A male client was in today with his wife asking some good questions about testosterone.
He surprised me by relaying his experience with testosterone replacement. I asked him how old he was and was surprised to find out he was just fifty. We got on the subject of replacing testosterone in men in their forties and fifties (a practice I don't easily recommend). In his case, his doctor measured his testosterone (it was borderline) and implanted a testostereone pellet in his butt. To his surprise, he didn't really feel much different.
I told him that I personally don't believe testosterone replacement is the therapy of choice for a man who is fifty years old.
Is he really hypogonadal (which means his gonads are not making adequate testosterone) or is it what Dr. Eugene Shippen, M.D., author of the Testosterone Syndrome, calls metabolic andropause?
He had not attended one of my male androgen balance workshops yet, so I gave him a quick lesson.
In my workshops, I talk about 2 enzymes that steal a man's testosterone in his forties and fifties. Overactivity of these two enzymes (a problem of aging that you curb with the appropriate nutritional supplementation) burns off your testosterone and turns it into toxic metabolites.
I also reviewed a topic with him that I discuss in my "Clinical Considerations" workshop about the use of hormone pellets. It has been shown that men get super-physiological levels of testosterone in the beginning days of therapy after implantation of the pellet. The testosterone eventually wanes down to a less than physiological level near the end of the 6 month course of treatment. You get a big burst of testosterone in the beginning and you crash at the end.
Let me ask you a question:
Is it really a good idea to give anyone a super-physiological level of any hormone? What about side effects? What about metabolites? What about resistance? What about balance?
I don't think so.
I can understand his confusion as to why he didn't feel better. At his age, you can blame the failure to the increase in activity of these two metabolic enzymes. The doctor implants the pellet, the testosterone level climbs and these two enzymes go to town stealing the testosterone and converting it to two hormones that when elevated in a man wreak havoc on his health.
After learning this, he started to understand why his doctor warned him that his blood markers for prostate problems were elevated. They were absolutely normal before the pellet.
I wonder if they looked at the thickness of his blood. Testosterone also makes your blood thicker which can have some deleterious side effects.
He was smart and opted out of testosterone replacement.
Before he left, he grabbed one of my brochures, turned around and asked me a question:
"Do you know what the very best thing there is for erectile dysfunction? You told me."
And he pointed to the brochure.
He pointed to the nutrition center and said it was l-arginine. He could not believe how well it works for E.D.
I explained to him that it makes sense because l-arginine is an amino acid that your body uses to make nitric oxide (N.O.).
N.O. is a chemical compound that relaxes the vascular smooth muscle that surrounds the blood vessel. The net effect is a dilation of blood vessels and an increase in blood flow. This proves beneficial in E.D.
I explained that the drug Viagra does the same thing. L-arginine is just a natural way to accomplish the same thing. I found a couple of studies online to support this.
If you want more information on male androgen balance and you live in Central New Jersey, sign up for one of our workshops (you can find a calendar of events in the article section). If you have a specific question, please shoot me an email.
You can find a link for the supplement this man took below. You can order online or just stop in the pharmacy if you live locally.
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