Testosterone killers – And Ways To Fight Back

By Russ Klettke

As discussed in previous blogs, testosterone decline is not a happy event. It happens to all men as they age, but it is possible to fight it naturally, with foods and exercises a guy can follow that stop and even reverse the decline.

The interesting thing is that where women have a defined and distinct “change of life” in menopause, men’s change, sometimes referred to as andropause, is more a gradual process. In fact, sexual potency is possible much later in life for some men. What is their secret? For the most part, it’s being healthy.

The corollary of that is how unhealthy habits can make your T levels drop. Like a stone, actually. These habits fall into three categories:

Inactivity
Sedentary lifestyles, devoid of not just exercise but of just staying at home and not engaging with the world, can impact T levels in several ways. First, without movement muscles atrophy and lower muscle mass leads to lower testosterone. If you’re inside and not outside, you miss out on Vitamin D that is produced when your skin is exposed to sunlight. Low levels of Vitamin D contribute to depression, which in turn causes a drop in T.

It is possible to supplement with Vitamin D pills, but sun exposure in relatively light amounts (15 minutes on face and hands, three times a week) are what researchers recommend. In our car culture (i.e., very little time spent outdoors), 41 percent of American men are thought to be deficient in Vitamin D.

Excess
Too much alcohol, fatty food and cigarettes are not your friend, sorry to say.

Let’s start with the booze. A double-blind study of healthy men found that with 16 drinks daily over four weeks, testosterone levels declined in just five days. Other studies show that over time, this can lead to feminization in men. Not good.

Research has shown that obese men have about 25 percent lower testosterone levels than men of healthy body weight, all other factors being equal. Being overweight – particularly when fat is around the abdominal region – tends to raise estrogen levels. The presence of female hormones in men (we all have some, just as women also have testosterone) tends to cancel out the effects of natural T. But note that some saturated fat in the diet is essential for the production of T in the first place – such as the yolk in eggs, in good balance with the protein in the egg white.

Cigarette smoking does not have a direct effect on T levels, according to a Brazilian study reported in the Journal of Sexual Medicine (Halmenschlager, et al. 2009). But because cigarettes tend to correlate with inactivity and poor cardiovascular health, cigarette smokers tend to have lower activity levels, which leads to a T decline in the end.

Stress
The famous “flight or fight” response that is hardwired into humans facing a hostile world once worked well for us, such as when we had to run away from wild animals, invading tribes and such. Adrenaline and cortisol levels would rise at the expense of other hormonal functions because mere physical survival took precedence. The stresses of the 21st century are more financial and emotional, yet our bodies respond as if it were 10,000 B.C. T levels and other functions are impaired when we carry the stress of an impending layoff, relationship dissolution or mortgage foreclosure for months on end.

Other stressors can negatively affect our hormonal, testosterone-producing health. Inadequate sleep or insomnia can lead to a variety of physical problems. Improper and unbalanced diets – sometimes embarked upon as means to lose weight – might signal your body that it is in starvation mode, once again telling certain functions to shut down while other vital portions of your body muster energy to perform life-preserving tasks. Even over-exercising (e.g., marathon running) can reduce testosterone production – in contrast to intense weight training, which will increase T production.

If factors of libido, energy and muscularity are not your goals, you might think of testosterone levels as a predictor of health. The Endocrine Society, an international medical professional organization, conducted an 18-year study that found that men with low testosterone die younger, even after you factor out such things as diabetes, smoking, alcohol intake and physical activity.

In other words, boosting your T through preventive efforts might make you a frisky old man someday – which sure beats the alternative.