Hormone Status and Anti-Aging Medicine

Extra Decades of Healthy Living? Hormone Levels Provide Valuable Clues

     Everyone has heard of menopause, but andropause and somatopause are less familiar terms. Andropause is the term used to describe what men experience as their hormones decline, typically around the age of fifty. Symptoms may include nervousness, fatigue, poor sleep, flabby muscles, decreased sex drive, depression, and loss of concentration, among others. Significant drops in androgens such as DHEA and testosterone are typical.

     Somatopause is the term for the decline of production and release of growth hormone in aging adults. When the average adult reaches fifty years of age, their growth hormone output is less than half of the amount released when they were twenty-five years old. This decline continues as they get older. Somatopause is essentially adult growth hormone deficiency, and can lead to many adverse symptoms, including reduced strength, fitness, stamina, and libido; increased body fat; reduced muscle mass, vitality, and energy; thin, dry skin; cardiovascular disease; and diminished recovery from stress or illness.

     Thousands of women have found that natural treatments for menopause can be of enormous benefit. In a very real sense, this is anti-aging medicine. Now, both men in the andropause years and older people of both sexes with symptoms of somatopause are finding that natural hormone replacement therapy in conjunction with lifestyle and dietary changes can reverse their symptoms and make them feel and look younger, often dramatically so.

     Oral Spray Human Growth Hormone therapy has become a cornerstone of anti-aging medicine for both men and women. While testing for hormone levels is ideal, many people safely use small doses of growth hormone, DHEA, melatonin, progesterone, estrogens, and pregnenolone without regular testing (but ideally, with advice from a competent health care professional). Others use herbs and other natural substance to stimulate the body's own production of hormones. Testing is an individual matter; some people just can't afford it. It is often not difficult to determine when supplemental hormones may be beneficial. The real bonus of testing is in monitoring changes and determining optimal doses.

     Twenty-four hour urine hormone evaluation gives a comprehensive look at hormone production and utilization. In many cases it is the most accurate way of assessing glandular function. Adrenal hormones, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone status, and growth hormone all may be easily determined. While blood tests give only a snapshot, the twenty-four hour urine test lets the physician know if the gland makes and uses enough hormone throughout the entire day. Changes in levels in response to prescribed supplements may be monitored along with changes in symptoms, and dosages may then be adjusted accordingly.

     The current status of hormone therapy might be compared to that of vitamin therapy thirty or forty years ago. When I began taking vitamin E in the 1960s, that was considered radical. "Not enough evidence," the medical establishment said. But I had read Vitamin E for Ailing and Healthy Hearts, and I knew that there really was overwhelming evidence of the value of supplemental vitamin E. A similar situation exists today in regard to growth hormone and other supplemental hormone therapies. A large body of research demonstrating enormous benefits has already been published. It is becoming increasingly clear that judicious use of supplemental hormones as we age can add decades of healthy living to the lives of those with the insight to use these therapies now.