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Sunday, February 5, 2017

69) Gaining "density"- Does oxytocin help muscle development too?

Sasha has been having relatively good (disaster-free) weeks.  He had the incident of taking the extra graham crackers a couple of weeks ago and overindulged in some Girl Scout cookies that were offered to him yesterday, but all in all, he's been pretty good about not sneaking extra food.  He's been enjoying his friendships with two boys with whom he plays MTG cards every Saturday and at lunchtime during the school week.  As a matter of fact, Sasha is over at his friend's house right now as I am writing this!  Weirdly, I am having some free time to myself.  Did I mention it is weird?  My daughter is 11 and has always had a very busy social life with her friends and activities but we have always had to find ways to entertain Sasha especially on the weekends.  I am getting a little taste of what it must feel like for parents of typical kids as they come into their tweens/teens.  I must admit, it is very nice!  I am enjoying the increased free time to myself but most of all, I am happy for Sasha that he has a friend with whom to hang out on the weekends.  I also met his mom over lunch a few days ago and learned about how much they have in common in their personalities.  We plan to have A and mom over for dinner next weekend and look forward to our growing friendship with the family.

Meanwhile, we are noticing that Sasha continues to put on weight (but is also growing taller so his BMI is persisting the same 89-90% range).  I was curious about whether or not oxytocin interacts with testosterone.  After losing weight steadily since September 1, Sasha started to gain weight one week after he began his very first testosterone dose at the end of December.  In fact, there is some evidence of oxytocin's role in muscle regeneration as I found in PubMed:

I don't know about the interaction (if any) between testosterone and oxytocin but I can't help but wonder if the addition of the testosterone (in combination with the oxytocin he has already been taking) is responsible for this weight gain. I have noticed that his upper arms are looking and feeling more lean, solid and muscular.  While testosterone is commonly known to increase muscle mass, I wanted to see the research data for myself and found several articles which describe the change from fat to muscle in replacing testosterone in hypogonadal men:


If it is true that testosterone contributes to increased muscle mass and decreased fat mass and that oxytocin contributes to increase bone density and muscle regeneration, might it be that Sasha's weight gain is well explained by his body's overall increasing density?

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