The potent synthetic androgen Trestolone, also known as 7α-methyl-19-norTestosterone (MENT), does not require 5α-reduction to exert its' maximal androgenic effects.

It is an Anabolic Androgenic Steroid (AAS), which has been under development for potential use as a form of hormonal birth control for men and in androgen replacement therapy for low Testosterone levels in men but has never been approved for clinical usage.

Its' development for potential clinical use continued in 1993 up until 2013, after a long stint of inactivity following its' initial studies which began in 1963.

Alternative androgens are being developed for hormonal therapy which may demonstrate greater potency, duration of action, and oral efficacy than Testosterone.

MENT is one of those, as it is a potent orally active synthetic 19-norandrogen.

MENT has the potential advantage that it could be used at relatively low doses, is orally bioavailable, and could potentially circumvent some of the negative effects that stem from traditionally used anabolic Steroids converting to 5α-reduced androgens in modern medicine (such as Testosterone Replacement Therapy resulting in higher levels of systemic DHT) that may raise the risk of benign prostate hyperplasia, accelerate the development of prostate carcinoma, increase the probability of acne breakouts, and exacerbate/substantially expedite androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness).

Therefore, it was desirable to investigate whether MENT is 5α-reduced in vivo, which could then potentially result in adverse effects similar to those of DHT.

The results from that data are extrapolated in this article and are used as a reference to guide my own personal research into this synthetic Anabolic Androgenic Steroid.

MENT (Trestolone) – Explored As A Potential HRT Alternative

This Steroid is not very well understood and is perceived by most as a “next generation” Anabolic Androgenic Steroid.

What I wanted to explore specifically is MENT’s potential application in hormone replacement therapy, especially for men who are prone to male pattern baldness from the endogenous Testosterone and DHT in their system like I am.

This experiment is geared towards guys with similar mindsets to me in terms of their goals, so don't misconstrue the intention of this article.

This experiment is NOT intended to see how effective Trestolone is at building huge amounts of muscle.

Basically, what my goal is at this point is to maintain what lean tissue I have, and replicate the same level of anabolism that my TRT accomplishes with a far lower degree of androgenic side-effects.

As you may or may not know, Testosterone has a 100:100 anabolic to androgenic rating on paper.

In actual practical application though, it has a 2:1 selectivity for muscle tissue to prostate, so it's not very selective whatsoever, meaning it induces significant androgenic side-effects like facial hair, hair follicle miniaturization, prostate growth etc. at doses that are required for sufficient levels of anabolic activity in the male body.

As you likely already know, when it hits 5α-Reductase it also converts partially to DHT, which is several fold more androgenic than the Testosterone already circulating in your system.

Does Finasteride Or Dutasteride Decrease How Androgenic MENT Is?

MENT (Trestolone) doesn't go undergo conversion to a more androgenic compound when it hits 5α-Reductase.

It's about the same level of androgenic activity in the body after it goes through that process, so using a 5α-Reductase inhibitor like Finasteride or Dutasteride doesn't make it any more hair safe.

Different Steroids Affinities To Miniaturize Hair Follicles

I've noticed throughout my years that anabolic:androgenic ratios on paper often don’t play out in real life application the way you’d anticipate (the Testosterone example above being one).

There's the classic anabolic:androgenic ratings chart.

This chart shows how we would assume each Steroid is going to work in the body, however, it doesn't really hold true for most of them.

If you go look at Drostanolone (Masteron), if you go look at Anavar, if you go look at Winstrol on paper, the way they interact in the body is WAY different in real life application than it appears that they would behave on paper.

If you look at MENT, you’ll notice the androgenic rating is very high.

Most would assume it would rip the hair out of your head without mercy.

But one thing you have to consider and one thing I've considered greatly over the past year as I've started to delve into the research of these compounds more is that some of these compounds bind harder to the androgen receptors, some of them are stronger in general, some are more suppressive, and there are a myriad of other individual specific attributes that are not accounted for on paper.

It seems as though they all have their own inherent ability to build muscle (induce anabolic activity) relative to their androgenic profiles, but their androgenic profiles aren’t always indicative of how they will affect each person systemically, as there is a genetic component.

Trenbolone Hair Loss Example And Androgen Affinities

Trenbolone looks five times stronger than Testosterone on paper, but if you’ve used Tren you know that it doesn’t play out like that in actual real life application.

The results from 100 milligrams of Tren do not equal the results one can achieve with 500 milligrams of Testosterone, it really doesn't work out like that.

But even if something is very androgenic on paper, it's quite possible that despite it seemingly being worse for hair loss at a first glance, the dosage at which it would induce the same amount of muscle retention (anabolic activity) could exhibit a lower overall androgenic effect in the body than the amount of Testosterone necessary to achieve that same level of anabolic activity in the body.

