isoflavones can start reducing levels of testosterone to critically low. I agree that this is probably happening. But what about in moderate amounts? This is one of the most popularly quoted study 28 Japanese volunteers were fed 60mg of soy isoflavones per day (this correlated with the average intake calculation I made early on for the average person who consumes some soy) Their Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG) increased Their dihydrotestosterone (DHT) decreased their free testosterone decreased What likely happened here is a cascade of processes. Because isoflavones increased SHBG, this led to reduction in Free Testosterone because SHBG is like a bus for sex hormones, it takes away sex hormones from circulation and stores them safely. This also probably caused reduction in DHT because the more free testosterone you have, the more of it might be converted to DHT. It would seem like a bad thing but consider that high levels of DHT are linked to male pattern baldness and prostate cancer. I would argue having less DHT is a good thing. You could say that although these men lost a little bit of their "peak masculinity" by losing some free testosterone, it was traded for reduced DHT which most sane men would probably want. Unfortunately we don't have any good long term research on regular amounts of soy and levels of testosterone so I'll continue to err on the side of caution but the bits we have seems to indicate protective effects but potentially detrimental in very very high quantities. Soy Sauce One caveat of all this is soy sauce which I don't consider to be a proper soy food. Soy sauce is heavily modified food stripped of the isoflavones with extreme sodium content. So this is one that should be consumed in very very small quantities. CONCLUSION TO THE FULL POST soy contains molecules called soy isoflavones which under microscope look like human oestrogens. It used to be thought that because of this, soy causes cancer because excessive amounts of oestrogen has been linked to breast cancer and other malignancies in women oestrogen is needed for sexual maturation and sexual development but having too much can be problem for women and men humans have two main oestrogen receptors alpha and beta alpha expression - stimulates cell growth, increases cancer risk beta expression - protects from cancer, reduces inflammation, halts cell growth Human oestrogens mainly dock to Oestrogen Receptor Alpha - can be harmful in excess Soy isoflavones mainly dock to Beta (the good ones) health effects of soy roducts consumption of soy linked to reduction of cancers (lung, colorectal, breast, prostate, ovarian) soy has also been linked to reduced risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease soy is a great source of protein and calcium for people who don't eat animal produce potentially negative effects in very high quantities , such as in the study listed where a man drank 1.2 litre of soy concentrate, there is documented negative effect on testosterone and the entire sex hormone system (HPG - Axis). This effects improved once he discontinued effects on testosterone in men in very very high quantities, testosterone is reduced temporarily in normal quantities (ca. 60mg of isoflavones) DHT goes down - DHT is an agressive form of testosterone responsible for sexual development of boys into men. However in older men high DHT is linked to prosatte cancer and baldness. , in older men, high DHT is linked to prostate. So less DHT is a good thing. SHBG goes up. SHBG is a shuttle transporter for sex hormones. This is good because we don't want unbound testosterone circulating around. Very high amounts of free testosterone can lead to higher DHT (conversion from testo to DHT is also defined by genetics and many other things) free testosterone slightly reduced (this is mostly not an issue) no evidence on long term reduction of total testosterone levels soy does not turn men into fluffy soyboys who can't get erections. That's a bro science bs and at this point anybody claiming this is just trying to sell you something or is out of touch with the evidence. However men should not be consuming extreme amounts of soy like litres of milk per day or 5 blocks of tofu per day - too much of a good thing can become bad for you. Enjoy your tofu and your steak but don't be a zealot about one or the other. One additional thing I'd say is that there is a lot of testosterone optimisation content out there but anybody selling you testosterone-spiking lifestyle/product/diet should be able to answer the following questions: can you guarantee that my DHT won't be going up can you guarantee that my free testosterone won't be going up? can you guarantee that my risk of prostate cancer isnt going up can you show me the evidence that having more testosterone (above average) gives me some exceptional health benefits? Sorry for a long post but wanted to address this properly. Hope this will help someone.

Thanks for sharing, i think there is a bit more nuance to this topic but it requires a longer response, i don't have time right now to review the evidence but I'll reply at some point this week.

You could travel to Europe, for example Eastern Europe where the costs of such tests are probably 10 times cheaper than America. Asia would also be cheaper, maybe Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam. Maybe even northern Africa but I have no idea how it works in the region but certainly you could find clinics in Morocco, Egypt, maybe southern Spain, Gibraltar.