http://www.ijlpr.com/admin/php/uploads/154_pdf.pdf
Ex-Vivo ELISA Assay of Human Hair Follicle
The botanicals lauric and myristic acid have been previously reported to block the conversion of testosterone to DHT by 5AR in samples of fresh rat liver (Liu, Shimizu et al. 2009). In order to test if myristic and lauric acid would have similar DHT reducing efficacy on humans, we measured the consumption of testosterone by human hair follicles using an ELISA assay. Samples of single dissected hair follicles were incubated overnight in saline solution containing 50 pg of free testosterone and botanicals where indicated (Fig. 6). Active enzymes in each hair follicle reduce testosterone to DHT. Surprisingly, the samples with added myristic and lauric acid were found to have less testosterone after incubation than the control sample with no botanical added. We believe that this data suggests that lauric and myristic acid interact directly with testosterone forming a steroid ester. Because the ELISA test is specific for testosterone and not DHT this result could also be interpreted as proof that lauric and myristic acid are 5A5;R agonists, improving the conversion of T to DHT. However, this is highly improbably given the strong evidence presented by Liu et. al. (Liu, Shimizu et al. 2009) supporting the opposite conclusion. Experiments to test directly the presence of steroid esters suggested by these data will be preformed in future studies.
in pratica questi acidi grassi si completerebbero col testosterone a formare un estere (testosterone-laurato, o testosterone-miristilato) non in grado di subire la 5 alpha riduzione (forse in grado di inibirla).