When do you think you need to start worrying about hormones? It’s never too early or too late to start taking control of your health, and hormones play a major role.
Most of the time hormones aren’t thought of until you get older and symptoms start to appear that affect your quality of life. It can be hard to decipher what is part of the normal aging process and what isn’t. Getting older is inevitable, but staying young while getting old is the best shot at living a long and healthy life.
Our environment and genetics play a part in how we age, but making healthy choices can be instrumental in living our best lives. Focusing on optimizing certain aspects of health, like hormones, is an integral piece of our bodies functioning properly. When it comes to optimal health, the pillars of replacing, restoring, and regenerating are so important, and hormones are foundational to every other aspect of improving your healthspan. It’s not too early or too late to understand your hormones.
What Hormones Are Essential For
Both men and women have hormones, although they are found at different blood concentration levels in the body. As people age, they can experience a fluctuation in hormones. Hormones affect so many different functions of the body, including:
- Brain Health
- Cardiovascular Health
- Bone Density
- Building and Maintaining Muscle
- Skin Aesthetics
- Libido
- Weight Management
- Metabolism
- Sleep
- Insulin Sensitivity
- Fine Motor Skills
- Preventing Age-Related Macular Degeneration
- Decreased Cancer Risk
Hormones are the foundation to every other aspect of improving our health. When hormones are out of balance, these areas of the body can be greatly affected, so it’s important to keep them in balance. It’s very important that hormones are done correctly. Working with a knowledgeable practitioner can help you optimize your hormones so you don’t experience any unpleasant symptoms.
What Health Risks You Experience From a Loss of Hormones
Loss of hormones can be detrimental to almost every aspect of health for men and women. Women with hormone loss can be at a greater risk for breast cancer, heart disease, and osteoporotic fractures. Osteoporotic fracture risk is actually greater than the combined risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
Alzheimer’s Disease is another disease linked to aging, and research has shown that hormone replacement therapy can actually improve cognitive function in women with Alzheimer’s.
Do Men and Women Have The Same Hormones?
Men and women have the same types of sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone) in their bodies, but the blood concentration, production sites, and interaction with other organs in the body are different. Testosterone is an androgen, or male sex hormone, that affects the growth, reproduction, and maintenance of a healthy body. In general, women’s bodies have 1/10th to 1/20th of the amount of testosterone that a man has.
Can Both Men and Women Have Health Risks From The Loss of Hormones?
Both men and women are vulnerable to suffer from health risks due to the loss of hormones, although they are affected differently. Starting in our 20s and 30s, hormones naturally start to decrease. For men, low testosterone can affect their heart, brain, reproductive organs, bones, muscle, and fat. They can experience symptoms of heart disease, decreased sex drive, depression/anxiety, obesity, and even osteoporosis.
Women can experience hot flashes, night sweats, heart palpitations, headaches, depression, and bladder issues from the loss of hormones. The risks of osteoporotic fractures, heart attacks, and stroke for women increase dramatically when hormones are out of balance.
Where Do You Start First?
We know the information on what to do first is overwhelming, but once you understand that aging is a disease process and it is something that we can take control of, then you can actually make a difference in your lifespan and your health span. Hormones are an instrumental piece of this health puzzle and so important for a good quality of life. That’s why Dr. Yurth developed a QuickCourse called What to Fix First to help you with the steps to improve your health for optimal performance in your sports, life, job and overall healthspan. Learn More.