In my head I'm thinking okay, my TRT is 125 milligrams per week…

• Side note: I dropped my TRT from 150 mg to 125 mg per week since I've adopted a more frequent dosing protocol that keeps my levels higher and more stable. I've noticed I can keep it higher and much more stable with no troughs with a more frequent pinning schedule, which is something I would recommend speaking to your doctor about as well if they have you doing very infrequent shots. With infrequent shots (I even consider twice per week with Enanthate or Cypionate fairly infrequent now) you'll have big spikes and then big valleys where you basically spike your Testosterone and Estrogen unnecessarily, and have increased side-effects by having a big bolus enter into your system at one time, as opposed to having stable consistently high-normal levels. The ideal scenario in my opinion is to replicate as closely as possible how the human body would actually endogenously produce Testosterone, which is with micro-doses (one micro shot every single day).
• What a lot of guys do is they'll blast themselves into supraphysiological range with a big dosage once a week, or a mega dose every two weeks even (insane), and then for the time between shots they'll be operating at suboptimal and unstable levels. Not low but it's not stable whatsoever and it leads to an increase in side effects, including hair shedding.

Back on track – I've realized these things on paper often don't really equate to how they work in real life application.

For example, some guys have a certain affinity to miniaturize to different androgens at different levels than other guys.

One actual real-life example: I have a handful of friends who are on Dutasteride because they need to be or else they'll shed from even TRT dosages of Testosterone.

But for some reason, they can run Trenbolone and not lose their hair at all, which for a lot of guys would completely tear their hair to shreds.

There are plenty of other examples of this where one guy will experience Androgenic Alopecia from a certain androgen, but then another androgen that’s just as androgenic on paper won’t give him any issues, even though someone else has the complete opposite experience with those same compounds.

I believe there's an actual specific affinity for certain androgens that is individual specific based on your own genetic predispositions.

What I wanted to figure out was for me personally, do I have a higher affinity to miniaturize from MENT or a lower affinity than what I experience from Testosterone (the basis of my hormone replacement therapy).

MENT has been looked at very seriously as a viable potential HRT alternative in the future, so obviously as someone who is obsessed with hair loss prevention, and is also on TRT, this interests me greatly.

My MENT Experiment Protocol

Even though MENT is very androgenic, if there was a conservative dosage that would equate to the same level of anabolic activity in my body, but with less of an androgen load than my TRT exhibits, or I simply didn't have an affinity to miniaturize from it for whatever reason, that's something I wanted to investigate.

So, what I did was I stopped using my TRT and I replaced it with 70 milligrams of MENT per week, pinning 10 milligrams per day to keep blood serum concentrations as stable as humanly possible, while meticulously assessing my shedding.

Nothing changed in my hair loss prevention protocol so I could assess what was going on accurately.

Of course, I had to stop using RU58841 for this experiment to be accurate.

I was already off the RU58841 for the first Dutasteride experiment, but I had to stay off of it to really assess what was going on at the androgen receptor and to see how the hair follicles respond to Trestolone.

The reason I had to stay off of RU58841 is because if you have an anti-androgen competing to bind to the receptors with MENT, it's not going to be an accurate representation of what this androgen is actually doing on its own.

Is MENT Hair Loss Safe? My Experiment Results

As stated, I used 10 milligrams of MENT per day and assessed my shedding very, very closely.

And what I concluded is that for me personally it's not hair safe at all.

I do think milligram per milligram it is way stronger than Testosterone for sure.

I noticed a bit of a boost in the gym, which indicated I could likely use a lower dosage still to replicate the same anabolic effects of 125mg of Testosterone.

However, at that point, I didn't really want to continue to go as low as I could to see if I could get away with an even lower amount that would still replicate the anabolic activity of a 125 mg per week test dosage just because I could already tell there was significant shedding occurring.

Take these results with a grain of salt, as this is for me personally, and it doesn't mean that it’s going to apply to every single person out there.

For me personally, MENT is not something that I think I could see myself using long term.

One thing I do like about it though, and one of the reasons I started this experiment in the first place is that it fulfills a lot of the physiological functions that Testosterone does because it also converts into Estrogen.

I feel that a lot of guys don't realize that when it comes to potential hormone replacement therapy alternatives, often the compounds don't aromatize into Estrogen, so if someone were using a hormone replacement therapy alternative that doesn't aromatize into Estrogen, they would have zero Estrogen circulating in their system because there's simply nothing converting into Estrogen.

A lack of Estrogen will cause significant health complications, including hair loss.

I believe that a lot of the time theories going around about hormone replacement therapy alternatives aren't considering the fact that there would be more potential promising hormones to research if they were used in conjunction with exogenous Estrogen.

E.G. I truly think certain SARMs could potentially be incorporated into a final solution to hair loss in many men, but they often go overlooked due to the fact that they don’t aromatize into Estrogen.

In Conclusion

I don't think that MENT/Trestolone is hair safe.

That's for me personally, but just based on the fact that I'm fairly sensitive to hair loss from androgens I would bet that you'll probably experience the same thing as me if you are sensitive as well.

Despite every one having their own individual specific affinities to miniaturize from certain androgens, typically the more androgenic a compound is, the harsher it will be on your hair (in general).

That doesn’t apply in every scenario (as I outlined earlier), but it’s more often than not the case.

I'll probably rule MENT out as a potential HRT alternative and TRT is still the go-to for me for the time being.

Take my experiment results with a grain of salt, but I believe that it's a very androgenic compound that has a fairly high affinity to miniaturize hair follicles, even at what would probably be considered by most therapeutic dosages, if MENT had a therapeutic dosage for HRT purposes that is.