Testosterone, estrogen and cortisol all play an important part in Men’s Health.
They often don’t get as much attention as they should.
Most people understand how important testosterone is to a guy’s health. You don’t want it to be too high (aggression, acne, high blood pressure) or too low (obesity, low sex drive, hair loss). The latter is more common.
Estrogen is really important too. Any man who has prostate issues, including cancer or benign prostatic hyperplasia, should have their estrogen checked. Estrogen, if elevated, can cause or worsen erectile dysfunction, obesity (especially stimulates the growth of breast tissue in men), high cholesterol and depression.
Cortisol is a major stress hormone, and imbalances in this hormone are basically the same for both genders. Often caused by chronic stress, disturbances in cortisol levels will create difficulty losing weight, anxiety, fatigue, foggy thinking, dizziness, sweatiness, and difficulty sleeping.
For my male patients, I usually run a very simple & straightforward saliva test. From 5ml of saliva, we can assess the levels of all the hormones listed above and more. And, the issues above are fairly easy to treat. I usually re-test after about 2-3 months or so.
Check out one example of this in the photos – both the pictures on the left are of the patient when we started working together. This is a 55 year old male with seasonal allergies, panic attacks and headaches, with which he had been suffering for 10+ years. You can see the elevated estrogen, as well as 3 out of 4 stress hormone measurements out of balance. Testosterone (not pictured here) wasn’t an issue for him. Elevated estrogen and not enough cortisol can both contribute to histamine imbalances (aka allergies), as well as the other conditions he was dealing with.
Both of the pictures on the right are of the same guy, 2 months later. Estrogen and stress hormones completely normalized. He was feeling much better, with all of his symptoms well controlled. We then began to remove some of the treatments we were doing, and now several months later his symptoms have still not returned.
The results are pretty remarkable.
So, if you’re a guy or have one in your life who may be out of balance, consider getting your hormones checked.
Dr. Tanya McEachern 