Advertising works, even when you know how the game is played. The message gets through, disguised in attractive scenes and extravagant promises. You may not believe a word of the ad, yet you find yourself wanting the product. But sometimes it is even worse, because you do believe at least a little of what is being said — when that happens, you’re firmly hooked.
Testosterone booster products go one step further. They hit the male ego right where it hurts. The biggest insult you can give a men is when you question his manhood. Viagra has become wildly popular, and even become a common household term, by promising to restore manhood in sexual performance. Testosterone boosters play on an even broader theme, promising to restore not just sexual stamina and interest, but also promising greater energy, greater ability to build muscle mass, and even better mood. Enhancement products are claiming that they will make you more of a man. Advertising doesn’t get more potent than that.
Ageless Male
There is even a common belief that increasing testosterone levels can increase your lifespan. You want to do everything you can to turn back the clock and keep it turned back, and if replacing hormones that your body used to make abundantly in your youth will help, why not? Be stronger, more youthful, and maybe even live longer — what could go wrong?
Whenever we decide that the body’s natural design isn’t good enough as is, and needs our intervention, we should be careful. Splinting a broken arm is certainly an appropriate intervention, helping natural healing to work better. But when we use drugs to intervene in a disease, or in this case augment hormone levels, we can be sure that there will be consequences. These skew the body’s normal operation, and we need to know what that means for our long term health. You might be attracted to the easy road to building muscle, but would you then be willing to use anabolic steroids to bulk up? You’ve probably heard that those are dangerous, so let’s assume that would be going too far. You might find that testosterone boosting is similarly dangerous.
Managing the decline
One dangerous modern assumption is that aging of the body can and should be countered. Besides the allure of youthfulness to those hitting a midlife crisis, anyone who takes this attitude is taking some risk. As you age, your body reduces the levels of many hormones because they are no longer appropriate for your body at older age. It has been popular to boost human growth hormones to recapture youth, but this can lead to growth of cancer better than what you want to grow. Men want to enhance their manhood, thus Viagra is wildly popular. In nature, the older body is not needed for reproduction as one would lack the vigor needed to raise a family, so the reduction in sexual function makes sense — but we want to interfere with nature when it suits us. Fine, but you can’t do so without consequences.
Risks of boosting testosterone artificially include blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes. It can even rob you of youth rather than extending it. Testosterone is not only not a fountain of youth — it accelerates aging. Have you noticed that women tend to live years longer than men?
Lifespan
There are studies with castrated animals that show a significant increase in lifespan. Many household pets are “fixed” so that they do not breed, and neutered pets are known to generally live longer. Few human trials have been conducted: for some reason, there aren’t large numbers of human males volunteering to test this premise, so human evidence is scarce, but there is some. Most notable is evidence from historical records of Korean eunuchs who showed a significant increase in the number of men reaching age 100 (centenarians). In a data review study published in GeroScience, researchers gathered the Korean eunuch data, data of castrated companion and domestic animals, and mice studies to see if there is a general correlation of castration with longevity — in all cases it resulted in longer lifespans, especially when done early in life. So much for the idea that testosterone is a life-extender.
A male sex hormone is called an androgen. The prostate is, as you might expect, particularly responsive to testosterone. A review study published in Aging (Albany, NY) looks in depth at how testosterone seems to load the aging process in various ways. They note some studies show a link between testosterone and cardiovascular disease. More directly they cite the effect on the prostate: “Androgens have an especially bad effect on the prostate gland, promoting benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and, less frequently, prostate cancer. By the age of 80 at least 75% of men develop BPH, which largely affects glandular and stromal tissue of the transition zone of the prostate.“ So androgens are a load on the body, particularly the prostate, which is appropriate for reproductive years but not helpful in elder years. The aging body does what is appropriate: it reduces the levels of testosterone because high levels are no longer appropriate or safe.
