578. Low Testosterone Levels in Men

THE DOCTOR IS IN Podcast


Dr. Martin discusses how men are extremely low in testosterone in today’s podcast.

He shares how men can optimize their testosterone levels through diet, vitamin D, and exercise. As Dr. Martin likes to say, “Sun, steak, and steel.”

Listen to this episode to learn about this near epidemic!

TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE

Announcer:  You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.

Dr. Martin:  Well, good morning, everyone. And once again, welcome to another live this morning. Okay. So let me read to you this study as we get going this morning. And, ladies, I'm glad you're on because you need to hear this. It's about your hubby. Okay? Most of the time I focus on women's issues. Not that we don't talk about men. Of course, we do. But men, I always tease men because they're usually not as interested in health like women. And that just happens to be a fact. Now, we have a lot of men on our program on a daily basis and we sure appreciate every one of them. 

But I've got to talk to you. I'm going to give you a headline in the last 20 to 30 years. Okay. This is out of the University of Virginia is that low testosterone, low testosterone, this is from the University of Virginia, low testosterone has become an epidemic amongst men. Now, that's not a good thing. That's not a good thing. Men need testosterone and they need lots of it. The higher a man's testosterone, the better a man feels, and it's for every part of the body for men. Testosterone has to be high in a man. Otherwise you will not do well. Okay. And the University of Virginia is saying it's a big issue today, and we're going to talk about that this morning about the low levels of testosterone in men. It is an epidemic today.

And like I said, testosterone, and I'm speaking to the ladies too, so not for your levels of testosterone, but for the man in your life, I'm talking to you about his low levels of testosterone. Not good for the heart. Not good for the brain. Not good for sex life. Not good for you name it. Testosterone is an important hormone. Just like estrogen is important for women. Now, the problem in women is not low estrogen. And we've talked about this quite a few times, and that is, they usually estrogen dominance even in menopausal years. Okay. Even in their menopausal years as well. "Oh doc, my estrogen must be going down." Yeah, it's gone down compared to what it used to be, but it's an imbalance anyways. And it can be still estrogen dominance. But in a man, he only really has to worry about testosterone.

The problem in men, they usually, and this is the fact that after the age of 50, a lot of men have more estrogen than their wives. That can't be right. It's not right. It's craziness. So this morning we want to talk about testosterone. Why is it that we're seeing such a decrease in testosterone. I was reading the other day and I've got to go find it so that I can show you exactly the study that is showing by the year 2050 I think that study was showing that they're estimating that men will not have any more and not just testosterone but the ability of their sperm. And I mean, these people were dead serious about the science of you don't have to worry about birth control, they were saying, because men have such low sperm counts that they estimated by the year 2050 that you're not going to be able to have children anymore. Not because of the women, but because of men have been very, very low sperm counts. I think it's down 25, 30% in the last 10 years.

Anyways, I'll go find that study. I read it a few weeks ago and I flagged it. It's craziness, guys. We live in a world that is so different, so different, and men are not men anymore because they have no testosterone. I brought you this study maybe a few months ago that in terms of erectile dysfunction, it's 50% of men over the age of 40. And I don't know if you guys remember when I did that study, but I was saying, why didn't I invest in the companies like Pfizer that were making the little blue pill? Do you know that the patent ran out on it in the United States at least, and I think Canada's the same. They give a patent to the pharmaceutical company.

Well, you can imagine why they have to do that. I mean, why would a pharmaceutical company create any kind of medication and then not have a patent on it? Because everybody would knock it off. And they had 20 years. Pfizer had 20 years of a patent on the little blue pill and companies couldn’t knock them off. They had to come up with something else, but not the same. And now today that patent has run out. And so there was a rush. But all I'm saying is, guys, all I'm saying is it's crazy. This is dead serious, men. And this is what makes a man so susceptible to heart disease. Low levels of testosterone really affect the cardiovascular system but especially the heart. Heart needs testosterone. The heart needs testosterone.

Now, I'm going to bring you several reasons why this is happening in the world today. Okay? Why are men much less men than they used to be? And of course, you know me, I am going to emphasize the diet. Of course I am, but I want to talk to you about even medications, the side effects of medication. Okay? Because this was a study carried out at the University of Virginia, and there's many a drug that men take that affects their testosterone level. Okay? So I just wanted to emphasize this at first because this is the study that was showing that in the last 20 to 30 years, the testosterone in men has really, really gone down. It's tumbled big time.

