hyomaxxer
joined in 2024 old profil @effigy
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Was reading some growth plate studies and found this one by Nilsson et al. (2003).
From what I can tell, they found androgen receptors all throughout the human growth plate during puberty, alongside estrogen receptors. So growth plate cells aren't just responding to estrogen, they're responding to androgens too.
If the growth plate is expressing androgen receptors the entire time, wouldn't blasting androgens still have the potential to speed up growth plate maturation somehow, even if estrogen stays relatively low?
Obviously the study doesn't prove androgens alone can fuse growth plates, and estrogen still seems to be the main driver of epiphyseal fusion. But it feels like people sometimes oversimplify it into "only estrogen matters" when the biology looks a bit more complicated than that.
Am I reading this wrong or is there actually something to this? Really unsure to be honest, so if I'm misunderstanding the paper or missing something obvious, please correct me.
From what I can tell, they found androgen receptors all throughout the human growth plate during puberty, alongside estrogen receptors. So growth plate cells aren't just responding to estrogen, they're responding to androgens too.
If the growth plate is expressing androgen receptors the entire time, wouldn't blasting androgens still have the potential to speed up growth plate maturation somehow, even if estrogen stays relatively low?
Obviously the study doesn't prove androgens alone can fuse growth plates, and estrogen still seems to be the main driver of epiphyseal fusion. But it feels like people sometimes oversimplify it into "only estrogen matters" when the biology looks a bit more complicated than that.
Am I reading this wrong or is there actually something to this? Really unsure to be honest, so if I'm misunderstanding the paper or missing something obvious, please correct me.
