The Insidious Testosterone Crisis

In this episode, Rick and Greg turn their focus to men's health — specifically the quiet, decades-long decline in testosterone levels and why so many men are being told they're "fine" when they're anything but.

They walk through the classic patient story that Greg hears constantly in the clinic: a man in his forties or fifties, gaining weight in the midsection, losing muscle despite working out, mentally foggy, low energy, increasingly irritable — and sent home with a normal lab result and a shrug. Rick and Greg explain why total testosterone alone is an incomplete picture, how the standard advice of "just be more active" can actually work against men with low T, and why this is a cyclical, compounding problem that gets harder to escape the longer it goes unaddressed.

They also get into the broader science: how testosterone connects to visceral fat, insulin sensitivity, metabolic function, and overall quality of life — and why framing it as just a "sex hormone" or a bodybuilder drug has led to years of under-diagnosis and dismissal.

This is part one of a multi-episode series on hormones. Next episode: symptoms to watch for, what age to start checking, and the full range of treatment options beyond injectable testosterone.

Rick and Greg are medical providers, but not your medical provider. Consult your personal provider before starting any medication, hormone therapy, or health program.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hey, welcome back. Hey. Hey, I'm Rick Sorensen. I'm Greg Camp. And we are here with Healthier Ever After, uh, talking about health, lifestyle changes, uh, weight loss, all the good things. All the good stuff. Um, yeah, tonight we want to kind of uh change course just a little bit, but not not really so much. And it's all the same the same thing, but this one's gonna be fun. I think we're gonna probably end up uh with a few episodes talking about this because this gets, you know, we don't want to we don't have like a four-hour thing, but I mean this is something I know Greg gets excited about talking about some things. So uh educational and informational purposes only, really, we are uh we are certainly recommending always that before you start any medication, weight loss program, exercise regimen, uh that you discuss that with your medical provider. Um this topic is is definitely no different.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Um more more importantly so than even uh some of the more mild things. This is definitely one that you don't want to go at alone, or uh as they call it, the bro science this thing. Bro science. Bro science. Yeah, don't bros science this one. Yeah, don't bros science this one. Uh work with a medical provider to uh get dialed in if you have any questions or if this is something that uh interests you. This is not something you want to be guessing at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

So, so really, when I mean we've talked, we've talked a lot. Last time we talked a little bit about um how how groundbreaking, um, game changing, I think, is what we said, uh GLP1 medications have been and and all the evidence and things. And and really we want to kind of shift a little bit now to something I know I know Greg has talked about with so many people about, um, and that is um hormones. And and well, let's just hit men's health tonight. Um, we're gonna do a few episodes on that on women's health, because there are some specific things, but I think one of the one of the most interesting things to me is that is the the science behind this and our understanding of of the risks and the benefits and the the effects of aging and and how that affects hormones has really uh increased even in the last few years. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

And and how it all ties in. We talk a lot about, of course, obesity and all the effects there, and it's and it's um the hormones, you can't really talk about that without having a hormonal component because it affects your hormones. And I will say that in my experience go being in the clinic of of you know dealing with uh wellness, it it rarely do I have an appointment, whether the patient is 20 or 80, that they ask about hormones, right? They're wondering, where are my hormones? Where are they supposed to be? Could that be a a factor in this? And the answer is maybe. And and and and usually needs a big fat maybe. It's a big fat maybe. Let's check some last. I would argue that it's a probably it's a probably. I agree. It's it's a probably. And and and how much is it, is it, is it does it affect them enough to where they actually need to be on uh some kind of hormone replacement therapy? Maybe is once again the answer there. And uh, but we're gonna dive into some studies here. We're going to talk about um kind of the factors that I think a lot of people put uh medical things in boxes, and we're gonna kind of talk about how this is all interrelated, how hormones and obesity and how one feeds the other, and vice versa. So your you know, your your testosterone in males tend to tend to drop over time and how that affects uh weight gain, especially in the midsection and that visceral fat that is so known to be so dangerous. And um, so we're gonna talk about all of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

All right, so so let's see. So some of the listeners may relate to this or or know someone. Like, let's just imagine uh you've got a male patient, uh, so man in his 40s or 50s, um, he's gaining weight around the midsection, losing a little bit of muscle mass despite working out, feeling a little mentally foggy, low energy, low drive, uh, he's increasingly irritable. Yeah. Uh his doctor says everything is normal for his age. Like this is kind of this is what happens to men. Um and and sends him home. So like what's the the core tension there? Like, like this is okay, this is something that happens. Now, the I guess what we've kind of learned if you paint this picture, what we've learned recently is that is that this is a a real thing. Yeah, uh a lot of this is related to testosterone decline. That's a it's a real thing, and and um it's been accelerating, but so has the science to address it. It's finally kind of catching up. Yes, which is nice to see. Um, so I don't know, what do we want to we want to talk about, like kind of the the crisis, the quiet crisis behind how testosterone is falling from generation to generation.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I think we talk about that and and dive into kind of what the data shows is what is happening to us because I think we now have enough data and we've been looking at this long enough to realize what the you know, some of the um we've been seeing it as medical providers for a long time, especially that when we're in like family practice. Me and Rick, when we're not doing our wellness stuff, uh work in the emergency department. So this doesn't get brought up uh nearly as often there. But you know, as far as family practice and in the wellness side of things, I mean it gets brought up all the time. And the common story is exactly what you just read. I I I'm feeling foggy, I I work out, I don't really like it's it feels like I used to be able to work out and actually get results and I felt good, and now it just doesn't seem like it does anything, and my recovery's poor, and I'm you know, my wife says I'm irritable and I don't want to do anything, and I'm my motivation is is lackluster at best, and you know, I'm the honeydew list is uh getting longer and longer. So, you know, we hear this all the time, and then yes, they go to their primary care provider, they check a uh total testosterone, which is is just one metric in all of this, and they tell them, look, you're fine. Total testosterone's in the normal range, which is in many cases, they have all the symptoms of low testosterone, and yet they get a number on a piece of paper, and you're fine. It's the old it's just what happens. Pull up you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and most guys, for the most part, for all these years, that's exactly what they've done. They've just been, you know what? Okay, yeah, my mood's not great. I guess I just am gonna feel crappy forever. And that's just how it is to be a man, a man, and be alive. And uh it's really not not the case, short of any other, you know, medical problems going on. Oftentimes it is that their testosterone is lower. We know, we know proven to be most likely lower than their counterparts 20, 30, 40 years ago. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

All good. I was gonna say it's on cover, but no, our phones ring sometimes. That's all right. Sometimes my phone rings.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Um, so it really just ends up coming down to uh this kind of frustration by a lot of men that are like, you know what? I go in, I get checked. To Rick's point, I think that there's just because of the information age and where we live uh and the time we live in. Thankfully, uh the research is catching up. Thankfully, there's this has been brought to a lot more men's attention. I have so many more guys that are even in their younger years, you know, under that 40 and 50 mark, uh, that are coming in and just want to see where everything's at. They're like, hey, look, I'm maybe not feeling as good as I did in my 20s. I'm in my 30s now. I have a family. I want to see if it's just life or if there's actually an abnormality. For some of these, yeah, I get their levels back and they look really pretty dang good. And we can talk about some lifestyle things to see what we could do there. And for others, their levels are very low and definitely require intervention if they want to start feeling better. And uh and and that unfortunately has been dismissed over the years because because, well, but just because I don't know if it's just old hat medical stuff or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Well, and a lot of it, you know, it's it's it's you don't incorporate things into your practice that you don't know. Yeah, you know, and and and and a lot of this, some of this is part of this is that it's changing. Like, like the there's good research now that shows men today have a significantly lower testosterone level than men of the same age in previous generations. Right, right. So so and it declines about one percent a year. So so that means like a 30-year-old man in 2025 typically has less testosterone than a 30-year-old man did in the year 2000. So so so that that's just that's not I mean that's that's evidence that we see that something is happening that makes that's accelerating this and making it more common, and and it's occurring younger um than it did. So this isn't the same thing as as the medicine we did in the 80s, because you you might have been a little more right back then to say, hey, you know what, you're you're probably okay, but more and more people at earlier and earlier ages are not okay.

