Testosterone - Coach Vance & DSO Chat About the Popular Topic

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. All right, everyone, DSO here with the Dad Starting Over podcast. Welcome back in another episode with Coach Vance. If you didn't hear the first episode we did with Coach Vance, go back and listen to that. But real quick, Coach Vance, if you don't mind, just a little overview of your background and, uh, who Coach Vance is.

Yeah, so I am a senior international-level Olympic weightlifting coach and a sport and exercise science professor and coordinator at Bruton Parker College. I'm about 6 credits away from a PhD in health and human performance. So I'm a coach, but I consider myself kind of an amateur biologist because that's kind of the field that I'm interested in and, and wanted to go into, just learning about the human body, how it works. I'm really like interested in the under-the-hood stuff, not just the in-the-gym stuff as well.

So what is the plan with the PhD going forward? Becoming a full-blown professor in whatever school you end up in type of thing, or where do you see this going? Just curious.

Well, I'm— I am a full-time professor already. Basically, the PhD was On the one end was like, you have to get a PhD to be a full-time faculty professor. The arrogance of higher education system, even though I have 20 years experience already in health and human performance, they need that, those letters next to your name. I am interested in the research side of it. I enjoy being at a teaching college where I get to mostly teach and have to do don't have to do it, publish 20 papers a year and that sort of thing. But there are some things that I would like to, to research. Not a lot of research is done specifically on athletes, especially higher-level athletes. Most of the research is done on untrained individuals, physical education students. They just grab, you know, 20 of them and put them in this research study, and then they try to relate it to athletics, but a lot of times it isn't. So having access as a coach to actual athletes, some of them at the international level, is a big benefit. And there's some things I want to look at that don't typically get looked at, at least in the United States. Some, like Sweden, the old Soviet Union used to do research on high-level athletes, but in the United States it's not typically done. A lot of coaches aren't even willing to give up their athletes for a research project.

Very cool, very cool. So we are very lucky to have you on the team. So thanks so much for being a part of it. You bring a wealth of information, and this topic we're going to talk about today is one that invariably comes up when you talk about men trying to get better, especially men 40s, 50s, well, hell, 30s, 40s, and 50s and on up who say, um, I would like to feel and look the best I can. And it doesn't take long until they dip into the world of testosterone. And as you well know, you can't swing a dead cat, as they say, without hitting a testosterone clinic these days. Uh, what are the hormone optimization— I'm trying to think some of the buzzwords they use— rejuvenation, rejuvenation. And hey, I'm not talking out of school here. I am a patient or client of such a clinic. And, uh, so let's get into it, the world of testosterone Where to begin, I think, is with the basics. Little biology lesson. What in the hell is testosterone and what does it do to a person?

Yeah, so testosterone itself, uh, some people kind of confuse it with like a steroid. Now it all comes from the root steroid, which is cholesterol. That's how your body actually makes testosterone. But testosterone itself is an androgen, which if you go back to the Greek and you actually look up what the word androgen means, it basically means to make male. That's its principal job, is to develop you as a male, and then its job is to improve your sexual function so that you can reproduce. So it's not a drug that's principal job is to make you more muscular, um, although, uh, to some degree, you know, if you're gonna go and hunt and fish and farm and all the kind of stuff we traditionally think of that men have done throughout history, um, you do need the anabolic side. But it has a ratio, you know, scientists have looked at this, um, in development of anabolic steroids as an androgenic to anabolic ratio, and testosterone is 1:1 versus like some of these other, what you would consider anabolic steroids, might be, you know, 1:50 or 1:25 more anabolic than androgenic. So basically its job is, is to allow you to reproduce and develop during puberty uh, puberty is its main job. So its main job is not to make you look good naked. So I think that's the distinction, because when guys go on testosterone replacement, people go, "Oh, you're on steroids." No, I'm replacing an androgen that allows me to function essentially as a male, um, and so as that goes down Your sexual function goes down. That's the principal reason why people a lot of times end up in the doctor's office. It's not so much the other stuff, not the muscle loss or the lack of energy. Sometimes it's depression, but for the most part, it's usually like all of a sudden things aren't working as well in the bedroom, and then they go like, what's going on here? And if you have a smart, open-minded doctor, he's usually checking your testosterone. Not just prescribing Viagra or whatever as well.

