Battling Age - Low Testosterone
Time flies. You mind feels like you’re twenty-five but the body is acting funny. It seems incredible that you might be aging. They always said life slows down, right? While it’s true that aging causes a characteristic lack of energy, there might be other problems that are making you feel old even in your forties. Having low testosterone is one issue that leaves you utterly lifeless.
Symptoms
The symptoms of low testosterone are easy to notice.
• You suddenly realize that you’ve been losing muscle at an unnatural rate—over a period of 2-3 weeks.
• The waist-line feels flabbier even though you haven’t really changed your exercise routine that much.
• You feel tired even after getting consistently good sleep.
• You might feel depressed, like life is a little too demanding.
• Low libido makes you feel even more depressed.
• Some men also deal with type-2 diabetes, obesity, coronary artery disease and high blood pressure on account of low testosterone levels.
Sound familiar? Many of these are common in older men because testosterone levels naturally decrease with age. From your twenties, your testosterone levels have been dropping 1-2 per cent every year.
Controversy about Low Testosterone
Since having decreasing levels of testosterone is part of aging, experts are still in two minds about whether low testosterone is a disease or a normal aging pattern. There are no real positive effects of low testosterone but increasing testosterone levels through treatment does have some serious side-effects on the prostate and heart. So the questions that we are trying to answer are:
1. When should you seek testosterone replacement therapy (TRT)?
Keep your doctor informed about how you are feeling and get regular blood tests to keep a tab on your testosterone levels. If they drop below 300ng/dL, your doctor will probably recommend TRT. There are many forms of TRT and under the care of a physician you trust, you can reduce the side-effects to a great extent.
2. What can you do to increase testosterone levels naturally?
If your levels are not quite low enough for TRT but low enough that you feel most of the symptoms of low testosterone, you can do these 3 things:
o Eat testosterone increasing foods: Lean meats, eggs and many other foods have been shown to increase levels of testosterone when you eat them. If you have cholesterol problems, then you should research which foods will not raise cholesterol levels but positively affect testosterone levels.
o Supplements that are natural like Ageless Male that contains the extract of fenugreek seed can be powerful in increasing your levels of free testosterone without causing side-effects. It also gives you more energy and you can read more about its benefits in Ageless Male supplement reviews. Supplements that use natural ingredients like these have varying effects on different people but you might be surprised how effective they are.
o Exercise: Exercise, especially lifting weights, signals your body to create more testosterone. So even if you don’t feel up to it, force yourself for a while and later you’ll want to get a good work-out into your day.
Keep all these things in mind as you age and you will find yourself on the winning side of low testosterone.