unknown 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

And we I get this question all the time. And because like really a lot of the things that we know about this and this declining over these, you know, every decade, it's it's that much lower for the next decade. And the there's a lot of theories on this, and that the the running theories are obviously our food, um, less activity, right? A lot of people work uh a lot more sedentary jobs that are not outdoors, and so there's a lot of uh theories amongst that. Uh the microplastics, the there's just so many things that are happening that um, you know, our lives really, you know, in this era are just a lot easier than they were before. So some of the theory is that like look, like some of the things that really we know drive testosterone levels, frankly, we just don't deal with that on a regular basis. Now it's just, you know, what like I said, um, a lot of us are sedentary for our jobs. We sit a lot and we don't do a lot of moving. Um, that's a little bit different than uh everyone that used to be a farmer, you know, butcher, um whatever, whatever you know, their job was, it usually was outdoors and busy and active. And and so, yeah, there's a lot of evidence that uh, you know, even like the stuff that we talk about a lot, which is obesity, you know, that like we have an more obese population, and obesity is one of the biggest driving factors metabolically of driving testosterone down. So is it because testosterone levels are dropping, or is are we getting more obese, more obese, and that's driving the levels down on its own? And so the argument, the counter to that that we would talk about is, and I think me and you have talked about the study. In fact, I think you're the one who probably sent it to me, is that uh there was a study done with trosepatide, and I'll have to pull that up and post it somewhere uh so you guys can see it. But uh these participants, it's a it was a smaller study, got on trzepatide, and uh lo and behold, they started losing weight, and their what happened? Their testosterone levels increased. So no direct uh testosterone injections or anything that would otherwise increase their testosterone.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

They just got on trusepatide and their body did better making it.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yep. So lo and behold, we know that there's a meta a bunch of metabolic factors, and it's really just gotten to the point where, regardless of the reasons, guys are feeling it.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah. And well, and and and and a lot of times I think we think about, you know, you say testosterone, and it's the sex hormone, yeah, right? It drives sex on your on your libido. But I mean, there are a lot more things, and maybe you could just talk a little bit about that for a second. Like it this it's tied not only to sexual health, but to energy level. You mentioned that, uh muscle mass, bone density, mood, cardiovascular health. Like, like this is this is not a a the the sex hormone that we were taught in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