You see, in your body, testosterone is carried by albumin. Okay? I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Albumin is a carrier of testosterone, but when you take certain medications, albumin will carry these medications through your bloodstream like blood thinners, like warfarin, blood thinners. A lot of people are on blood thinners. If you have any risk of stroke or heart attack, a lot of times men need to take, ladies too, obviously, but they will put you on a blood thinner. Blood thinners get carried through your bloodstream by albumin. So does testosterone. That is a problem because if your albumin is carrying a medication and not testosterone, you're going to get a whammo to the testosterone levels. And this is really important for men.

Antibiotics, certain antibiotics will get carried. You wonder how when you an antibiotic or you take a blood thinner, whatever, how does that get through your bloodstream and gets carried? Albumin is a carrier. Antibiotics, heart medications like dioxins, anti anxiety meds like lorazepam, nonsteroidal antiinflammatories like Aleve, Naproxen, which is Aleve, and Advil. So people that live on this stuff. They've got pain, they might have arthritis. They might have an old injury and they live on this stuff. Well, that's not good for testosterone levels. They get carried. Even allergy medication like Benadryl gets carried through your bloodstream by albumin, and albumin carries testosterone for men. So this is just one of the studies, but let me go into a little bit of a deeper dive today as we look at testosterone and why it's so low? Okay. Why is it so low? So one of them is medications. Okay. And this was the study that I flagged, but now we're going to go into a little bit deeper dive of low testosterone in men.

Now, ladies, you need a little bit of testosterone. Okay? But let me just say this, that sometimes women will ask me a question about, "Doc, why am I growing hair underneath my chin? Or even a little bit of a mustache for women? Isn't that testosterone?" Yes, it is. But that's not what's going on. It's not because your testosterone although it is happening in a woman, testosterone going up, but why? Estrogen dominance. Too much estrogen will do that. And I'm going to do probably this week we're going to go into the unholy trinity for women, the thyroid, the adrenals, and the ovaries. Okay. I call that the unholy trinity because it ain't fun when those things are messed up and they're very much connected in women. Okay. So yes, ladies, testosterone, you need some, but I'm not too worried about that. If you can balance out the other things, you will be fine. Okay.

But let's hammer in on the men today because this is a serious issue. This is a serious issue. Men don't have enough testosterone. They really don't. They're not men anymore. They often have more estrogen than their wives. So, men, listen up and ladies, because a lot of times men don't listen. I always tease women. Listen, Linda, listen. But you girls listen. It's the men that generally don't listen. How do I know that? I'm a man. Okay. We're stubborn. Oh, it's unbelievable. And I always laugh because when men would come into the office, and this is just general. There was obviously lots of exceptions. But when men would come into the office, and I go, "Okay, how you doing?" "Oh good." "Oh, what's the matter?" "Nothing." "Why are you here?" "My wife." I mean, you wouldn't believe how many thousands of times I heard that over 46 years of practice. Okay? Men. Oh, nothing. What's wrong? Nothing. You got any problems? No, no. I got no problems.

Of course, I was the closer at the office. So by the time they saw me, they'd had all their testing done and I said, "Man, you got lots wrong with you." And then they'd look at me like what? I said, "Well, you got no testosterone. And you got this and you got that. And they'd look at me like I had two heads. Oh men, men, stubborn, stubborn. Okay. So why do men have low levels of testosterone? It could be meds. We talked about that. Numero two, numero deux, age. But now you see when men had low levels of testosterone at 80 years old, well, okay, part of life. But today, like I said, even in ED which is low levels and it's microcirculation too and we can go into that, but men have just generally as they age, they're going to have lower levels of testosterone and they need to do something about that. Aging has an effect on that obviously, obviously. Okay.

One of the biggest problems in men when they have low levels of testosterone is because they have what we call adipose tissue. You know what that is. Fat. You see the problem with fat is fat is like an organ onto itself. So I always tell people, you've seen me with five pounds of fat in my hands. That's a lot of fat. Five pounds of fat is a huge amount of fat. And so people that are doing the Reset and they get really frustrated is because they're only looking at one measurement and that's the scale. You know what? The Reset was never meant to be strictly a weight loss program because it's doing so many other things. But if that's all you're measuring, you're going to be disappointed, especially you ladies.

