Valentines Day is approaching, and it brings to mind thoughts of beautiful flowers, delicious chocolates and LOVE.
For many of our patients in their 40’s and beyond, however, this time of year leaves them wondering just where their thoughts of love have gone. Or, if the thoughts are there, what happened to the get up and go to act on them?
For the Boys
Andropause can be a scary time for men. It is described medically as the end of male virility. Gasp. What dude wants to hear that?
What’s really going on? The brain is making less of the hormone that stimulates the testes to make testosterone, so production goes down. Sex hormone binding globulin, or SHBG, increases as well, which binds testosterone and makes blood levels even lower.
To add to that, loss in lean body mass and increase in fat mass causes an increase in estrogen secretion, which inhibits testosterone further. In other words–you’re trading one bulge for another.
For the Girls
Menopause can be an irritating time for women. It is described medically as the “end of the female’s productive life”, but the symptoms that can show up make it feel less like the end of your period’s life, and more like the end of life, period.
What’s really going on? As the ovaries age there are fewer eggs around to mature. The brain keeps trying to stimulate the ovaries to make an egg but it either doesn’t happen, or it takes a really long time. Progesterone, which is made by the mature egg, starts to fall and estrogen, which is one of the hormones required to mature the egg, just keeps climbing. This results in heavy periods, breast tenderness, hot flashes, major mood swings (AKA Keep-the-Knives-Locked-Up), and insomnia.
Once it’s all over the body should find its new balance, but sometimes it doesn’t, perpetuating the old symptoms, or creating new problems like lack of libido and vaginal dryness.
How do you figure out what’s going on?
Most hormones in the blood are bound to proteins, which serve the purpose of ferrying them around to the various cells. Bound hormones don’t have any effect – only unbound ones do.
You can test blood levels, but they only show bound, or non-active hormone levels.
Saliva tests can reveal unbound levels. This is the active form of the hormone, so we get a better look at what is going on. (Remember with andropause, for example, one of the things that happens is the binding protein increases, so that even if there is enough testosterone around, it isn’t active.)
What to do about it?
Twenty year-olds can find their mojo regardless of how much they sleep, run or eat. It’s the biological imperative, and all us 40-somethings can remember it clearly. Now that we’re making our way into middle life, however, what we do or don’t do matters a great deal.
- Exercise. Losing muscle mass and gaining fat mass takes a huge toll on testosterone levels and jacks up estrogen, both of which make for more sitting on your butt and less getting it on. Regular exercise not only battles the bulge, but it maintains the lean tissues. It also increases circulation in the extremities – and blood flow is always an important part of an intimate encounter!
- Diet. Foods that put on the pounds increase our fat stores and then increase estrogen in the body. This perpetuates the estrogen dominance in women making menopausal symptoms worse, and makes testosterone fall even further in men. Eat foods that nature makes. Lot of veggies, fruits, lean proteins, legumes and nut and seeds.
- Avoid xeno-estrogens. Plastics, pesticides, non-organic dairy – all are full of xeno-estrogens that can make the problem worse.
- Hormone Balancing. This can be done with herbs and supplements, or bioidentical hormones, and Naturopathic Doctors are trained and to help you do just that.
You can’t avoid aging altogether, but you can definitely change its pace and impact. How about for this Valentine’s Day, you give yourself the gift of getting your mojo back!