It is hard to miss the explosive testosterone advertisements practically everywhere.
They run in print and online local newspapers, on Facebook, and Google. Testosterone boosting supplements have an enormous advertising and marketing presence sufficient to make any product category jealous.
These testosterone supplements guarantee enormous boosts to your personal testosterone level if you only consume the right supplement (conveniently available over the counter). The real question is: do such supplements actually increase your low testosterone levels meaningfully, or is it all a big marketing driven scam?
Why are Your Testosterone Levels in Need of Help in the First Place? Testosterone is the predominant male hormone that drives bone density, sperm production, sexual performance and desire, and manly muscle mass. Sadly, for men, it tops out around only age 30. As this level naturally decreases with age and time, men generally begin to feel less desire for sex, have more trouble increasing and even maintaining their muscle mass in the gym, and find that they perform less well in many competitive areas of life.
A decrease in testosterone means lower sexual interest that results in severe anxiety and depression. This does more than just harm intimate relationships. Naturally you want to address it head on.
Testosterone is important for men for so many reasons. It causes your male sex organs to develop. This crucial hormone also drives the masculine physical attributes of broad shoulders, facial hair, and development of dense muscles.
It also contributes to greater sexual excitement inside and outside of the bedroom. In a normal day, a man’s levels of testosterone will increase and decline naturally. Higher levels tend to make a man excitable.
These levels will go up and down throughout the man’s life too. After age 30 though, it is generally all downhill. Mayo Medical Laboratories have determined the typical ranges of testosterone. According to this information, average testosterone levels decrease around eight percent for every ten years of a man’s life. This equates to 16 percent over 20 years.
Is There A Time When These Testosterone Supplements Are a Good Idea? The jury is still out on the efficacy of the various testosterone supplements on the market. Mayo Clinic states that Testosterone therapy can address hypogonadism. Such a condition results from the male body not creating sufficient levels of testosterone by itself.
Mayo Clinic and others say it is not certain if the supplements help or do not. One study that Nature Reviews Endocrinology published revealed that there is no scientific evidence to support doling out testosterone to men over 65 years old if they have lower to normal levels of testosterone.
There Are Both Heart and Prostate Risks with These Treatments: Testosterone supplements may potentially create a greater range and number of issues than they address. Some scientific studies have indicated that there is a real connection between heart problems in men and these supplements.
This RHYME study found that there is no correlation between testosterone therapy and negative effects on the heart. In 2010, the New England Journal of Medicine reported a study demonstrating that a number of men older than 65 suffered from a higher number of heart problems after using testosterone gel.
A subsequent study for men under 65 who were at risk of heart issues as well as older men with healthy hearts revealed that the two groups possessed higher risks of heart attacks when they were consuming testosterone supplements. Finally, there was a 2014 study that concluded the supplementing of testosterone levels caused a strong tumor in the prostates of rats. Human studies are still pending.
Consider Negative Testosterone Supplement Side Effects: It is important to note that testosterone therapy includes a variety of risks and potential side effects like with Testosterone supplements. This is more the case when you take it for the regular aging process instead of as a particular condition treatment. The impacts that such supplements can cause on your prostate and heart can lead to other possible problem conditions. Among the complications which they can cause are the following:
- Sleep Apnea
- Enlarged Breasts
- Acne Flare Ups
- Shrinkage of the Testicles
There are effective natural means of boosting your levels of testosterone without harming your body. Your daily habits are the place where you need to first focus your efforts. It makes sense that lifestyle changes which are positive for your all-around health and overall well-being can also deliver testosterone level boosting benefits. We will consider these next in greater detail.
Make Sure You Get Plenty of Sleep: According to Urology Professor George Yu from the George Washington University Medical Center of Washington, D.C., a great number of lower testosterone level men suffer from insufficient sleep quality. This can be the single most critical component. Improper or poor sleep impacts a wide range of the critical chemicals and hormones in a man’s body. This takes a severe toll on the production of testosterone.
Because of this, sleep has to become a high priority for you. You really need to aim for a good seven to eight solid hours each night. This might require you to change up your schedule or even to eliminate your cherished tradition of late night movies or TV series.
Treat your sleep as if it is a precious commodity since it really is. By valuing it as you do your physical fitness and healthy diet, you can give it the proper place and attention it deserves. If these changes do not deliver the high-quality level of sleep your body is craving, then you need to discuss your sleeping problems with your personal doctor.
Maintain a Healthy Weight Level: The painful truth is that those men who are obese or even a little overweight can easily possess lower levels of testosterone. These men discover that by dropping those unwanted additional pounds, they increase their healthy testosterone levels to normal. The same is true for those men who find themselves underweight. Getting to a normal weight level will deliver a major boost to testosterone levels.
Staying Active Is Pro-Testosterone: Professor Yu notes that your testosterone levels will change according to the needs of your body. This means that for those men who enjoy lying around on the couch too much, the brain signals that they will not need to increase the stimulation of their bones and muscles. Conversely, remaining physically fit and staying active forces your brain to dispatch the signals to increase testosterone hormone production levels.
You do not at all need to go out and transform yourself into a competition level athlete to do this. For those who are getting the minimal amount of exercise, you can make an effective and meaningful start when you walk at a rapid pace for minimally 10 to 20 minutes every day. You might increase your body’s muscle strength through a few mild sessions with elastic bands or weights every week.
A trainer can ensure that you do the most optimal exercises that will not hurt you in the process. Another word is in order about not going overboard with the new exercise program. Studies have shown that overdoing exercise to an extreme level of endurance (as do top-performance level athletes) will actually lower your levels of testosterone.
Be Proactive In Taking Control Over Your Stress Levels: For those men who find themselves constantly assailed by stress, their bodies will produce a continuous release of stress hormone cortisol. The downside to this is that it is not producing sufficient levels of testosterone in the meanwhile. This means that gaining control over your stress levels is crucial to maintaining your real testosterone output.
To do this, there are several things that you can do. You might start by reducing over-long working hours. If you find yourself overdoing the overtime, then attempt to reduce your working days to no more than ten hours or even less. You should spend at least two good hours per day doing things that you enjoy (not exercising or working). This could be playing music, gardening, fishing, or reading, to name a few good examples.
Review Your List of Medications: There are a number of medications which doctors inadvertently prescribe that lead to a reduction in your levels of testosterone. Some of these are specific opioids like MS Contin, fentanyl, and OxyContin. Anabolic steroids utilized to increase muscle mass and boost an athlete’s performance are another problem. Prednisone and other types of glucocorticoid drugs are a third category.
This is not to suggest that you should automatically discontinue your regimen of doctor-prescribed medications after you finish this article. If you have a real concern that your testosterone levels are not sufficient, talk to your family physician about these medicines to be certain they are not creating the issues. Your doctor can adjust your medications as necessary.
Don’t Take the Supplements: As we said at the beginning of the article, you will see enormous quantities of in print and online advertisements and marketing for supplements that claim to boost your testosterone. The problem is that none of them will really deliver what they promise you.
The good news is that your own masculine body will naturally create a hormone called DHEA. It converts this over to testosterone as needed. You can take DHEA as a supplement. Yet no major medical doctors or professors will suggest that you bother with the DHEA supplements either. In the end, even these will not appreciably increase your levels of manhood-driving testosterone.