The Importance of Testosterone to Aging Men

American endocrinologists have drawn a thick line with the idea that older men can remain vital through testosterone therapy. In their study, so many dangerous side effects of testosterone came to light that the researchers had to stop their trial prematurely.

When men have passed forty, their testosterone levels decrease every year by one and a half percent. According to proponents of testosterone therapy sooner or later the testosterone level becomes so low that muscles and bones become less strong and men become susceptible to depression and impotence. The cure? Synthetic steroids Canada men frequently take. Maybe not be such a very good idea, according to this study.

Prostate problems?

A much larger group of doctors has difficulty with that reasoning. Their main argument since the fifties has been that testosterone in old age is a driver of prostate cancer. That has can’t prevent pharmaceutical companies from hitting hard since the nineties working on new testosterone preparations based on patches and gels. Though the popular media likes to report on the positive effects of these preparations have never actually been studied and testosterone is safe for older men. The dozens of studies that have been conducted so far are not suitable for this. They are small and short-term – and almost always paid for by makers of testosterone preparations.

Relying on Tiom

The U.S. government, in the form of the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, wanted to be above water once and for all about whether testosterone therapy is safe or not, and therefore funded the TIOM trial. TIOM stands for Testosterone in Older Men with Mobility Limitations. In that study, 125 unhealthy men over the age of 65 use a gel with testosterone for six months. An equally large group would receive a placebo.

On New Year’s Eve 2009, the researchers broke off the trial. Their research was not yet finished, but it was now clear that the elderly are completely wrongly responded to the male hormone. The likelihood of strokes, heart attacks, chest pain, clogged blood vessels, high blood pressure, fainting, and others’ cardiac incidents’ was 4 to 5 times higher in the men in the testosterone group than in the placebo group. There was even a testosterone user who died.

The researchers, therefore, come to the conclusion that testosterone makes older men who struggle with their health even unhealthier.

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Parent on Own Strength

For men who for whatever reason have their testosterone levels, fortunately, there are non-pharmacological alternatives. As it turns out studies, to begin with, that older men and middle-aged men have more testosterone as they grow eat healthier, more and sleep better and a Lower BMI have. If you want to know more precisely: for men with sleep deprivation means that an extra hour of sleep increases testosterone levels by 12-15 percent, and for men with average muscle mass, their testosterone level is optimal with a BMI from 22-23.

And then there are sports. In most studies, strength training in the long run the testosterone level of men. In some studies that increase by as many as 40 percent.