by Jon Sterngold MD
(Men’s Hormonal and Preventative Health)
It’s in our nature as guys to get in trouble when it comes to our health. We’re hardwired to think that we’re OK – that we’re strong enough, healthy enough, and independent enough to keep going and that we don’t need to look for problems under the hood. But we can be inappropriately fearless with regard to our future. We think it’ll all work out as long as we ‘eat well’ (whatever we think that might be), get a little exercise, don’t smoke, and take a 1-A-Day multivitamin. Well, maybe…
But all too often we’re headed for the edge of a cliff that we cannot see from where we’re standing. Those of us who practice integrative medicine and use hormones when indicated by lab tests, see men all the time who are getting by, but who are woefully deficient in key hormones, are heading towards type 2 diabetes, or who are lacking critical vitamins necessary for optimal functioning and disease avoidance.
When we correct these abnormalities, we help guys to function better and live longer. It’s all quite painless, but starting this journey to better health is just too easy to postpone, sometimes indefinitely.
This message is a reminder for my brethren to set aside the small amount of time and investment it takes to get checked and helped towards a more vigorous life now, as we age, and to cut the risks of life impairing diseases. But this is also a call to your spouses and life partners who love you to lean on you to tend to your health proactively. As the woman partner of your man, have you noticed or been troubled by things he’d just as soon ignore? Perhaps it’s time to help him to help himself?
A lot of medical and lay media outlets are publishing warnings that testosterone replacement could increase cardiac disease in the first three months after beginning this treatment. This comes from the latest study of this issue and falls on the heels of another recently published, though highly flawed study indicating the same thing.
For example, that study acknowledged that the investigators did not know the dosage of the testosterone of the participants in the study. What we also know is that these conclusions are contrary to decades of research demonstrating multiple benefits – including cardiac – when testosterone is prescribed and followed closely with appropriate lab testing and clinical monitoring.
It will take some time to ferret out all of the details of these inconsistent conclusions, and we will keep you advised as the research community progresses in this task. In the meantime, however, I do not believe that we should change our course from one based on decades of beneficial treatment.
Jon Sterngold MD
Jon focuses on the health and harmony of male patients at our Waterfall Tower office. His training includes Personal Life Coaching, and he is excited to share this process as well.
