Testosterone levels is a highly charged subject. Beyond doubt, levels are falling globally. Over the age of 30, officially levels drop by 1% every year. But much more worrying than that, levels are actually dropping faster than that and overall levels are dropping. Here is a link to an article on globalresearch.ca that goes into details of various studies confirming this suspicion. Charles Poliquin talks about discussing with other athlete trainers the fact that the youngsters coming through now are weaker now than they were in the 1980s. Even more worryingly, labs have reduced ‘normal levels’, so what would once have been considered an utter disaster on the manly front are now considered normal. There is much on the internet about testosterone levels. What I’m going to do is give an overview of common symptoms of low testosterone, some causes and how to go about lifting levels back up again.
Low testosterone.
Very low levels lead to small balls. But before that catastrophe happens, the body gives us all sorts of clues that things are heading limpwards.
- No erection upon waking in the morning.
- Inability to get an erection. Has been called a heart attack below the belt.
- Loss of muscle mass and difficulty increasing muscle mass.
- Feeling tired, loss of drive.
- Feeling depressed. Lack of motivation.
- Difficulty with concentration and memory.
- Developing a paunch.
- Growing man boobs.
- Turning into a grumpy old man. Victor Meldrew.
Interestingly, it is a myth that high testosterone levels are associated with aggression. Rather the opposite is true. High testosterone means the man is functioning well and tends to be more at ease with everybody. Whereas low testosterone is linked to low levels of serotonin, so raising serotonin levels do help the depressed, aggressive man.
Causes.
To put in a nutshell: all the usual stuff. Here is a selection of the most common causes.
- Exposure to pesticides and plastics: food wrappings, pesticides, linings of tin cans, parabens etc added to liquid soaps and so on. This really is a disaster and is a key element in the global problem with falling testosterone levels. Plastics and pesticides contain xeno (or foreign) oestrogens, so are feminising in not a good way. ((Even for women, xeno oestrogens are a big health problem. And physically cause big bottoms and hips.))
- Drinking unfiltered tap water.
- Poor diet. Much processed food, not enough meat and too many grains.
- Low levels of vital nutrients such as zinc, vitamin D and magnesium.
- Not enough sleep. I just despair about this one.
- Diabetes.
- Fatness. (Excess body fat makes oestrogen)
- Too much booze.
- Too much exercise (!) – yes it really is possible. And especially cycling. Probably due to the pressure on the prostate.
- Long term use of steroids and opioid pain killers.
- Long term stress
- Failure, especially at work
- Unexpected retirement/redundancy
- Bereavement
- Divorce
- Money worries, especially if the family is involved.
Usually it is a combination of factors, with the first, the exposure to plastics, virtually unavoidable and the second, drinking unfiltered tap water, more easily avoided, but frequently not even thought of. ‘Nothing wrong with Corporation Pop!’ – er, yes there is.
Raising testosterone.
- Get enough high quality sleep. Funnily enough, a symptom low magnesium levels is poor quality sleep, so taking Ubermag will help both sleep and testosterone levels.
- Do what can be done to reduce stress levels, or actively de stress.
- Avoid plastics as much as possible.
- Eat organic food and don’t drink unfiltered tap water.
- Learn to love real food.
- Eat plenty of meat. If red meat is disliked, then this is a sign of a stomach not producing any acid, so this needs to be addressed before increasing meat intake.
- Take Uberzinc, Ubermag, vitamin D3 and a powerful multi.
- Testosterone can be injected, but this is expensive, a doctor needs to be found that is willing to do this, not so easy in the UK.
- Biosignature practitioners like me can give a testosterone raising protocol. But much work has to be done first to sort out the basic causes listed above and I have found that first, it is necessary to undergo a detox protocol. Both protocols are eye wateringly expensive.
When a man is older, low testosterone levels can easily lead to a mid-life crisis. Another name is the Andropause – androgens is the overall term for the male hormones. Just like the menopause, there isn’t much ‘pause’ about it really – unless, in the male case, vigorous action is taken to raise testosterone again. And this is quite possible without recourse to testosterone injections. Raising testosterone by addressing the causative issues will have a massive positive impact on health, happiness and probably wealth too. In order for an organism to just survive, the sex hormones are very low on the list. If we are so unhealthy our testosterone goes down, then we are hardly in a good position to raise a family. So the falling testosterone levels are like the canary in the coal mine. We’d be wise to pay heed to them.