Raison D'etre
There are actually 2 methods, including the process which starts with cholesterol (much more easily extractable, but only a 2-4% yield) and one that starts with boldione (which is entirely inaccessible to laypeople and produces a bunch of byproducts that would require one to purify the estradiol, but the yield is higher).Edit: Nevermind, I do have a link
The link for the cholesterol method didn't work for me the first few times I tried it, so I searched for information about cholesterol and estrogen and I don't recall what search terms I used. I made a few searches and finally came up with this:
Estrogen is a steroid hormone that is synthesized from cholesterol
And this:
Estrogen is synthesized in the following tissues:[ref]ovaries (major source in women, E2)testes (males)fat cells (E1, especially post-menopause)brainliverpancreasintestinesadrenalsThe precursor for estrogen is cholesterol, which is first converted (using CYP11A1) into progesterone, which is then converted (using CYP17A1) into androstenedione.Androstenedione can be converted into testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, or estrogen.So what exactly does estrogen do in cells?Estrogen is transported throughout the body and can bind to estrogen receptors in the cell nucleus, controlling the transcription of many different genes. Thus, the different estrogen receptors can control whether a gene gets transcribed into a protein that is used in the cell.The estrogen receptors can bind to and turn on hundreds of different genes. Some important targets of estrogen include the LDL receptor, progesterone receptor, IGF-1, and many more. These genes are related to hormones, cholesterol, and growth within the body.[ref]Estrogen receptors (ERs) are present in a wide variety of tissues in the body. For example, ERs are important in vascular endothelial cells, which line blood vessels. Estrogen receptors are found in cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells), neurons, airway cells, muscles, the uterus, testes, fat tissue, bone, breast, kidneys, and more.
A search for CYP11A1 gets me this Wikipedia piece: Cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme and the top image has a label matching my search term.
Mutations in the CYP11A1 gene result in a steroid hormone deficiency, causing a minority of cases of the rare and potentially fatal condition lipoid congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Deficiency of CYP11A1 can result in hyperpigmentation, hypoglycemia, and recurrent infections.
No real conclusion as yet but I know something about nutritional support of cholesterol production within the body AND the information I'm seeing implies heavily that if there's some mismatch in your physiology, aka if you are trans, you will have a compromised immune system among other issues.
The brain is the highest cholesterol organ we have and 95 percent of cholesterol in the brain is produced in house starting with certain b vitamins AND I have notes elsewhere on how someone with a genetic disorder may be able to repair their brain using B vitamins to make cholesterol in house without making themselves sick in the face of their body misprocessing fats.
So this is potentially hackable to some degree in some people via nutrition.
B vitamins are water soluble. This means they both easily become deficient AND are relatively safe to play with because if you take too much, you urinate them out.
That doesn't mean there are NO negative side effects. One possible outcome of excess consumption of certain B vitamins is kidney stones (potentially treatable via roller coaster ride) BUT it's difficult to outright POISON yourself compared to fat soluble vitamins and minerals.
I'm not a big fan of preppers but this is an unusually good "what if" question with useful replies for thinking about a problem space that's not really a problem for some imagined dark future. It's a problem that currently exists for a lot of people. One of the replies to the question is:
I can't even find it available in normal scenarios.
For a lot of trans people, it's already the apocalypse. And writing the initial notes for this piece is what inspired me to move my one page of notes to a separate website, in part because I know something about cholesterol and in part because it's already the apocalypse and people need DIY solutions for a controversial medical issue that some governments want to outlaw admitting you have.
Anyway, last thought that I will no doubt cringe at somewhere down the line because I don't currently know what I'm talking about:
I wonder if it would be possible to eat high cholesterol foods like bacon and eggs, spice it with something or take or do something afterwards that would have the action of CYP11A1 cholesterol side chain cleavage enzyme.
Actual scientists reading that and laughing their asses off. But you can get papaya based digestive enzymes at GNC or could back when I routinely took supplements and digestive enzymes are routinely prescribed for my genetic disorder and can also be used on an empty stomach as an antiviral protocol and I actually know a little something about enzymes and no longer need prescription digestive enzymes because of years of bio hacking.
So firsthand experience tells me...life is chemistry.
Footnote
If you are trying to understand why I'm doing this, you may also be interested in these pieces by me elsewhere: