We have gotten away from the biology-the actual science that in any other debate would be looked at as gospel. Today’s culture has the idea that men and women are the same. Biologically, I will prove to you beyond a scientific doubt, there is no way a man and woman can think the same. Of course they can agree, but that’s not what we’re talking about. I’m saying they aren’t actually thinking the same way. It’s virtually impossible. It’s physically impossible! There is just no way. There is no way my wife and I could think the same. Do you want to know why? Because we are biologically different. Here, I can prove it to you guys. Let’s say I inject your wife with synthetic hormones. I guarantee within a week she will think differently. Do you know why? Because it will alter her brain. The same thing if we take a guy and inject him with a ton of testosterone. He’s going to think differently very shortly. Do you want to know why? Lots of testosterone is going to affect his brain also. Ladies, you know this. Your hormones change throughout the month. Your mental pattern changes throughout the month. It’s a good thing for a normal functioning body. Don’t feel bad about it. It is what your body was born to do! Men’s and women’s hormones aren’t designed to make us operate the same. Hormones are what make us who we are. It’s what makes a man a man and a woman a woman. We are so dramatically, biologically different, but we are trying to force men to be women and women to be men. And now, as a result, we are seeing consequences in their health.
Maybe, just maybe, men and women need to understand why they are different.
What’s tragic is that this goes beyond health and impacts our relationships. There are two things I see all over the country: very sick women (and men too) and very disappointed women. Whether we realize it or not, our health can play a significant role in our relationships. Divorce is on the rise, and so is cancer, depression, and chronic illness. Could there be a reason or correlation? Maybe, just maybe, men and women need to understand why they are different.
I started speaking about this all from the physical aspect; but it became so much more when I heard from people whose health was improving. Women would say, “Hey Doc, I’m psychologically better and more in love with my husband, my marriage is so much better.” Men would come up to me all excited, “I have a better sex drive and energy levels. My marriage is better!” That’s how my Hormone Connection seminar got started.
Once you change your thinking, we are ten steps closer to changing your health.
As patients started to see healthy results, they also had really positive side effects. How incredible is that? Marriages were being saved! When I started to get them physically healthy, their mentality changed, which resulted in their relationships getting better. As soon as you learn this information, it changes your thinking. Once you change your thinking, we are ten steps closer to changing your health.
One night after a seminar, a man came up to me and said, “I wish I would have known this forty years ago. I would have treated my wife differently.” That’s huge! When both men and women understand the concepts I teach, a relationship can change direction. Here’s the key: You have to understand how hormones work. They will dictate the physical and mental aspects of the body. Don’t believe me? Keep reading and let me prove it to you!
Even though we highly recommend bringing your spouse to the Hormone Connection seminar, one of the most frequent comments I always hear from women after a seminar is, “I wish my husband would have been here to hear this too!” When both spouses are on the same page it makes caring for their health so much easier. When a patient comes into my office, I prefer to meet with couples. It makes the most sense. When both partners hear the message from the same source, there will be less confusion and we will be able to communicate more clearly. Also, it will help the person we are most focusing on to have a support person. Often there are real and practical steps the support person can do to help our patient. That’s why I’ve written this book as if I’m speaking to both men and women even though I know that women make approximately 95% of the healthcare decisions.
Understanding those who are different helps us understand ourselves even more.
If the wife gets this approach and she shares it with her husband, they will start an amazing process of getting healthy and having a happier marriage together. But wait—I’m not excluding you singles out there. This book is still for you! You can learn more about yourself and learn about others too. It’s handy to know about both genders in work and life. Understanding those who are different helps us understand ourselves even more. After all, knowing someone and understanding someone are two totally different things.
So, let’s start breaking this down. In my seminars, I often ask women what they want in a man. I hear things like:
Compassionate, kind, a good listener, thoughtful, gentle
Ladies, I think I may have found the problem. You aren’t looking for a man, what you just described is another woman! When you understand the basic biological differences in our hormones, you understand the simple fact remains that men and women are very different to their core. No matter what media and Hollywood would have us think today, we aren’t the same, and it has little to do with the clothes we prefer to wear. A man can’t be a woman and a woman can’t be a man. There will be so much less confusion in this world once we get over the notion of “gender confusion.”
Remember when I talked about how easy it was for kids to play together before puberty? That’s because at that time their hormone levels are roughly the same. So, let’s say a child hits puberty and their gender-specific hormones haven’t ’kicked in’, resulting in what some label ’gender confusion’—this means they are SICK! They aren’t an opposite gender trapped in the wrong body; their hormones are way off and not communicating with the rest of the body properly.
A hormone is just a chemical messenger.
