I’ve learned many things as I’ve studied physiology.
One thing I’ve learned is that men today often have estrogen levels that are too high.
Remember, both men and women need testosterone and estrogen.
There’s no such thing as a hormone that is just for men or just for women.
So women need testosterone, and men need estrogen.
But what if men have too much estrogen?
There can be many consequences of having too much estrogen.
In fact, there is a list of possible symptoms that is impressive, long, and discouraging:
In my findings, the list is even longer.
You can add low motivation, excess belly fat, any enlarged prostate to this list.
You can also include a much higher chance of getting cancer, including prostate cancer, and diabetes.
The estrogen hormone is designed to speed up the growth of tissues.
Women who are pregnant need high amounts of estrogen.
The reason for this is is to support their growing fetus.
The fetus is busily creating all those tissues that will become organs and appendages.
But estrogen is also very damaging.
This unrestrained growth of cells leads to runaway unorganized cell growth.
That’s why estrogen is a cancer-causing hormone.
In this study, they looked at three males.
They looked at a seven-year old boy, his father, and a teenaged boy unrelated to the other two.
The man (the father) had undergone early puberty and had gynecomastia.
At age 16, he had had his breasts reduced.
Now, his son was going through similar problems.
All three males were low in testosterone and high in estrogen.
What the study shows is unexpected.
The researchers found was that when estrogen levels get higher, the body turns more testosterone into even more estrogen.
It’s as if the body tries to raise estrogen levels even further.
Testosterone is turned into estrogen by the enzyme called aromatase.
So as part of the study, the researchers gave the three males an aromatase inhibitor.
An aromatase inhibitor shuts off this enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen.
The study also included a so-called “control”.
The control was a man of 63 years old with normal estrogen and normal testosterone levels.
This allowed the researchers to make comparisons.
And they found that the testosterone levels rose to normal levels for those taking the aromatase inhibitor.
What’s most interesting is what happened to their luteinizing hormone.
Luteinizing hormone is a signal from the pituitary to tell the adrenal gland and the testicles to produce more testosterone.
When the body is high in estrogen, luteinizing hormone is often low.
And yet, luteinizing hormone should rise, when testosterone is low.
Luteinizing hormone should tell the testicles to produce more testosterone.
Except they don’t when the body has high estrogen levels.
At least, this is the case with some men.
In the case of these three males, all three had similar results when the aromatase inhibitor kicked in.
All three males experienced lower estrogen, higher testosterone, and higher luteinizing hormone.
Essentially their hormone levels became normal.
What does this tell us about raising testosterone levels, if your estrogen is too high?
Most men have testosterone levels that are okay.
Very few men have testosterone levels that are truly low.
Maybe 1% or less have these truly low levels.
Even aging men have normal testosterone levels.
Yet far more than 1% of men have issues the medical community attributes to low testosterone.
An example is that most men with lowered sexual function are treated for low testosterone.
But what interferes with sexual function is not low testosterone, but high estrogen.
High estrogen also causes a host of other health problems.
These problems include inflammation in the prostate, belly fat, and metabolic problems such as diabetes.
It is certainly possible that you can lower your estrogen levels by going to the doctor and getting an aromatase inhibitor.
But aromatase inhibitors have side effects.
These side effects can be pretty severe.
I don’t think I would want to be on one for a long time.
The good news is that there are other means of lowering estrogen and raising testosterone.
There are natural methods that don’t require a prescription.
Diet, supplementation, and reasonable levels of activity are great methods which don’t have negative side effects.
These can go a long way to reducing estrogen, raising testosterone, and raising luteinizing hormone.
Citations
Signs and Symptoms of High Estrogen
http://www.healthline.com/health/high-estrogen#Inmen3
Estrogen Excess Associated with Novel Gain-of-Function Mutations Affecting the Aromatase Gene
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021559#t=articleDiscussion
See this for more on Symptoms of High Estrogen and see more on Men’s Health, and for more information see effects of Estrogen