So, yeah, it's a it's a sex hormone, uh, and that's what we typically call it, but it it just has such a uh a vast effect on the body. It's so important, uh, just like women's hormones, which we'll talk about in the in a in a different episode, a couple probably a couple episodes from now, but you know, it's so important for mood. I mean, I when when you say mood, I think of one specific patient that came to me in family practice that was just things have changed over the last couple of years as mood went down, down, down, down, down. Uh, he came in for depression to be evaluated for depression. Now, at this time, I was of the notion of most family practice providers. Hopefully, I think that's evolving now, but uh, that look, if someone's asking about testosterone, it's because they want muscles up to their ears and and they just want to get jacked and all this stuff. And we just, I mean, we just did. I mean, it's just it was in my education, it was who the provider that I worked with was uh kind of a uh older generation that that truly was uh adamant that anyone that wanted to be on testosterone really was just looking to get jacked and and they they didn't need that. And so it was interesting because this we kind of went through the whole um, you know, checked some basic labs, looked at a few things, and this guy just was like, you know, I even brought up depression and you know, he was pretty like look, I'm not depressed, but I am down. Um, I just don't know. Something's not right, something's not right. Eventually, uh, through some research and me just kind of like light bulb. I'm like, I need to check this guy's testosterone level. We check his testosterone level, it's in the tank, right? It's like a hundred, which for anyone that doesn't know, that's I mean a total testosterone of a hundred. Uh, I mean, you you have some females that are higher than that, and um, and so which females tend to have lower levels uh than men. So uh yeah, of course, this guy was struggling. We get this guy. I mean, we talked about putting this guy on antidepressants and all these things, and instead we ended up putting them on testosterone. Well, lo and behold, who comes back in almost skipping into the clinic? He feels so much better, his mood so much better. His wife comes with him, she is absolutely thrilled. And her statement, I will never forget. I can see the look on her face, and she says, My husband's back. Wow, and it's just it was incredible to watch. And here, we're I'm telling this guy, let me put you on a on an antidepressant medication and all these other things. You know, we would have truly been just masking this symptom of low testosterone, but because of, and we talked about it in the last episode with GLP1s, because of stigma and stereotype and really just being behind on the data. We have the data that shows this is a good thing, and and especially with for men that do have low testosterone. But yet I was sitting there trying to find every reason not to put him on testosterone. Yeah, um, and and that really was life-changing to watch that. Like, like it changed the whole way that I viewed practice, my practice, uh, when I saw how this affected this guy. And now I've seen it so many times. Yeah. For these guys that, you know, it's not always the problem, right? It's not always the issue. Sometimes guys just have depression. But you know, to not rule that out as a possibility, right? You're not doing your your patient any favors. And and so they're uh you talked about bone, uh, bone strength, muscles. I mean, you know, people are meant to have good, strong, solid bones, which testosterone and estrogen are like friends and and they drive each other, and and there's this big feedback loop of how that all works. And unfortunately, as your testosterone drops, your estrogen that ratio gets off and your estrogen levels drop. And unfortunately, we know that that can result in having weaker bones. This means that you know, grandpa falls down and has a higher incidence of hurting himself. We know that obviously lower uh muscle mass is gonna lead to all kinds of metabolic issues. You don't burn as many calories just to live and breathe. And so you start getting that nice, nice uh belly, you know, stuff around the waist that is not favorable. And so it's just it it affects so much.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

So so it affects all these things, and and I guess one of the things I think people we can talk about um women have menopause, right? There's and and and that's viewed as more of an event um that that just happens and it it explains a lot, and you know, it kind of women age to a certain point, and then boom, menopause happens, and that changes the hormone milieu, yeah, and and then we deal with that, and we'll talk about that one a whole nother, like you said, a whole nother episode. Men men aren't really thought of as having an event like that, right? Like, like it's it's not menopause, it's not there's not an event like that, or it's not thought of like that at least, but but in reality, it's it's kind of the same process, um, a male version of the same thing, but it happens over a much longer time. Sure, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, uh, women women, I mean, they have paramenopausal symptoms and they can have things that obviously can extend over. Yeah, and I'm not saying it's a day-to-day thing, but sure, that's kind of that's how we view it, and that's what we talk about. Are men testosterone drops over? Let's say, if a woman goes through stuff for two to four years, um, totally until like you know, they've completely gone through menopause, and and I'm just giving some general numbers out there, that's you know, that that's not in a sign. You know, everyone's a little bit different there. Um, I just know that yeah, people that talk about women's health will maybe attack me if I uh if I if I generalize too much.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

You guys are guys that don't know anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yeah, probably true. The men do this over like uh let's say a 20-year period. So it's it's the proverbial uh frog that's in boiling water. I mean, they just because it slowly declines, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And well, that makes it harder for people to uh diagnose, to recognize, to to uh to address, and arguably more dangerous, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, it is the proverbial f frog in the boiling water. We just we don't feel it overnight, so it just ends up being this thing that we kind of just keep dealing with and keep dealing with and keep on kicking the can down the road. And uh, but you know, the people around us over time are definitely gonna notice it. Oh, you know, uh, my husband doesn't have that uh that fire in him anymore. Like geez, the like I said, but earlier the honeydew list is getting longer and longer, and we just can't seem to get anything done. And uh I think it mentioned what this earlier uh when you were talking, but the brain fog. Boy, that is a thing. I see a lot of guys that are just like, look, I just can't get it together, like to get my brain to kind of do what it was doing. And they we correct, do some of these uh either hormone replacement therapy or figure out how to correct some of these abnormalities, and all of a sudden you're they're like, oh my gosh, like I'm getting so much more work done, and my motivation is so much better. And I'm uh boy, like the my gym, uh my my my going to the gym is is paying off. I actually feel a huge difference when I go to the gym.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

