Collecting this in one place because it comes up every few weeks and the answer is always assembled from scratch. It is about the hormone panel, and it is deliberately narrow — everything I am not confident about is marked as such.
What is actually established
Most of the hormonal change here is a consequence of adiposity falling rather than a drug effect. Less adipose tissue means less aromatase activity, so in men testosterone commonly rises and estradiol falls, and SHBG rises as insulin resistance improves — which means total testosterone can rise while free testosterone moves less than expected. In PCOS, improved insulin sensitivity frequently restores ovulation, which is a fertility change people are not always expecting.
The condition it depends on
This is a case where measuring the free fraction rather than the total matters, because SHBG is moving at the same time.
What I am not sure about
So the question, as narrowly as I can put it: why total and free can move differently here, and which of the two is worth tracking. Numbers rather than impressions, if you have them.
— BenResearch_OR · corrections welcome and will be edited into this post with credit