Why Risk Testosterone?

I had a reader write in asking, "Why would one risk testosterone therapy when there are so many natural solutions?"  The answer to this is quite involved and really depends on many factors as you'll see below. 

Here is his question and my response:

QUESTION:

Hi,

Love the website. Fantastic source of information.

Just a quick question in regards to testosterone therapy. If my testosterone levels were below normal, then what will be the advantages to getting testosterone therapy compared to simply following more natural procedures to increase testosterone levels, such as the many suggestions on your website, such as zinc and magnesium supplements? Basically, why would anyone go through therapy, especially with all the risks involved, when is seems perfectly viable to increase testosterone, through supplements, diet and exercise?

Kind regards, and thanks for any help you can provide

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RESONSE:

Hello. Thx for writing.

The basic answer to your question is this: some guys can't raise their testosterone sufficiently through natural means, making any risks of side effects worth the benefit for some. Of course, it's well worth the effort to try for an intermim period of time to raise your testosterone levels naturally.  This is because there is a chance that one's low testosterone is due to correctable lifestyle issues.

As you probably know from my site, various negative mental attitudes, stress, lack of sex, lack of sleep, apnea and sleep disorders, body fat, metabolic syndrome, etc. can lower your testosterone significantly. So it's important to correct any underlying issues or they will eventually cause more problems than just low testosterone.

However, let's say a guy gets tested and finds he has total testosterone of 240 ng/dl (in American units). If he sleeps more, lowers stress, etc., he may find that he gets a boost up to 310. Well, that's still very debatably healthy and he probably still feel so lousy that he's willing to consider the risk of exogenous testosterone.

Most guys are still going to struggle with libido and many of the above symptoms at 310. He's probably not going to feel decent and enjoy good health unless he can get it significantly higher and that's tough to do with lifestyle changes alone in many cases.

Furthermore, low testosterone is a serious condition if left untreated for a long period of time often leads to heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, anemia, depression - the list goes on and on. (It also withers the inside of the penis!)  Thus, the risk of not treating the low testosterone may far outweigh the risk of side effects.

Venous Leakage

Symptoms

Now what about supplements? I'm not a big fan of supplements, because, in my opinion, adding a bioidentical testosterone molecule is about as natural as you can get. Putting most herbs into your body, with it's 100's of different chemicals, is risky when taken over decades, again in my opinion. Many, many amino acids, vitamins, herbs and minerals have been discovered to have unexpected and downright nasty side effects:

The Dangers of Supplements

Plus, many of the male supplements sold online and even in health food stores are full of untested or nasty chemicals. Some of the manufacturers have even been caught adding liver-toxic steroids and/or PDE5 inhibitors, etc. without including them in the ingredient list. Remember: there's a lot of money to be made here and many will do anything to sell their product. Their money is in an offshore account and you're left peeing brown urine in an urgent care.

SIDE NOTE: I'm not a doctor, so take everything I say as talking points for discussion with your doc.

So the question is not so much "should one raise his testosterone naturally?" but "can one raise his T naturally?" A lot of guys just can't do get to a safe level no matter how "good" they are and how hard they try. The typical modern lifestyle is extremely toxic to testosterone production. Many males are exposed to copious amounts of xenoestrogens, endocrine disruptors, excitotoxins, obesogons and heavy metals while developing in the womb and during their early childhood.

Testosterone-Killing Pesticides and Toxins

Then they - and I've been there by the way! - live a sedentary life and eat a high fat, high glycemic diet that rapidly accelerates free radical damage and aging throughout their entire body (including their all-important HPA axis and Leydig cells). So far, researchers have not found this situation to be "easily fixable". There hasn't been a "silver bullet" drug that magically boosts testosterone levels in a male that has been damaged during early development or from decades of hard livin'.

Many might like to see, for example, the equivalent of a "Testosterone Viagra" to solve all of their problems, but it just hasn't shown up and I doubt it ever will considering the improvements and safety so far with testosterone therapy.  With any synthetic drug, there will be always be side effects and the standard risks involved if they do come up with something like that.

I hope that answers your question.