Male Hormone Imbalance

Male hormone imbalance is a growing problem, I am testing more and more men with less than optimal testosterone results, often combined with high estrogen. There are some simple diet, lifestyle and supplement options that you can do to help optimise your hormonal health, but the first thing I recommend doing is testing your hormones.

Signs and Symptoms of Excess Estrogen

You do not need to have all of these symptoms if you have excess estrogen, these are the most common symptoms that men experience.

• Low testosterone and excess estrogen can cause similar symptoms in men

• Excess estrogen can cause excess weight, especially around the breasts, hips and abdomen and is the most common male hormone imbalance in overweight men.

• Excess estrogen can lead to low libido, infertility and erectile dysfunction

• Increased risk of stroke and heart attack because of an increased risk of clotting

• Increased risk of prostate cancer

Signs and Symptoms of Low Testosterone

Low testosterone has many similar symptoms to excess estrogen, with more muscle weakness and fatigue being the main difference.

• Similar to excess estrogen, low testosterone can cause low libido and erectile dysfunction.

• Muscle weakness and poor recovery from exercise.

• Fatigue and lack of energy, this can be caused by many things and low testosterone is one of them.

• Mood changes and depression.

• It can lead to weak bones and osteoporosis as you age.

 

What Causes Low Testosterone and Excess Estrogen

There are many different causes of hormonal imbalances in men and here is a list of the most common ones.

• Stress can cause many different health problems and hormone problems are no different, adrenal fatigue will upregulate an enzyme called aromatase leading to low testosterone and high estrogen.

• Diets high in refined carbohydrates will lead to insulin resistance and problems with the sex hormones.

• Excess weight leads to excess estrogen, many men with excess abdominal weight will be high in estrogen.

• Personal care products can be high in chemicals which contain xenoestrogens.

• Other chemicals in the environment and plastic containers also contain xenoestrogens leading to higher estrogen levels and lower testosterone levels.

• Excessive amounts of cardio/ endurance exercise will lead to a drop in testosterone and higher estrogen, strength and high intensity interval training is a better option.

• Excess alcohol will lead to lower testosterone.

Supplements

These are some of the supplements that I recommend and that I have seen client get good results with, the supplements that you need will depend on whether you have high estrogen levels or low testosterone. There are also different causes of the hormones going out of balance which is why I recommend the DUTCH hormone test to help identify exactly what is going wrong.