So yeah, it's a it's a big factor. So so uh I I what I'm hearing you say is I mean, that the the way that this decline occurs in men is slow and hard to notice at times until it gets really bad and like someone in the family knows. Yeah. Um, but but the the benefits and the improvement in all of that is much more noticeable and rapid than that decline when when it is appropriately treated and and replaced if needed. Did I did I summarize that? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

And you know, yeah, and I would say on even on top of that, I mean, a lot of times because of the stigma of guys of just kind of wanting to, hey, whatever. Yeah, so I feel crummy, that's just how I feel. Uh, and the stigma that's been behind testosterone for so long, uh, generationally, like that's just like, yeah, yeah, we just feel crummy. Hey, look, you're over 40 and you're a male, you just feel crummy, okay? So just do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

You're gonna be fat and you're gonna be tired.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yep. And that is really what they're finding is like that's really doesn't have to be the case. And you know, it interestingly enough, it's actually in most cases, it's actually the wife dragging the male in by the ear and going, like, something is not because the mood thing and the and the energy thing are are what is noticed there, and then I get complaints from the wife that goes, Look, I want everything else to improve except his libido. I don't want anything, I don't want any improvement there. I'm fine with fine with his low libido. I'm good with that. I want I want everything else to improve though, because you know, look, he's cranky and he's you know, whatever. He's on with the kids, or he's I want him to be happier and full of energy and leave me alone. And leave me alone. Because uh we need we have stuff to get done, right? Um, so it's just it's we're gonna get a lot more than that. Oh, yes, I know.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

All right, uh, hopefully Susan will skip this episode. So let's talk a little bit then about I mean, so this is happening, we can address it. And I think I think how to address it, what to do about it, we ought to just do a whole nother Yeah, I I think so. I but but let's talk about like the health like you and I talk about weight loss and and then healthy lifestyles, yeah, right? A lot. How does how does the testosterone relate to that? Like what you know, body composition and all those things. Like what what role does testosterone play in all these other things that we're talking about with you know?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

It's a lot of it, a lot, a lot of it comes down uh early on uh to uh not being able to maintain good muscle mass. I mean, really your muscles are the thing that just gobble up all that energy. You use your muscles every day. They're the biggest user of energy, right, that we have, you know, to feed all the muscles. And as these muscles slowly decline because of testosterone, um, not being at adequate levels at at good therapeutic levels, uh, unfortunately, what happens is is muscle, uh your muscles start to to you know essentially shrink, and we're just not burning. Off as many calories. So you were eating, but our eating a lot oftentimes doesn't change. And so we're putting in the same amount of energy in and but yet burning less. So, right, this ends up having to everything starts to slow down. And of course, men are just really good at storing visceral fat around the belly area. You can almost predictively look at a male that even if like they have a like a thinner upper body and arms and legs, right? And then they have the belly. And it tends to be the hardest thing to lose. I see in the clinic when I do composition uh monitoring, you know, I look at uh kind of the full breakdown of like how much lean muscle and fat and all that do they have. Uh by far and away, you can have a 250-pound male and a 250-pound female, and the 250-pound male will have a double the visceral fat as a the same weight female, same age, same everything else. Wow. And it's it's across the board. There are almost no exceptions to that rule from an anecdotal standpoint in the clinic. It is, I know for sure that the similar size female and male, the male is going to have significantly higher visceral fat. Why does that matter? Uh visceral fat is otherwise coined as uh dangerous or sick fat. Uh, this is the stuff that oftentimes leads to all kinds of bad things, including cardiovascular disease, risk for heart attack, stroke, all that stuff. So that's why this is all connected. You know, we uh oftentimes view testosterone as like, well, okay, so what, we just want guys to have energy and better libido and feel better. No, there's actually really truly health implications to this, including cardiovascular risks, um, including obviously, you know, we have lower muscle mass. And, you know, so you're increased risk for even stuff like diabetes, right? Because the metabolic system, you're not burning as many calories, you're becoming insulin resistant. You watch these guys that oftentimes uh get their testosterone levels up and and watch their metabolic function change, watch them lose weight, watch that belly start to shrink down, watch their muscles actually, they're able to maintain and and uh grow. Do they get jacked? They well, you know, some of them probably do, but it for the most part, most of these guys just maintain good muscle match. Yeah, they just get healthy. And we know that it makes their bones stronger, which is also very important. I mean, we work in the ER where you know there's some of these people that fall, the wind blows hard and they break a hip. That is not what you want. I mean, it's it's one of the leading causes of older people. Uh actually, it's a huge risk for death.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