To understand the difference between the sexes we must understand hormones. What is a hormone? It’s a group of specialized chemical messengers that make up the whole endocrine system. Each hormone has a special message. A hormone doesn’t really do anything on its own. It’s released by a gland like the pituitary, ovary or testicle. That hormone goes to another cell and tells it what to do. But it doesn’t really do anything other than act as a communicator. Then it breaks down and gets reabsorbed. A hormone is just a chemical messenger. When people say, “I’m crabby. My hormones are off.” What does that mean? It means the messenger is off. You know that saying, “Don’t blame the messenger?”
Don’t blame the messenger if something is off in your body. It’s not the messenger’s fault that something is triggering stress in your body. It’s just telling the body the message it was given by the glands as to how the body can adapt. If the adrenals are stressed, that will impact the messenger. This can happen in all areas of your body impacting various messengers that help the different systems of the body function. Everything from digestion to reproduction or thinking to growth.
Men and women have different glands and different messengers. Don’t blame me for biology! I’m just the messenger here. This isn’t my opinion. It’s the physiological makeup of males and females. We need to really get into hormones to understand how they make us different. Since guys are the simplest, we are going to talk about how they work first. Once we figure out men, it will be a lot easier to understand women. You thought it was hard? This guy figured it out, and if I can, so can you! So, what makes a guy work? Keep reading.
CHAPTER 6
Why is He so Confident?
Testosterone is what makes a man who he is, but there is so much that goes into it.
Why am I so confident? Because I have made sure the primary source of my testosterone is optimized and fully functioning! I’m talking about testicles. 95-97% of testosterone production happens there. The other 3% happens in the adrenals. Testosterone is what makes a man who he is, but there is so much that goes into it. Once you understand the body is like a Swiss watch, you understand that you can’t just add testosterone to
make a man. If a man has low testosterone, it’s not that he is getting old or that his testicles aren’t working. Let me show you how testosterone is made. It will help explain a lot. You’ll understand why men have the traits that make them men and confident about it.
It all starts in the brain. You’ll learn later how to master the guy’s brain. The pituitary gland, or what we call the “master gland,” is a little gland that hangs in the brain. This is where our story of testosterone production starts. The things that happen in the brain can have an effect on testosterone production or any hormone production. The first thing you have to have is luteinizing hormone. The pituitary gland gets a lot of feedback from the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus will release a gonadotropin releasing hormone that tells the pituitary to create follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). LH is the big producer of testosterone. LH is the hormone that goes down to the testicle and binds to a cell. If LH isn’t normal you can’t have testosterone. It starts in the pituitary; that’s why it’s called the master gland. LH travels in the bloodstream down to the testicle.
Remember, this is where the half mile of tubules are that are misleadingly called balls. The testicle is actually a casing. It’s a bunch of tubules, a bunch of cells put together. Some of those cells are Leydig cells. Those Leydig cells have little receptors; those receptors are looking for LH hormone. Those Leydig cells need LH to be stimulated to work. That’s the first part of testosterone production.
What you need next is LDL, or cholesterol. I know most of you are probably thinking, LDL is bad! No! It’s not bad. It’s needed by the body for homeostasis. We will talk more about that later. The only thing you need to start the production of testosterone is LH and LDL (LDL is produced by the liver). What we know about the body is that it operates like a Swiss watch. What’s happening in the brain and the liver can impact testosterone. The liver converts hormones and regulates the balance of your sex hormones. If something is off in the brain or the liver, your hormones can be way off. It’s not just the testicle. The body is a combination of massive moving parts. To think everything has to do with just the testicle is incorrect. You can’t just add testosterone and fix everything. Anything that disrupts the brain, or the hypothalamus, can disrupt LH production which can disrupt testosterone production.
Testosterone is responsible for the physical and mental differences between men and women. It gives us energy, it gives us muscle development, and it gives us our sexual drive. Hormones also change us mentally. Testosterone gives a man great confidence. Every healthy man, regardless of his age, thinks he’s amazing. Right, ladies? Do you ever see your husband in front of a mirror? He’s flexing and checkin’ himself out. It doesn’t matter how old he is. Testosterone gives us this great confidence! Ladies, you don’t have the amount of testosterone we do so you tend to down play it. When a man can be confident and unashamed, that’s healthy. Don’t put him put him down for his confidence – encourage that boy! That’s normal and healthy. The second function of testosterone is to keep him motivated and driven. Testosterone is why he does what he does; it is a very driving hormone. If somebody were to break into your house tonight, which of you will get up to chase the criminal? Your man will, why? Because when testosterone rises, it makes him aggressive. Ladies, you like that; until you create the same reaction in him as if a criminal who broke into your house. Yikes! Remember the big steroid hormone craze of the 80’s? It was a craze alright. What happens when you give a man a synthetic testosterone to supplement his natural testosterone? He will go crazy with aggression.
Testosterone is why he does what he does.
