Aging - Destructive Cycles
In addition to hormonal imbalance and muscle loss due to aging, “A wide range of chemical exposures included prescribed drugs like statins, adversely impact testosterone production in men. At the same time, estrogen levels typically increase due to widespread exposures to estrogen-mimicking compounds in food, water and environmental pollutants.”1
Natural Aging + Environmental Toxins
This happens to both men & women, but the effect is greater in men!
Multiple studies since 2006 have detected a significant decline in average testosterone levels in men regardless of age to the tune of about 1% decline per year. "This means that, for example, a 65-year-old man in 2002 would have testosterone levels 15 percent lower than those of a 65-year-old in 1987."... and ..."A man born in 1970 had about 20 percent less testosterone at age 35 than a man of his father’s generation at the same age."2 Most researchers attribute this loss to estrogen mimicking toxins introduced into the environment in the form of petroleum based synthetics including plastics, fabrics, carpet, etc. In addition food can linings and preservatives and pesticides used in shipped foods are potent estrogen mimicking toxins.
These same mechanisms affect women as well causing hormonal imbalance, fat gain and muscle loss.
Maximal strength training is the most effective way to help reverse these trends. According to a Japanese study, “The muscular steroid hormone levels significantly correlated with muscle strength and size, leading the investigators to conclude that ‘progressive resistance training seems to restore muscle sex steroid hormone levels ... and may partly contribute to the increase in muscle strength and [size].’"3
Properly executed strength training can reverse osteoporosis and, in conjunction with proper nutrition, can help to reverse type II diabetes.
YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO JUST LOSE FAT!
If you just lose fat, you do not reverse the cycles or increase strength! The most effective way to reverse this cycle is to regain and increase muscle mass which increases muscular testosterone, speeds metabolism, and burns more fat reducing estrogen production to help bring balance to the hormones and improve body composition. This requires a healthy eating plan AND progressive resistance training.
SO COME BUILD SOME MUSCLE!
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1 fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/07/27/increase-testosterone-levels.aspx
2 www.globalresearch.ca/health-and-the-environment-testosterone-levels-fall-worldwide/30129, published April 2012, reviewed January 2016.
3 www.medscape.com/viewarticle/820081
Additional resources:
- Travison, TG, AB Araujo, AB O’Donnell, V Kupelian, JB McKinlay. 2007. A population-level decline in serum testosterone levels in American men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 92:196–202.
- How to increase testosterone naturally: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/01/13/testosterone-week-intro/, http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/01/18/how-to-increase-testosterone-naturally/
Image Credits:
- "Come Build Some Muscle" - images.clipartpanda.com