It is. Um, and so I think it's um a person over the age of 75 who breaks their hip has an average life expectancy of one year.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

I mean, just it's it's a devastating injury. And and you know, kind of it's kind of a uh a corollary or a similar uh I don't know a parallel to this. Like, you know, the reason is you break your hip, you become not mobile for uh extended periods of time. That leads your risk uh leads to risk of infections, it leads to you know muscle loss, further decline in in your um stamina and energy. And so so it just kind of puts you in a situation where those things all decline. And I think that's kind of like a dramatic thing that we're talking about with this with testosterone, low testosterone, it it insidiously changes your metabolism. It makes it easier low test as it as that declines, it makes it easier to deposit that belly fat and keep it and hold on to it, which in turn um changes your metabolism more, it changes that fat to your muscle ratio, and it makes it harder to get up and exercise a little bit, move around. It just is this cycle that play all the things play on each other and and lead to definitely feeds into itself, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

And we've talked about the insulin sensitivity and how important insulin is. We did a whole episode or two on on insulin and and the driver that that is. And when you uh increase in insulin insulin sensitivity, that's a good thing. When you have decreased insulin sensitivity, we don't like that, um, you know, because it just requires your body to store and store and store. And so, you know, it's just so important. And when we increase that muscle mass, when we increan in increase protein synthesis, even the way that your body uses and and stores protein uh for your muscles and for all the other things, I mean, is is greatly dependent on testosterone. It's just such a huge factor. And I I like I said, it's just I think testosterone has been narrowed down to you, even said it earlier to a sex hormone that's in charge of just that. Or you use it to get jacked. Yeah, or you, yeah, or or on the on the flip side, yeah, everyone, you know, just wants these massive muscles. Yeah, you know, once again, it comes back to honestly, within just having a good normal testosterone. This is not for you know someone that's abusing uh, you know, steroids and and all that stuff. This is for someone that just wants to feel good. I mean, you know, it if the worst thing that this person wants is to go to the gym and build muscles, is that really something we really have decided to critique? Like, is that something that we're gonna attack? Here we go again attacking each other. Yeah, it's it's just that whole thing that we talked about last episode with like we just I mean, a lot of times beat people down for what they're trying to do and improve their health. I mean, so once someone wants to go get jacked in the gym, cheese, let them go get jacked.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