Yeah, there's so many, um, boy, this is just a huge topic and there's so many different roads we can go down. Why testosterone is reportedly, if this is in fact true, low across the population. You know, there is the, um, there's the common story that is told amongst the, uh, well, across the internet and amongst these clinics and so forth, which is if we were to draw blood from everyone back in the 1920s, the average testosterone rate would be higher than if we do it now in the, in the 2000s. I don't know if there are studies that prove that, if that is in fact a factor, or is this is just conjecture based upon some other ancillary piece of data. If that is in fact the case, and if we have a lot of guys walking around with lower testosterone than what they quote should have, is it just a matter of we are more sedentary as a people, and therefore our body is saying Well, don't need that testosterone anymore. Don't need a virile male. He shouldn't be reproducing. He shouldn't be going out and protecting and hunting and so forth. Let's keep him just a sedentary blob. I don't know, I'm kind of anthropomorphizing this, but what do you think when we look at the topic of is testosterone really low across the population?

I think some of those claims are like kind of way exaggerated. This idea that, first of all, they didn't have data. On people before the 1920s on their testosterone rates. The testosterone wasn't even synthesized. It was actually synthesized, I think, by a German scientist in dogs, basically taking from dog urine. They put it in a centrifuge and spun it at different speeds, and you can kind of separate different chemicals from the urine itself. There's this crystallized form that a guy looked at under a microscope and went, "Huh, that's different." And then he figured out that that was testosterone. So this idea that like Cro-Magnon man or whatever had higher testosterone levels is almost like an inference. You can make the argument, evolutionary argument on that, which is that you had to have higher testosterone to go out and hunt and fish, and it's a dangerous world out there. Now that it's not a dangerous world, that you can eat TV dinners and whatnot, you have lower testosterone. But I don't really buy into the evolutionary side of it. I think it's more just like obesity rates are much higher, and obesity pretty much destroys the function of all of your systems— the pituitary system, the endocrine system, The, you know, your insulin, all that kind of stuff plays into lower testosterone. The conversion rate of testosterone into estrogen is a big one. A lot of the young men that are found to be hypogonadal, it's usually because they're morbidly obese. I mean, it's usually this— they have estrogen levels of 80 nanograms per deciliter when it should be 30. And then their testosterone is 300 nanograms per deciliter when it should be 600. So as soon as you get that person moving and, and take care of the obesity, you might actually see that their testosterone is going up. So I think the environment does play a big role. Um, alcoholism rates, uh, might have gone up as well, that sort of thing. But I think the whole, like, 'Oh, our ancestors were much higher testosterone,' I think is a little bit exaggerated. I would say the environmental factors are a bigger factor.

Yeah, anecdotally, I've been involved in kids' sports for a while, coaching my kids' teams, and I'm watching my 14-year-old son now— he's now in wrestling— and those kids are wearing the singlets which don't hide anything. And I'm noticing, just based upon what little knowledge I have of that world, A lot of teen boys look very, what I call, estrogenic in nature. You'll see a lot of gynecomastia, just very out of shape, and they're wrestlers. I mean, they're not sedentary. They're getting out there and doing it. And I always wonder, what is going on here? Is it just a sedentary, eating a lot, sitting around eating a lot of processed food? If they're not wrestling, they're not doing much of anything. Is it the hormones in the chicken, as a lot of the people like to say? I don't know what's going on there. What do you think?

I mean, I think there are phytoestrogens in our environment now.

Plastics and so forth.

Yeah, I think that makes a little bit of a difference. But then it's hard to say that that's true. A lot of what they've used is they looked at sperm counts. And they said, "Oh, as soon as we introduced these phytoestrogens, these plastics into the population, sperm counts went down." Well, part of that is Also, the low testosterone leads to lower sperm counts. But also, at the same time, internet pornography is also entering the population. So if you have somebody who's chronically masturbating, not to be too vile here, that's going to lower your sperm count when you actually get tested, right? So it's— there's these confounding variables that make it hard to prove that those things exist. You haven't seen even in like the Japanese population that eats a lot of phytoestrogens naturally because they eat a lot of soy products, right? Tofu and all that kind of stuff. I think comparatively you haven't seen the same issue going on. So, that's one that I'm slightly skeptical about. I think it might play some part, but I think more than anything is just overeating.

