Dr. DeOreo writes...

Hormones: Up Close and Personal
By Dr. Kathleen DeOreo, Naturopathic Doctor

Men Have Hormones Too..

And Sometimes, Not Enough of Them

Andropause is a time of life when men start to see a decline or feel a decline in their libido. They may start feeling fatigued, sometimes depressed, sometimes their muscle strength and their muscle mass start to decline. They may experience some problems with erectile dysfunction. They may experience depression or mood swings. And metabolically, what we see in this condition is that there starts to be a decline in some of the male hormones. And in particular, people think in terms testosterone. We start seeing a decline in testosterone literally from the age thirty to forty. And it declines about one, to one and a half percent per year from age about forty to seventy. So there’s a gradual decline in the ability to produce testosterone from the testes. With low testosterone, the cardiac function is not as efficient. The heart has more receptors for testosterone and for androgens than any other muscle in the body. Cardiac function can be drastically affected or adversely affected as the testosterone level begins to decline. There might be an increase in problems with angina, for example, in those men who have been found to have low testosterone. We also see susceptibility to congestive heart failure in men who are low in testosterone.

Once again, the heart is a muscle, and if you don’t supply with the proper nutrition and the proper hormone balance, you may see a weakening of the heart. All the risk factors that we typically think of for heart disease, such as high cholesterol, and high fibrin, what’s called fibrinogen, and insulin resistance, and high sugar levels, and high platelet levels, all these are risk factors for coronary artery disease, but all these also are associated with low testosterone. In addition to looking at the typical cardiac risk factors like cholesterol and the HDL and LDL, we also need to screen them for testosterone level as well. Also low testosterone levels have been associated with a whole host of other medical issues. For example, some of the common inflammatory diseases that we see today, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, ulcer colitis and even asthma. All of these have an inflammatory process going on. There’s certain, what’s called cytokines from the lymphocytes that are secreted. Many more of these patients will have lower testosterone than patients who do not have these inflammatory diseases. Those who don’t have rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s and ulcer colitis, generally have higher levels of testosterone. Now, it doesn’t mean necessarily that testosterone is causing this condition, however there’s an association here, and once you replace the testosterone, should it be low, you start seeing improvement in the overall condition, because you’re reducing the inflammatory pathway, what’s called IL6 and something called tumor necrosis factor and there’s a variety of others.

Basically, it means that these cells promote the inflammatory response, which in turn causes many of the clinical problems associated with autoimmune disorders. Even obesity, especially those who are very overweight and have the abdominal obesity, many of these men have low testosterone as well. People with chronic fatigue syndrome, alcoholism, diabetes, depression, enlarged prostate and people with low growth hormone levels, all have a common bond of having low androgens, low testosterone. Men should be just as vigilant with checking and treating their hormones as women since they also have related medical conditions. These conditions can naturally resolve when they are treated with Bio-Identical Hormones.

For your FREE Hormone Evaluation.
Call at (404) 444-5749
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