I mean, uh, you know, because you know what happens when you get jacked? You lose you lose visceral fat, you increase bone density, you make yourself more insulin sensitive, you you decrease your cardiovascular rate. Like, like I we go on and on about all the things like we said we joke about get jacked, but but there are so many good things that happen to you when you have normal levels of hormones that drive so much metabolically in your body.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Well, and Rick hit on it earlier, and I want to re-emphasize you know, this is kind of a uh a cycle, it's a horrible cycle to get in because your testosterone levels start to drop, you start to gain weight, and then you go talk to your doctor, they don't really check anything at first. They're like, Look, yeah, you've gained a few pounds, so why don't you try dieting and exercising and and uh doing these things that that require like sometimes a lot of discipline and focus and and uh energy and things like that. And it it does it feeds into itself. So you don't have energy. You go to your doctor to say, I need energy, I'm gaining weight, I don't have energy. And their answer to that is like do more things that require a lot of energy. I'm like, we're not really we're not really fixing anything, we're just telling you to, it's once again, it's almost the whole proverbial pull yourself up by the bootstraps and just get it done. Now, most guys do, right? But the difference between going to work and actually feeling pretty good and going to work just because you know you have to, there is a big difference mentally there. And it just it ends up being so much more challenging to get up and work out and lose weight and do all these things when you feel like trash. And does that mean everyone needs to be on TRT? No. But does it mean that if you have lower levels and you have the symptoms of that, that yeah, you need to work with your medical provider to figure out how you can address that. Look into it, not just a total testosterone level. Let's not let's not be in bad health for 20 years, feel like garbage for 20 years to wait to do something with this.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

You almost said a word that we would have had to cut out.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, I know what can we say on this channel? Feel bad. Yeah, my mom, my mom may watch this at some point, and yeah, like and you might feel not good. Not good. Uh, there's there's other um expressions we could use, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

When you're talking about sorry, it's I totally sabotage your train of thought. Uh, but as you're talking about, you know, all these things, like we how we view this um as as getting healthier and all these good things. Um now I lost my train of thought. We wouldn't we wouldn't say the same thing about other medical conditions, like I ever like the provider, like let me give you an example. So I go to the doctor and and say, I'm having a really hard time walking across the street. I'm getting short of breath and I get really winded, and I I just can't walk very far anymore. Something's going on. And and and if my doctor with the advice was, well, just you just need to walk more and walk harder and farther. Crazy. Um, and and I'm thinking in my mind, wait, wait, how about we make sure it's not congestive heart failure or or a chronic lung disease? Or I mean, there's some things I think of that that I would like, let's let's address some of these underlying things. That that that's kind of what it sounds like when when you know, well, you know, you just go do things that require more energy to get your energy up.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

I know it's wild. And make that any sense? Yeah, and it's and it's hard because like once again, I mean, if the testosterone levels are low, and let's even say that a guy's like, look, I'll okay, cool. Doctor said just be more active. And let's say that he does all that, but now we have a lot of data that supports. Like, if he's gonna go to the gym, his gains, the muscle amount of muscle. They're not gonna be there. I mean, they're not gonna be there. So, I mean, how long can he persist and continue to go and do that without seeing gains, without seeing results? And hey, my belly's still growing, I still feel like garbage.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

And and you can try and force your body to do something, but but your body with a low testosterone level is working against you. Yep. And so, yeah, all that extra effort is is really not um the the benefit is you're robbing yourself of the benefit of those actions.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

And we're gonna get into next episode. We can talk, uh yeah, we'll we'll talk about what to do about it. We'll talk about, you know, should you, you know, as a male or even as a as a female watching this, if like you have a loved one in your life that you've kind of been wondering about this, just give you more information to kind of understand, hey, what age range should I be looking at this at? What are some of the more common symptoms that I should be looking for that are that are truly like uh, hey, these are kind of your testosterone might not be where you need it to be. And then also just what are some of the treatment options? A lot of people think that testosterone is the only injectable testosterone is the only treatment option. There's actually quite a few good treatment options out there, including lifestyle. And we'll talk about some of the biggest things that impact uh testosterone levels and what can be done about it, and so that you guys have maybe a better idea uh and know what more questions to ask when you go see your medical provider.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah, awesome. Okay, yeah, we'll get into that next episode on what do we do about all this. Um, until then, uh have a great time, have a good week, stay active. Uh, we're hoping everyone here can attain and retain good health and remain healthily, healthier, healthier ever after. Healthier ever after. Take care.