Yeah.

Even with kids that are, that are out riding bikes and fit and whatnot, still are just, they're eating like their parents and their parents are all overeating and have horrible diets and all that kind of stuff as well.

You know, we say we don't necessarily have data for the 1920s or let alone our Neanderthal past or whatever back when we were in the caves, but we do have some data, you know, from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and '90s for, you know, blood draws. And what we see, you know, if you went to LabCorp and Quest and the such back in the '80s and said, what are— as far as your population is concerned, what is the average testosterone for your men there? Apparently that number was considerably higher than what we're seeing now. And well, who cares, you know? But what matters is that when I go to a Quest, LabCorp, and so forth and I get my test and I take that to the doctor. Now in the 2000s, my doctor looks at that and says, you have a testosterone level of 290. Well, lowish, but guess what? According to LabCorp here, the normal rate is 200 to 800, so you are low normal. Get out of my office, you're fine. That's up for debate, uh, what is fine, what is normal, what is, um And we're going into a whole other topic, which is this isn't so simple. How best to put this? If I were a woman going into the doctor and saying, I would like to go on birth control, which is a pretty potent way of adjusting your hormones. And what a lot of women report is, oh, holy crap, I'm a different woman on this stuff. Well, she can get the pill, she can get the shot, she can get the pellets, she can get all kinds of stuff. But if I'm a man and I say, I'm tired, my sexual function is down, my muscle mass, I am working out like a demon and I'm getting nothing out of it. I can't lose this belly. I just overall feel like crap. The doctor's going to draw your blood and say, it's 290, you're fine, get out of my office. Just like that. And we have men in the group, in the fraternity group, who report exactly that. Doctor says, I'm fine, get out of my office. And sometimes they get downright irate about it because they're tired of men coming in their office saying, I want to feel like He-Man. No, I'm just making sure you're not gonna die. You're fine. Get out of here. Thoughts on that?

Yeah, I would say it's one of the biggest frustrations for men that I, I talked to about this issue is that it's almost like sometimes I want to tell them to go to their doctor and kind of get checked for these things, but it's almost like, don't waste your time. Even with urologists or endocrinologists who they're supposed to be like experts in this kind of stuff, are a lot of times not very open-minded and not willing. So there's the medical side of it, which is doctors in general are very risk adverse. They don't want to be sued. They want to get themselves in trouble. They don't want to have to explain why they gave somebody a prescription when they shouldn't have to, that sort of thing. Because they asked for it, which is the irony about it is like, you know, it's almost like it's easier to get opiates than it is testosterone in some cases. Or like you said, female birth control, it's kind of like that's their right as a woman to protect their reproductive choice. So a doctor will never be like, oh yeah, you're not a candidate. For birth control. You know, but that's how what's happening with men. So the AMA, the American Medical Association, I'm sure some of the other Western associations have very similar ideals. I mean, Australia, Canada, I think it's even harder to get on testosterone replacement. They look at the studies that show, okay, so where are the very adverse um, medical problems with low testosterone, and they happen at about 200 nanograms per deciliter, which is like extremely low. Like, you might as well just not produce anything at this point. Uh, high— very high risk of heart disease when your testosterone is that low. So that's usually like where they say, okay, now we need to prescribe it. But if you're, like you said, if you're 300 or 290 or something like that, or even like you could be 390 and not feel good. But they'll say, "Well, it's not going to give you heart disease, so no dice on the prescription." We can speculate there's a lot of reasons for that. One is the whole steroid thing and it being criminalized, so a lot of doctors are are, just don't want guys coming to them looking for a prescription. It's a Class C drug. It's in the United States at least, which is it has the same prison sentence technically as cocaine or, or really crazy harmful drug. So doctors are very averse to prescribing it. Some of it is ignorance. My own doctor would even tell you that they spend about a week. He's a general care practitioner, so it's not his field, but he'd say they spend about a week in medical school on hormones. Yeah. So sometimes he's very honest with me, and he said like he's had people come in and want a prescription. He says, "Well, I don't feel comfortable prescribing it because I don't know that much about it." know enough about it, so he's willing to refer you to somebody. But other doctors might have the same type of knowledge and they just go, "Ah, get out, you're fine, get out of my office," as well. So that comes up a lot. There's other ignorances like it's going to give you prostate cancer, even though there is not one single study that shows that it causes prostate cancer.