The Clock is ticking…
The androgen load impacts DNA over time, in essence aging the DNA through epigenetic changes. Scientists are now able to study DNA extensively and are able to track these changes. Researchers from the University of Otago, New Zealand published a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in which they developed the “Androgen Clock” to track the rate at which DNA was aging. In animal experiments, what most accelerated the clock was the addition of androgens. In synthetic testosterone supplementation tests with females, the clock accelerated rapidly, jumping ahead even of that of males without supplementation. This suggested that the level of exposure to androgens was a key factor. When they blocked the androgen receptors in males, the clock stopped advancing.
The natural male body is thus striking a balance between reproduction and aging. Testosterone does put a toll on the male body, which produces the amount that it needs and tapers down in older age. The hype over building back up testosterone levels is just that — hype. It is suggesting we push the body’s aging faster to artificially gain reproductive prowess or make the process of building muscle mass a bit faster.
Don’t get testy
If you are willing to trade longevity for libido, at least realize what you are doing. But if you really want to be an “ageless male”, you have one option: working with your body as it was intended. This is especially true regarding strength. If you want to increase muscle mass, you don’t need testosterone enhancement — you just need to apply yourself to exercise. Strength training is highly effective in building muscle mass at any age, for any sex. True, if you are a male and you build muscle when young, it is easier because of the testosterone. But if you really need more testosterone to help you build muscle, your body will respond: exercise causes the natural production of additional testosterone! Your body takes the “as needed” approach to the hormone. This natural reaction to exercise is immediate, with testosterone boosts lasting for an hour or so after a workout; and there is a long-term effect as well with regular exercising, particularly strength training and HIIT (high-intensity interval training) increasing testosterone levels long term. These natural increases are simply epigenetic changes because your exercise is producing a need to build muscle, and your body raises testosterone as part of that response. This natural rise does not lead to cardiovascular disease (CVD); in fact the exercise is a huge deterrent to CVD. Your body knows that it is doing, but you have to do the work of training it.
Men want the positive qualities of maleness. They can get those temporarily, at great cost down the road, by artificial means, or they can take the harder but much more rewarding path through exercise. With exercise, they can have it all: the vigor of youth with sustained health and longevity. So men — stop listening to the promises of short cuts to maleness. You can be a “man’s man” if you put in the work. And in old age, you will be the envy of even younger men because you will still be spry, active, healthy, and even strong for your age. Accept the fact that you are aging and that your body is managing the process in the best way possible, but don’t let it get lazy. You really can age gracefully and well, if you choose to do so naturally. Everything you do — diet, sleep, hydration, lowering mental stress, and of course exercise — determines how you age.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
We had a patient years ago who overcame a major health challenge by doing our treatment and teaching program. But then he got off track years later, and the disease returned. He came back and asked, “What should I do?”
Our response was remembering what the great coach Vince Lombardi was always well known for:
We have to get back to basics, the basic fundamentals.
There are seven basic steps that dictate your health when you live these seven basic steps day in and day out. The body will be what it’s supposed to be and the mind will be what it’s supposed to be, as it was intended to be. So whether you’re 30, 60 or 90 you can thrive and be in optimal health, vitality, and strength for that period of your life.
Have you ever seen the ad of a man in his 70s, he’s bald on top with white gray hair on the sides and he has his shirt off? You can see all of his abdominal muscles, he has big defined biceps, and a very large chest. He looks like a bodybuilder. Isn’t amazing what modern pharmacology can do for you! It can make a 75-year-old look like a 25-year-old.
What’s the problem with this picture?
It doesn’t fit; it’s not natural. Go back to the 1800s and even the early 1900, look at the strongest men, even the images of many strong men. These people have large muscles — not enormous ones, but still very strong. They did not have ripped muscles in their abdomen like the people today. And none of them looked like that in their 60s or 70s, but in their peak times, in their 20s and in their 30s. Those strongmen worked very hard lifting without taking drugs. That’s the difference back before the pharmacology revolution: people did it the old-fashioned way — they exercised more, became stronger, and used more weights.