Think about it. Who commits the most violent crimes, men or women? There isn’t even a comparison. Does that mean you should hate men? No, men commit three times as many violent crimes as women. I don’t intend to create an argument—those are the facts. With that fact in mind, does it mean police hate men? No, it does not mean police are targeting men. Why then are men committing more violent crimes? By nature, men are more aggressive; that’s why they commit more violent crimes. If the testosterone gets too high from steroids or a tumor, it can cause them to commit a violent crime. It’s one of the side effects of steroid drugs. The testosterone range for women is between five and forty Ng/dL. Guy’s range is between 350-1200 Ng/dL. Even the lowest end, a guy is more than seven times higher than the testosterone for highest end of the range for a woman. A man’s always going to be more aggressive than a woman. This idea that we can be mentally or biologically the same is not true.
Now some of you might have examples of men who don’t have high confidence or motivation. These stories are all too common. But remember, common does not mean normal.
Four out of ten men experience hypogonadism, which is another name for low testosterone.
“Doc, my husband sits on the couch a lot more lately, but overall he’s a healthy guy,” says a woman in the office, there to take care of her hormonal health. My response? Oh no he’s not healthy! You know what her other complaint was? He isn’t interested in sex. Does that sound healthy to you? It sounds like he has low testosterone to me. Ladies, if your husband isn’t chasing you around every day, it’s a sign he’s sick. Before that sign happens, you may notice he loses his spark to get stuff done. This guy is not alone. Four out of ten men experience hypogonadism, which is another name for low testosterone. Despite what the medical community has told you, low testosterone is not a natural part of aging. Remember, common is not normal.
This woman was sitting in my office because her hormones were off, but she didn’t notice the signs that there was something wrong with her husband’s main hormone. When women have symptoms of imbalanced hormones, they know what’s causing it. They might think there is nothing they can do about it, but they know what is to blame. When a man’s main hormone is off, there are mental factors that many will just brush off.
Most men don’t get their testosterone tested until they are older and experiencing physical symptoms. The majority of testosterone is produced in the testicles for men and it stimulates male characteristics. It can impact a man’s health, sperm production, bone mass, muscle mass, sex drive, energy, facial hair, self-confidence and more. Low testosterone can lead to major health problems including cancer. We want it to be at good levels.
What people don’t know is most men will experience more mental problems before the physical problems manifest. Let me say that again. Men will go through more mental changes than physical changes when their testosterone comes down. So, when you see your man getting lazy and demotivated it’s an early sign something is going wrong.
How is it going wrong? In rare cases it can be a tumor, but most of the time it is because of unhealthy habits. If a young man has unhealthy habits as he ages, his testosterone will go down. It’s not because he’s aging! It’s because of his unhealthy habits, including all the sugar he may be eating.
Whether it’s a man or a woman, if their hormones are off, they will end up very sick.
You need to get your man tested. Low testosterone is not normal. Just like PMS is not normal, menopause symptoms are not normal, endometriosis is not normal, or any of the other hormonal conditions that we relate to women. It’s one of my most popular quotes for a reason… common is not normal. Women and men need to take care of their hormonal balance. Men and women are different, so their hormones are different. But whether it’s a man or a woman, if their hormones are off, they will end up very sick.
We dismiss it as aging, but it is a real sign of testosterone levels that are going down. It’s not normal for an aging man to have their testosterone go down. Clinically, all of our clinics could show you men in their eighties who have high testosterone. Testosterone levels are independent of age. Ask my wife. You can ask a healthy male. Ask a woman who has a healthy male. You know what they say about the healthy male? That boy is always going. My wife will tell you that I’m a healthy male!
CHRISTY’S THOUGHTS
Yes, no doubt about
it—my husband is a healthy male! It’s the confidence and boldness that attracted me to him in the first place. I admit that early in our dating and marriage I didn’t understand some of those masculine traits, but now I do and have come to embrace them in my husband. I don’t want to change him. Testosterone traits define a man. God molds and defines his character. I am very aware of men that I encounter who are very obviously sick and don’t even realize it, sadly, until their marriages begin to fall apart. Ladies, get the men in your life tested!! Learn to love the God-given qualities that testosterone gives a man, your man, and you will transform your relationship!
That range is wide, but you want to see good, high testosterone levels. In my opinion it shouldn’t go below 500 Ng/dL. Man, if you’re pushing below 500 Ng/dL you are going to have one demotivated boy. One of the major things to watch for ladies, is if your boy is starting to get lazy. It’s not because of feelings. Testosterone is not impacted by feelings. If he has high testosterone, he is going to be on the move.
Trust me, testosterone will make the body do things. Don’t believe me? Look under the covers in the morning. If your boy has high testosterone you will see evidence of the testosterone salute. Testosterone is highest in the morning and fluctuates throughout the day. Morning erections exist regardless of how a man feels. Don’t make your man feel badly about this– that’s a sign of a healthy boy! His normal physiology will make him get an erection in the morning. Why? As those testosterone levels come up…so does he. It’s independent of how he feels. That’s why when he gets demotivated you need to get that man’s hormones checked.
I Disagree Page 6
