Male Hormones
Listen up guys! Hormones are as much about you as they are about women. Hormones affect your energy, your sleep, how easy it is lose weight, how much of the top of your head is showing, how likely you are to have a heart attack, your mood, your concentration, your zest for life, how frequently you urinate, and how fast you recover from injuries. Oh, they also affect your sex drive and how easy it is to have erections.
For optimal health men need to maintain a state of androgen dominance. Androgens are “masculinizing” hormones like testosterone. The various forms of estrogen are “feminizing” hormones. If a man’s testosterone level drops or his estrogen level rises he is no longer androgen dominant. He has a condition called ‘andropause’, and it causes a wide range of problems described below.
Andropause is common in industrialized countries. It has many causes including environmental toxins that mimic estrogen (xenoestrogens), stress, diets with high amounts of starch and sugar, and dietary deficiencies of essential fatty acids and other nutrients.
Andropause usually manifests in middle aged men, but it can occur in young men and even in teenagers. Signs and symptoms of andropause include:
· Spells of mental fatigue and inability to concentrate
· Depression
· More emotional than in past
· Decreased physical stamina
· Decreased initiative
· Decrease libido or desire for sex
· Decrease in spontaneous morning erections
· Difficulty achieving or maintaining a full erection
· Increased mid-section weight gain
· Increased fat in breast area and hips
· Varicose veins and hemorrhoids
· Sweating attacks
· Decreased visual acuity
· Increased total cholesterol, increased triglycerides, and decreased HDL cholesterol
· Increased blood pressure
· Increased fasting blood glucose
· Anemia
As you can see, andropause can affect almost every aspect of your health.
Cardiovascular Health
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and in most industrialized countries. Testosterone and estrogen have profound effects on cardiovascular health. In men testosterone is protective and estrogen has a negative impact and in women the opposite is true. A man’s level of free testosterone is one best predictors of the risk of heart attacks.
Testosterone has a protective effect for men. It:
· Decreases arterial plaque
· Decreases fibrinogen (decreased tendency to form clots that can lead to heart attacks and strokes)
· Increases blood flow in coronary arteries
· Increases strength of heart contraction
· Decreases cholesterol
Conventional medicine usually addresses the effects of andropause and not the cause. Loss of androgen dominance in men leads to increased cholesterol. The statin drugs that are used to lower cholesterol also lower testosterone. This digs the andropause problems deeper. Most studies have shown that statin drugs lower cholesterol but they do not reduce the number of heart attacks or the number of deaths from heart attacks.
Prostate
As men age their prostate glands get bigger. Symptoms of this prostate growth (also called hypertrophy) include:
· Dribbling or difficult urination
· Frequent urination, especially at night
· Pain inside of legs or heels
· Feeling of incomplete bowel evacuation
· Leg nervousness at night
Two hormones cause prostate hypertrophy, estrogen and a hormone called DHT. Each of these prostate-stressing hormones is made from testosterone when a man has adrenal stress or insulin resistance. Read Manage Your Blood Sugar and Stress and Your Hormones for more information.
Weight
Testosterone is an anabolic hormone. It builds lean muscle mass and it burns fat. When andropause is corrected it is easier to build muscle and lose weight.
Libido
Testosterone is responsible for sex drive of both men and women. It stimulates your desire for sexual activity. In males it stimulates the production of sperm and the ability to maintain an erection.
Natural Treatment for Andropause
Andropause can have serious health consequences for males of all ages, including fatigue, obesity, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and depression.
Conventional doctors are not well trained in identifying and treating andropause. They often see the trees but not the forest. They are likely to address individual manifestations of andropause with Viagra, blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, and antidepressant medication and fail to investigate or address the underlying hormonal imbalance. Andropause is confirmed with tests that measure hormone levels. It is imperative to test the free fraction of all major male hormones, including testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, LH, and FSH. Blood tests of total testosterone are not adequate. Read Measure Your Hormones for more information.
The best treatment for andropause uses life style modifications and nutritional supplements to balance your sex hormones. Many factors need to be addressed including intestinal function, liver detoxification, adrenal function, blood sugar regulation, and signals from the brain that trigger your testicles to produce testosterone. A relatively few men need to take testosterone replacement therapy. See the related articles Stress and Your Hormones, Manage Your Blood Sugar, and Your Liver and Your Hormones for more information.