Louis Cyr, famous world renowned strongman in 1900, lifted unbelievable amounts of weight. He did not take testosterone nor anabolic steroids. What he did was work hard during his life: he was raised on a farm and naturally developed strength in what he did there, so his muscles grew stronger and stronger because he lifted more and more — this is the natural way. In his first competition at age 18 he lifted a horse overhead. No testosterone booster, no anabolic steroid, just pure strength the old-fashioned way, built up on the farm. I guarantee you he didn’t lift the horse over his head when he was 45.
What season are you in?
There are seasons in life and each season is beautiful in its own right. There’s the season of being a child — playing, laughing, and carefree. There’s the season of an adolescent trying to fit into the world, trying to grow up before their time. Then there’s the season of the 20s to the 30s — this is the time to raise a family. This is when you are in the growth and reproduction stage because you were designed as man or woman to have children and to raise them. This is when the hormones in both males and females are at the highest and peak. Then the next season is from the 40s to the 60s. This is the time to enjoy the children and the grandchildren and to go deeper in your purpose in life. Then there’s the season from the 70s and beyond — this is when your wisdom and purpose maximize, and your body and mind are maintained to fulfill your purpose.
Here’s what’s wrong with the man in his 70s, that looks like he’s in his 20s. He never found his purpose nor his identity. He’s still trying to live in an earlier season of life, but we’re not supposed to stay in those earlier seasons! The purpose of life is to grow in wisdom and purpose, not to put all of our focus on the physical body and how we look. As the seasons go by you focus on your health, not how you look — and when you’re healthy, you look healthy. Yes, you might have some wrinkles and you won’t look like you’re in your 20s, but you’ll feel good and you’ll be on purpose, sharing the wisdom of your life‘s journey with those around you. When you’re in your 20s, you want to look your best for what purpose? Because you want to find your spouse, the one you share the rest of your life with. Once you find that person, you grow in love with that person; your eyes are no longer on yourself, but on the object of your love. When in love the two become one — you’re not looking at yourself at all because you’re in love and you’re complete. Did you notice as couples grow older together some of them love each other so much it doesn’t make a difference what either one looks like because love surpasses everything. It’s the only thing that counts in life and without love there’s no purpose in life. Instead, people who do not find their love end up trying to love themselves, their job, or their hobbies. This does not mean you need to get married because mother Teresa stated clearly that her life purpose flowed out of her love for Jesus. She saw Jesus as her husband and saw him in everyone she ministered to. When you visit the cultures in the world that regularly live into their 90s and beyond, the oldest in the communities are the most revered and looked up to because they have such wisdom. They spend their time with their family and with their friends and community, sharing their wisdom to the youth, and in doing so this wisdom is passed on.
In your 20s and 30s, your hormones are peaked. They start to progressively decrease in 40s and beyond. This is for a reason, as we learned in the study on the Androgen Clock. Accelerated aging occurs when testosterone is in the body, so from the 40s and beyond we want to decelerate aging, not accelerate it. That’s why testosterone naturally goes down, but as we saw in the studies, your body will epigenetically adapt to the environment. If you’re lifting weight, you will secrete enough testosterone to do whatever is required within limits, but that testosterone will not stimulate excessive growth or have any side effects like the growth of cancer, heart attacks, strokes or high blood pressure. The body has an inherent wisdom. It knows what’s best. It adapts to the environment. Accordingly, it does not need any added help from hormones of any type, and when you add them, you upset the balance, the natural rhythm and harmony of the body.
So if you want to be thriving when you’re 105 — mentally, cognitively, emotionally, and physically –enjoying fulfilling your purpose and sharing the wisdom of your journey with others, then you must do it the natural way, the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health way. Just like Louis Cyr became very strong the natural way.
Just make sure that your decisions today don’t produce problems in your health or your longevity tomorrow. Do not take a shortcut that can take your life prematurely or cause potential health issues in your future. That is not a wise decision.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. What’s the definition of death? Separation: separation from your true identity, separation from your purpose, and even separation from your physical life.
