Raise Free Testosterone
9 Natural Testosterone Tuneups
Simple lifestyle changes and healthier food choices can fend off low T and its symptoms.
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The sex hormone testosterone is often touted as helping men maintain their vitality and virility, but levels begin to dip naturally by about 1 percent a year after age 30. Signs that your testosterone may be declining more rapidly include loss of energy, decreased sex drive, irritation or anger, and trouble sleeping.
Testosterone therapy and supplementation has become somewhat of a controversial cottage industry in the United States, but there are many tried and true drug-free and hormone-free ways to maintain testosterone levels.
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Don't Go Overboard at Happy Hour
"Alcohol can convert testosterone to estrogen," explained Jed Diamond, PhD, author of the books "MenAlive: Stop Killer Stress With Simple Energy Healing Tools" and "Male Menopause," and director of the MenAlive men's health program in Willits, Calif.
"A glass of wine with dinner is no problem, but overdrinking is not a good idea." Moderate alcohol consumption for men is a max of two drinks a day, with one being a 5-ounce glass of wine.
Being overweight or obese can increase risk for heart disease and certain cancers, but extra weight also increase the risk for low testosterone levels. Research published in Diabetes Care in June 2010 showed that 40 percent of obese men had lower-than-normal testosterone readings, and this percentage increased to 50 percent among obese men with diabetes. Weight loss can be a hormone-free way to combat low T.
"Every 10 pounds of body fat produces a noticeable bump in estrogen, and testosterone will drop as a result," said Steven Masley, MD, of the Masley Optimal Health Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., and author of "The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up." The converse is also true: If you lose fat, testosterone goes up and estrogen levels go down.
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Send Out a Stress SOS
Want to literally pump your testosterone levels up hormone-free? Exercise can help maintain your testosterone levels and avoid some of the symptoms of low T. "Interval training and exercises that build muscle mass allow more testosterone to be released from protein," Dr. Masley said.
Research in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research backs this up. The study showed that a 4-week sprint-interval training program helped boost testosterone levels in a drug-free fashion among wrestlers.
Pride yourself on burning the midnight oil? It's bound to catch up with you. A small study conducted at the University of Chicago School of Medicine found that men who slept less than five hours a night for one week had lower levels of testosterone than when they had a full night's sleep.
"When you are sleep deprived, it impacts levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which reduces testosterone just like stress can," Masley said. "A sleep-deprived state is a testosterone-deprived state." Everyone's sleep needs are different, but it's important that you wake up feeling refreshed and don't need an alarm clock to do it, he said.
The controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) is found in many plastic water bottles as well as in the lining of food and beverage cans, and exposure to this plasticizer may result in low T. BPA can act like the female hormone estrogen in the body, which means it can lower levels of testosterone, Masley said.
A study in the February 2011 issue of Fertility and Sterility found that men with a high BPA level had decreased sperm counts. "Don't cook foods wrapped in plastic in the microwave, and try to drink from a glass or a steel thermos," he said. The more flexible a plastic bottle, the more likely it is to leach BPA.
Zinc — found in shellfish, beef, and pork — can provide natural testosterone support, but "this only helps if you are zinc-deficient," Masley said. "If you take a multivitamin with zinc or eat oysters every day, your zinc levels are probably within the normal range." Aim for 12 to 15 milligrams a day to help stave off low T.
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Some Fat Is Your Friend
Men who eat a low-fat diet can have lower testosterone, because "we make testosterone from cholesterol," Masley said. "But this doesn't mean you should eat unhealthy bad fats. Instead choose healthy fats such as those found in avocado, nuts, and olive oil." These fats will boost testosterone naturally, but they won't raise blood levels of artery-clogging cholesterol.
"Every time you eat sugar, testosterone is decreased, likely because the sugar causes a high insulin level," Masley said.
Research published in the journal Clinical Endocrinology in February 2013 suggested an association between sugar ingestion and a 25 percent decrease in the level of circulating testosterone. Masley said that avoiding sugar can be a healthy, drug-free way to help avoid low T.
Source: https://www.everydayhealth.com/pictures/natural-testosterone-tuneups/
