The effects of supplemental progesterone on a healthy male

August 18, 2016 8:27 PM

I know a healthy mid 30s male who wants to try progesterone cream. I know this is stupid, but is it dangerous?

Let's just assume for arguments sake this is a 'for science' type of thing. This person has acquired some progesterone cream, and intends to use as directed for a month. Is this dangerous? From Googling online, it seems pretty innocuous, but I am not a doctor so I was kind of hoping to hear from some people who are.

posted by getting_back_on_track to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

What is he trying to accomplish? He could grow breast tissue, like trans women do. I don't know if that's a plus or a minus for this person. No one can say if it's dangerous for this particular person without looking at his medical history and blood test results.
posted by AFABulous at 8:43 PM on August 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Transdermal bioidentical progesterone hasn't been shown to have the same vascular and carcinogenic effects associated with synthetic oral progestins. Still, if your friend is a smoker, the risks could be a lot higher. Your friend would also have to check for breast lumps, and then get a prolactin test if there's anything suspicious.

Progesterone can have feminizing effects, but in the absence of an antiangrogen, it could have masculinizing effects instead. It's a bit of a crapshoot, and it's not very well studied.
posted by WCWedin at 11:06 AM on August 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: My friend is not interested in transitioning. This is just a kind of '30 days' type experiment. They are not taking estrogen nor thinking of other hormones aside from progesterone. In fact, I suspect they are interested in the opposite effect. Somehow he thinks progesterone in the absence of estrogen might have a 'masculinizing effect.' However it sounds like we don't know too much about this.

In any case, thank you for the information. They've dropped their dose to half after learning about the potential to develop breast tissue, but I think they still intend to finish the month and see if anything changes.
posted by getting_back_on_track at 9:00 PM on August 19, 2016