Just came across this article in Menâs Health:
For those that canât access, have copied some parts of the article below:
IS T THE KEY TO VITALITY?
THIS MIGHTY HORMONE IS BEING PEDDLED AS A WAY TO GET EVERYTHING YOU WANTâSTRENGTH, ENERGY, AND A HEALTHIER AND LONGER LIFE. BUT HOW MUCH TESTOSTERONE DO YOU REALLY NEED?
FOR A LONG TIME, we accepted certain changes as the price (and privilege) of getting older. Your hair turns gray. Your hearing starts to. . .wait, what was that you said? And, of course, your testosterone level drops. But with a boom in testosterone-replacement clinicsâby this point, who hasnât gotten an ad for a service offering to test your T for under $100?âand podcasts and influencers preaching the powers of hormone optimization, should guys over 40 think about winding back their T clocks? And by how much? Hereâs what to know.
T CAN HELP YOU LIVE LONGER
A SHORTAGE of testosterone is associated with a shorter life. âWe now have several decades of high-quality research showing remarkable longevity and health benefits in men with normal testosterone levels compared with men with low levels,â says Abraham Morgentaler, M.D., at Harvard Medical School and the author of Testosterone for Life. Thatâs true whether guys have healthy levels naturally or underwent testosterone-replacement therapy to bring their levels out of the low range.
T CAN MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER, TOO
FEELING YOUNG and alive often boils down to a few things, says Dr. Morgentaler: being strong, staying active, and having the energy to do the activities you enjoy. âMen with low T often lose many of those things; people say they feel old,â he adds. âNot only do men feel better with normal testosterone levels, but for a whole variety of general medical and health issues, they actually are better.â That means improvements in sexual function, physical function, and mood, according to a major study in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2016.
BUT TESTOSTERONE LEVELS DECLINE WITH AGE
A MANâS TESTOSTERONE level drops about 1 to 2 percent a year, starting around age 40. Docs generally donât prescribe T replacement unless a guyâs level is low (less than 300 ng/dL) and he has symptoms of testosterone deficiency: reduced libido, erectile dysfunction, fatigue, lack of motivation, insomnia, depression, reduced muscle mass, and weight gain.
Yet even without symptoms, men are clamoring to replace that age-related loss, because why wouldnât you want your level to be the same at 60 as it was at 30? Bradley Anawalt, M.D., a professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, echoes the reasoning of other top testosterone researchers when he says, âThe simple answer is that we do not know if it is beneficial or harmful to give testosterone to a man whose concentration drops with aging.â If your T level is in the gigantic normal range (264 to 916 ng/dL) and youâre not experiencing any low-T symptoms, itâs hard to argue that you need more of it.
âThereâs what I call a âthreshold effect.â Once youâre above it, youâre just normal; itâs hard to be more normal than normal,â says Dr. Morgentaler. âFor the most part, somebody who has normal testosterone levels will not notice anything if he takes some testosterone and goes into the upper range.â Or as Dr. Anawalt puts it, âThe difference between a level of 450 or 445 is clinically nonsense. From day to day, you can have a variation of about 10 to 20 percent, and within the day, you can have a variation of about 5 to 35 percent.â So wanting to correct for that 1 to 2 percent a year is understandable, but top researchers arenât willing to encourage you to go for it yet.
THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO PREVENT AGE-RELATED MUSCLE LOSS
ITâS TRUE that you lose muscle fibers as you get older. While testosterone increases muscle strength and mass, hormone replacement might not be able to prevent muscle-fiber loss. âIt just makes the muscle fibers that remain bigger,â says Dr. Anawalt, and itâs not certain that this has age-reversing benefits. But if you have a deficiency, T therapy can restore vitality and may help motivate you to do the workouts that will build muscle strength and mass.
HOW TO KNOW IF YOUâRE NORMAL FOR YOUR AGE
BEWARE ANYONE telling you that you, at 30, 40, 50, or even 60, have the testosterone level of a 70-year-old. There is a giant reference range regardless of age, so at 70, ânormalâ remains within a 650-point span. âIf you take 10,000 men who are 20 years old, the average testosterone might be 550 or 500,â says Dr. Anawalt. âThe average testosterone in 10,000 70-year-olds might be 380 or 400. But theyâre both in the normal range. It doesnât mean you have the testosterone of a 70-year-old when you have a testosterone of 400 at age 20.â You have a normal level for both ages.
Thereâs a movement by influencers and early adopters to stack up your level against yourself, not against other people your age. They advocate getting a baseline testosterone test early in life (or now, if you didnât do it in your 20s or 30s), so you can see how your levels compare later on. The test fee may or may not turn out to be a good investment.
WHEN NOT TO TAKE T
TESTOSTERONE THERAPY isnât recommended if you hope to start a family. When youâre on it, your body produces less T and, in turn, fewer or no sperm. Most of the time, when you stop T therapy, production returns, but not always like before.
Later this year, the results of a blockbuster testosterone trial should answer lingering questions about Tâs cardiovascular safety and benefits.
But doctors make it clear that if your level is low and youâre suffering, you can benefit from increasing it. In other words, the benefit-to-risk ratio is favorable when you treat the right people (those with testosterone deficiency). âTestosterone has a bad rap,â says Dr. Morgentaler, as itâs been associated with bodybuilders and cheating athletes. Yet there are years of data on it; itâs been on the market since the 1930s.
Just make sure low T is whatâs causing your symptoms. Weight gain, fatigue, ED, and lack of motivation and concentration all have other causes. And obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol use, and a lack of sleep may also be responsible for low testosterone. Manage those and you may be able to naturally raise your testosterone level and improve the number and the quality of the years ahead. After all: âIf you have a garden with a bunch of overgrown weeds, planting more flowers is not necessarily going to make for a more beautiful garden,â Dr. Anawalt says. âYou need to actually get rid of the problem.â