But when you see fat like a belly fat on a man, that belly fat is releasing a hormone. You know what hormone it's releasing? Estrogen, estrogen. See, that's not good for a man. That fat releases estrogen. Estrogen makes you a woman. You have fat cells releases estrogen. Estrogen, it's a woman's hormone. And even ladies, like I said, you don't need any extra. You got a lot of extra. You got estrogen. Every chemical in the universe looks like estrogen to your body. So we live in a world that's completely different, and this is why when doctors live in the past, it's like you ever seen someone that looks like Elvis? Long sideburns. They dye their hair black and they wear bell-bottoms. They think they're Elvis. Elvis died. Elvis died. Okay.

But what I'm saying is, doctors live so often in the past and you can't get them to change their mind. So they're still giving women estrogen. You're in menopause. Therefore you need estrogen. The problem with estrogen, it's dangerous. You already got too much estrogen. You already got too much estrogen. That's why I don't like estrogen. I don't like estrogen because you need it, but you already got lots. You got to balance out estrogen. Okay? So when you have increased body fat, you've been making more estrogen. That's what body fat does.

Oxidative damage will decrease your testosterone. Oxidative damage to the body. Aging, premature aging, premature aging, poor nutrition. Like the seed oils, vegetable oils cause oxidative damage. That's one of its biggest things in inflammation. It's a double edged sword. So when you're eating these crappy carbohydrates, it really increases oxidative damage rusting out of the cells. And now your testosterone will sink men like the Titanic. It will sink. Okay. 

And here's another one because this comes back to diet. When a man is a bad eater, 100% for sure he is going to make fat in the liver. Fatty liver is a real problem in our society today. What are they saying with kids today? Fifty percent of kids who already have a start of fatty liver because the liver is a suitcase. The liver is the Costco parking lot. It gets full crappy carbohydrates. When your cells can't take it anymore, guess what happens? Your body stores carbohydrates sugars as fat in the liver.

What does that have to do with testosterone? Because fat in the liver, remember the liver does 600 things. Your liver does 600 things. You cannot live without your liver. You can't live without a liver. It's one of the fastest growing cancers is liver cancer, not just pancreatic cancer, which used to be an old man's cancer. They used to say that. Pancreatic cancer was an old man's cancer. Not anymore. And one of the biggest cancers that is exploding is liver cancer.

But let me get back to the liver. In the liver, remember you need cholesterol. Cholesterol is a transporter and a builder of your hormones. Testosterone needs cholesterol even to be made. Like I always say, God don't trust you. He doesn't trust you. You won't eat enough cholesterol and especially in this day and age. Oh doc, eggs, how many eggs can I eat? A hundred a week? Yeah. A hundred a week if you want. Yeah. But isn't that going to elevate my cholesterol? Yeah. That's what I'm aiming for because you need cholesterol for your hormones, including testosterone. You need your liver to produce testosterone. It happens in the liver. I mean, a lot of it is. Okay? I don't want to get into the weeds too much.

But I'm just telling you, you need your liver to be working properly. And if it's full of fat, if your triglycerides are high... Somebody sent me their blood work the other day. It didn't have triglycerides or HDL. I said, "Well, get me your triglycerides and your HDL if you want me to give you a good comment on your blood work. I want to see that. I need to see your lipid profile because that tells me a whole story." The vast majority of people, especially men, are upside down when it comes to their HDL, their cholesterol and their triglycerides. Very dangerous. But where does all that start? In that diet and it gets processed in the liver. When the suitcases bowl or the Costco parking lot is full, your body's going to send that fat, not only making extra estrogen, but it's going to send that fat into the bloodstream as triglycerides, which is very, very dangerous. And we showed you the connection in the last few weeks, not only for heart disease. Triglycerides are extremely dangerous for your brain. Blood clots in the brain. So triglycerides, okay.

So when you have metabolic syndrome, and this is a big problem with men, the vast majority of men have several signs of metabolic syndrome. We know that to be a fact because 88% of the population is unwell metabolically and a higher percentage of that. I mean, there's only 12% of the population that is healthy. It's crazy, but this is really affecting. So when you have elevated blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, low HDL and belly fat, you've got men with metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome means you're going to have just about invariably, you're going to have low levels of T, low T.

