birth control's role in widespread androgen deficiency in women and its implications for the field of psychology note: this is a very sloppy post that i've been meaning to clean up and post it on the fitness/nutrition/drugs/exercise-sc ience website i'm planning but i've had interfering priorities forever and the information is too useful to withhold from people until the website is done. i'm posting a draft version here just to get the information out. #**intro** if you are a woman and taking non-iud hormonal birth control and don't take dhea or some other kind of androgen replacement you are very probably living with suboptimal hormone levels. [all female hormonal birth control pills are ovarian suppressants, which suppress testosterone.](  nih.gov/pubmedhealth/pmh0059991/) this means that they suppress endogenous estrogen and gonadotropins which prevents ovulation. (this is a huge simplification, keep in mind.) estrogens and progestins, when taken exogenously, usually suppress production of androgens like testosterone to problematically low levels.  progestins can also suppress estrogen to postmenopausal levels which is a problem on its own, but that's well-studied, while testosterone deficiency due to estrogen and progestin is not, so that's the focus here. still, briefly: progesterone dose determines the level of ovarian follicle shutdown, so a portion of women experience extreme ovarian shutdown in response to progestins. for reference, skyla (0.08  0.02 nanograms per milliliter of progesterone) mirena (0.18  0.07 nanograms per milliliter of progesterone) nexplanon implant (0.26 nanograms per milliliter of etonogestrel at 1 year), mini-pill (0.8 nanograms per milliliter of norethindrone after a few hours) depo-provera shot (1 nanogram per milliliter of medroxyprogesterone acetate after about a month) note that some progestins are androgenic and some are not. this can be important when considering the effect on testosterone levels.
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