Hormone replacement therapies. What is my opinion? That’s what Jon asked below…
What is your stance on pharmaceutical grade TRT and HGH and why? I am 28 and have no intention of taking TRT until early to mid 40s but I imagine I will take small daily or weekly doses of TRT and get montly bloodwork done in my 40’s and continue that until the day I die to have a high quality of life. I am split on HGH as in theory it seems small doses from a young age can preserve youth until the day you die. What are your thoughts on taking pharmaceutical grade TRT and HGH for quality of life (not bodybuilding) prescribed by an american doctor and getting monthly bloodwork done to prevent abuse? -Jon
I do think hormone replacement has its place.
First of all, it must be bioidentical. TRT is. So is HGH that is used. So for men we’re in a pretty good place.
It wasn’t always that way for women and basically we learned that non-bioidentical hormones were and are fraught with problems.
It seems the trend is for younger and younger people to get on that stuff.
I know some 30 year olds that do it. Waiting until 40’s, I guess, is better than that but I was under the impression that hormone replacement was an old man thing to do.
And I never like the idea that you need to continue to do it the rest of your life. That’s a good model for the person that sells the stuff! Instead I see its benefits being in more limited approaches as a jump-start.
Here is the way I look at it.
We all hear that “Testosterone goes down with age.”
I’m beginning to suspect that that is not really true. Here’s what I mean…
As my friend Peter Ragnar says, “Time is not toxic.” I love that quote.
It is not that you have aged, so much as what happens over that time.
Small amounts of toxicity, xeno-estrogens for instance, can build up over time because of the environment and what you do or don’t do.
In turn, testosterone goes down.
Small amounts of deficiency can build up over time, like a sub-clinical chronic deficiency of zinc for instance, once again because of what you do and or don’t do and the environment you interact in.
In turn, testosterone goes down.
It’s not the time itself but what occurs during it.
As a human being, as a natural part of life, we are meant to be healthy. This is our gift of life.
AND we are responsible for it. We must be a wise caretaker.
If you are, then there is no reason you cannot be healthy and vibrant into old age. We are meant to be healthy elders as well, and that surely means in “middle-age” too.
Hormone health is one part of that.
Just because we don’t see many examples of it living today doesn’t mean it isn’t our inheritance.
(An analogy is like those trust-fund babies that blow their money and never learn to contribute. You can blow any health inheritance just the same.)
But I’m still young is what many people would say. As of writing this I am nearing my 31st year. So who am I to talk?
Well, I simply like to look at prime examples of people healthy in their old age.
They do exist!
Guess what? Their hormones are doing just fine without replacement needed.
My point to all of this is that if you DO THE RIGHT THINGS you won’t need hormone injections.
If you really feel that you need hormones injected from the outside for quality of life that is up to you. You and anyone else is free to make that choice and I hope it goes well for you if you do.
Personally I would rather take the steps needed to trigger my body to produce everything it needs from within. I cover exactly what I do on a daily basis to do that in Upgrade your Testosterone.
A hormone injection is at best a band-aid approach.
A band-aid is placed over the wound. It doesn’t heal the body. It doesn’t really do much except cover the wound.
The human body is what heals.
Yes injections can come with many benefits. You feel better. Your libido and ability to perform improves. Muscle mass goes up. And much more.
Yet injection of a hormone is like a band-aid. It raises the level of a hormone. And then what?
The body adapts to that raised level.
In most cases TRT becomes less effective over time. Why? The body alters things like converting enzymes, binding globulins, and cell receptor sites.
You haven’t fixed anything, just introduced something new to the system.
Yet hormones never work in isolation. I like to use the phrase “A Symphony of Hormones” to describe it.
We raise one up and expect everything else to follow suit. That’s a stretch at best…
Imagine you have a symphony and then just bring in 10 new saxophones. That’ll change things up for sure.
And sure, done best, lab tests will be done regularly, and everything monitored to make sure it’s working right, and then adapting to the body adapting to it.
So what then? A Doctor gives you a drug to limit aromatase so that testosterone doesn’t convert into estrogen, which occurs much more when you inject T into your body. Well, now you’ve just caused a whole host of other adaptations within the body too.
Let’s contrast that to a more natural approach.
If you do the right kind of strength training, it doesn’t just increase testosterone. Cortisol is affected. So is HGH. Who knows all the hundreds of changes that causes in the human body?
We know some, but you can bet we don’t know it all.
If you eat a natural food like oysters (super high in zinc, critical for testosterone in so many ways), well it’s not just about the zinc. They’re also a great source of selenium, a great cancer-fighting antioxidant. And so on and so forth.
Who knows everything that’s in the oyster (or any other high quality natural food) that will affect hormones?
You know who knows? The body.
This amazing endocrine system we have that exists.
Why don’t we learn how to work with our body and our hormones as an ally to the best of our ability?
Instead of saying my conscious-Western-mind is much smarter than it so I’m going to override its controls.
Lastly, I’ll mention this. Medical science isn’t as flawless as we tend to think it is.
In his question Jon stated, “I am split on HGH as in theory it seems small doses from a young age can preserve youth until the day you die.”
Yeah, so are so many other people too on if that’s a good idea or not. This science of injecting hormones is still largely in its infancy. There are certainly no long-term human trials…
That is my opinion.
And Upgrade Your Testosterone is my plan.
Feel free to learn my natural approach and adapt it to you and your body. And over the years, like I just did, I will be revising and adding to this.
Hormones are chemical messengers in the body. Injecting a bunch of messengers into your body seems like an odd message to me.
Why not just send the right messages to your body and they’ll take care of producing hormones?
Comments
I am 57 and have never had any blood work done to check my testosterone. That would require going to a doctor, and I haven’t done that in about 25 years. My body tells me what it needs. I do know that I don’t have a low testosterone count. If I did, the Tongkat Ali wouldn’t have the effect it has upon me that it does. I’ve been a customer here for nearly a year now, and am still working on the perfect balance of herbs. But I don’t see that happening. Our bodies change their needs over time, and there is no single herb that will be “the one” for our entire life. While Lost Empire Herbs does provide the essential core of my herbal supplies, I try to make sure my total diet is healthy and varied and as nutrient dense as possible. It seems like a lot of work to a lot of people, but once you’ve learned how to listen to your body, all you’re doing is eating what you want to eat. It’s just that all you want to eat are healthy foods. And of course, diet is just part of it all. Living well is only hard when you are learning how to live well. After that, it’s the most natural thing in the world. The only reason it’s hard to begin with, is because we’ve been raised in a society that doesn’t appreciate common sense in how to live.