Is my testosterone my problem?

[boomer411]

As I age, I find more changes occurring than I could have ever imagined. Some of the shingles are coming off of the roof, if you know what I am saying, but that is far from the only changes I have noticed. I always heard the stories as I grew up about old men, and the strange changes that occur as we age. I have found many of these changes that I heard of as a child, and others that I was obviously too young to hear or understand.

 

I found that my libido was lower than ever before; the spare tire around my mid-section was growing, my hair was thinning out on my head, and that hair was showing up in other places on my body. I have never been one to accept excuses for anything, so I began to look into some things I could do in order to at least keep my body healthy and mobile, even if I am unable to stop the effects of aging.

 

So I know that I need to make some changes to my diet, exercise more often than I currently do, and start to understand more about how my aging body works. So I headed over to the trusty old Google box and began to do my research. I eventually came accross the fact that my testosterone isn't where it used to be. I believe that making corrections in order to improve my testosterone levels will ultimately impact every other aspect of my body.

 

I found all sorts of information on Wikipedia which the forum will not allow me post a link to, but doing a search for testosterone on Wikipedia will provide plenty of results that cover a fair amount of information about what testosterone is. As I continued my research, I eventually discovered that scientists believe that men lose their libido as they grow older because of a drop in testosterone.

 

I have found several programs online that offer strategies and methods for increasing my testosterone. I have also found supplements, as well. Some of the methods offer all natural approaches for helping to correct my problem, while others seem to offer other methods that include prescriptions and other types of medication.

 

I am here looking for some tips and advice from all of you folks. Is it possible that testosterone can be a cause of poor sex life? If I improve my levels of testosterone, as well as my diet and exercise, will I be able to see a significant difference in my sex life, weight loss, and my energy levels? Do you think that increasing my levels of testosterone will make a difference? Would be better to take supplements of some type, or will it be enough to focus on my diet instead?

[lavenderdove]

The first thing you need to do before you self diagnose is to go to the doctor to see if you have low levels of testosterone or not.

 

There is no simple answer to reversing aging, because the body is a complex biochemical machine, as well as a mechanical one.

 

So some degradation can due to 'wear and tear' and is hard to reverse (i.e., the body's joints start to wear out, cumulative damage of loud noises hammering the ear degrades the ability to hear, sun damage over time can bring on cataracts, cumulative radiation over time from the sun toughens skin and can stimulate skin cancer, arteries clog after years of fat lipids collecting in them etc.)

 

Hair loss on the head is a combination of things including genetic shutdown of hair follicles, so testosterone alone won't fix that. And falling testosterone levels can affect libido, but if you've also got a big spare tire it makes sex more cumbersome and less enjoyable. A lot of middle aged men have trouble getting erections not due to testosterone, but due to mechanical damage to their nerves/arteries that control blood flow which leads to erections, but there are now drugs that can restore erectile function, so that can be fixed in most cases.

 

And a lot of aging is controlled by genetics... people look pretty much the same up until a certain age, then someone who is 50 can look 70 and someone else who is 70 can look 50. And some people are active up to 90, while others fold up at 45.

 

One of the things well proven by research is that aging robs you of the ability to overcome stress to the body quickly. So a 20 year old can go out and drink and party all night and get up the next day and still function and look fresh, while a 45 year old who stresses their body like that will feel like they got hit by a truck. The body just needs more time to repair itself as it ages, so that gives you a big clue, that you should try to do things that avoid negative stress on the body, and increase things that run the machine at optimum values.

 

So when you are young, you can live on junk food for a while wihtout a lot of damage, but at 55, you live on hamburgers and have a coronary. So if you want to keep up your energy levels and reduce the signs of aging, 'tune' your machine! By that I mean, start eating proper nutrition, get moderate exercise, don't drink much and don't smoke at all, lose excess weight, take vitamins to add extra nutrients etc.

 

But i'd advise against taking all kinds of 'fad' supplements you can buy because they can actually be harmful if you're not really careful and do liver, heart, and kidney damage.

 

So go to the doctor and get a full blood workup to see if anything in particular is amiss. And if you're low testosterone, the doctor can prescribe it for you rather than taking uncontrolled supplements that might have harmful results to your organs. Unfortunately most supplements are treated as 'food products' and are allowed, until it is proven that they are harmful and cause damage, and then only later does the FDA pull them off the shelf, when enough people have reported heart attacks or other damage from them.