You see, men should have optimized T levels, testosterone. It should be optimized, not normal. Because people said, "Well, doc, I had my testosterone tested and it's normal." Well, you don't want to be normal with testosterone. You want to be optimized. I'm an optimizer. Call me Doc Optimizer because I want your vitamin D levels to be optimized. I want your vitamin B12 levels to be optimized, not normal. And I want your testosterone to be optimized. That's when you'll do the best. That's when your heart will do well. That's when your brain will do well. That's when your muscles will do well. That's when your bones will do well. Men, when you have optimized testosterone levels, that's what you aim for optimized. So let's get there. Let's talk about in the next few minutes how to optimize your testosterone.

Obviously you start with the diet. This is one of the reasons for Reset for men. It will optimize your testosterone levels as you decrease the amount of estrogen in a man's body. This was one of the reasons for the Reset. Eggs, meat, and cheese. The higher your protein levels are the higher, your fat levels are in food, not in your body, but in food, the better your testosterone will be. The more cholesterol you eat. And remember cholesterol is only found in the animal kingdom. So men, you start with the diet, okay?

Here's another thing essential for men. Vitamin D levels need to be optimized for a man to have the proper testosterone levels. Vitamin D and testosterone. Yes. The sun. You see, you know me. Sun, steak, and steel. Vitamin D is important in the manufacturing of testosterone. Steak. Steak. Man. I usually don't have to coax a man to eat steak. I have to coax women, but not men. But my doctor said that I got to be careful. I got no cholesterol. No, you don't have to be careful. You need to eat more steak and get more sun. And then third, vitamin E and especially, there's nothing better men for testosterone than steel, strength, strength. That's important. You need to have good levels of testosterone for everything, men, and start in the stinking gym. I was showing people even resistance bands, but you got to do it. You got to do it consistently at least three to four days a week, men. You don't have to spend hours at the gym. You don't. Fifteen, twenty minutes, three to four times a week will get your testosterone levels way the heck up. But you got to do it. It's not easy. You can't just talk about it. Can't just talk about it. These things are important. Okay?

Guess what helps with testosterone, men? Coffee. Yeah. You know why? It's a powerful antioxidant. Already talked to you about oxidative damage. How that lowers testosterone in men. Drink coffee. There was a new study out. I'll just read it to you because you guys will think that I only do positive studies on coffee. Let me read this to you. Okay. This came out on the weekend. Moderate consumption of coffee between one and six cups. Okay. People ask me, "How much coffee, doc, should I drink?" As much as you like. Well, look, I like about four cups a day. That's me. Okay. And that's what I think is really good. One to 6.5 Cups, let me read this study, is associated with all lower cause mortality and cancer. See guys? Because someone posted yesterday on our private Facebook group, that coffee... They bring out studies. There's studies on the negativity of coffee, but it's overwhelming now the evidence.

And I've been consistent, guys, 40 years. And plus I'm telling you that coffee was good for you. Always said it. And when people, a lot of my guru friend, no, no coffee, that's bad for you. It's acidic. It's not acidic. Coffee's not acidic. Not when you drink it. Coffee is acidic when you don't consume it. The only thing that's acidic in your body is sugar. Sugar is very acidic, and your body can't manipulate it to make it alkaline. But when you drink coffee, your body switches it to make it alkaline. How do you like that? It releases baking soda. How do you like that? Yeah, you don't have to go buy baking soda, guys. Your body makes it, sodium bicarbonate. Oh, testosterone. Keep your liver clean. Sun, steak, and steel, men. And you need three weeks to form a habit. So start forming good habits today. Okay. Ladies, give them a kick in the butt. They deserve it. Okay. I'm giving you permission. Okay.

Love you, guys. We got some great studies this week. We'll look at them and I think you'll really find them enjoyable. Okay. So if you're not a member of the Martin Clinic Facebook group, join and get your friends to join, get your family to join. What a community. We love it. Okay. We love the discussions in there. The vast majority of the time I don't have to go in there at all and say a word. You guys already know this. I'm preaching to the choir here. I love it. The Reset, numero uno on the hit parade. You guys are great. We appreciate it. So that book is available. What a great gift it makes. The gift of health. Easy to understand and easy read. Okay. I'm a simple guy. I try and keep it as simple as I can. Okay. And so remember, Friday is Question and Answer. So send in your questions. Okay. We love you guys. We'll talk to you soon.

Announcer:  You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!

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