Yeah, let's pause there. That is the most quoted thing you will hear from men who are, I'm really concerned and scared about getting into this world of testosterone. I recognize via my number that I probably need it, but dude, I don't want to get prostate cancer. My dad had it, my grandpa had it, whatever it may be, and I'm scared to death of that. Well, what makes you think that? Well, my general practitioner told me. Be careful, dude. I think there may be evidence to benign— what is hyperplasia is the proper term for— but as far as will that in turn result in cancer, you're right, I don't think we have evidence to that effect. Now, guys who have had prostate cancer and have had treatment, there are therapies that involve the artificially lowering of androgens within your body to combat that hyperplasia, the growth of the prostate. So, I think that's in turn where some of this comes from and how it's kind of foggy for men.

Well, it is— it's difficult to actually prove or disprove it. So, it's confounding because as you age, you are more likely to get prostate cancer.

And your testosterone goes down. Yeah.

Yeah. As you age, your testosterone goes down, you're more likely to go on testosterone replacement. And then if you get prostate cancer, they go like, "Well, maybe your testosterone replacement gave you prostate cancer." The enlargement of the prostate is a real thing and it is a real risk going on replacement. Therapy. And but here's, here's the interesting thing. Once you start testosterone replacement, um, the risks of, uh, prostate enlargement with like, let's say, 200 milligrams of testosterone per week pretty much are the same as like 1,000 milligrams of testosterone.

Interesting.

Uh, per week. So there's, there's, there's no real study that shows that higher numbers are more likely to give you prostate enlargement, but any replacement, there is a risk of getting prostate enlargement. And again, it's very, it's difficult to say it's causative because aging in general is a risk for prostate enlargement in men. And hereditary, the big thing is heredity is probably the biggest. Contributor to that as well.

As you can see with what you're saying, what I'm saying, we're dancing around the elephant in the room, which is a lot of this, even the medical professional world kind of shrugs their shoulders and says, maybe, maybe not, don't know, not a lot of studies. Anecdotally, our patient population shows X, so we're comfortable going with X. Um, just a little, uh, little side story here talking about general practitioners and urologists and even endocrinologists and such. Are pretty ignorant of this world. I had a urologist who wanted to put me on HCG monotherapy. And for guys, if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, Google it, which is just going on a compound called HCG. You inject it subcutaneously. Yes, it will in turn raise your testosterone levels, but what a lot of men will report is, oh my gosh, my estrogen levels went through the roof. And the urologist recognized this. So what does he do? Not only did he say take this gargantuan amount of HCG every week, But I want you to take and prepare yourself for this, 1 milligram of Arimidex every single day. And I laughed literally like you are. And he's like, what? And I was like, I'm no medical professional here, but I'm somewhat versed in this world. And what you just said is maybe the largest dose of that compound that I've ever heard of, period. And he says, well, This is pretty much the standard, what you give for this kind of therapy. And I said, really? Yes. And I said, yeah, I don't feel comfortable doing that. I would feel horrible. I don't see— so that just shows you, this is a guy making, I would presume, a hell of a lot of money with a giant clinic with multiple offices, multiple nurses working for him, got people coming in like a revolving door. Now he's a urologist, so he's treating all kinds of stuff that have to deal with down there. So not just a guy saying, "I'd like to raise my testosterone." So he's kind of going off script, if you will, when dealing with this. And so he has locked himself into, I think based upon my research, this is the best way. Lower your estrogen as much as humanly possible and take this HCG. And you're laughing. And for those that don't know, this is a little ridiculous and a little dangerous. And that was a full-blown board-certified medical professional.

Yeah, you're basically gonna like zero out your estrogen Your HDL is going to— who knows what's going to happen to your good cholesterol. You're setting yourself up for osteoporosis like you are.

Awful, awful stuff. And you will just feel terrible.

Oh, yeah. Like, I mean—

Hot flashes, the whole like menopausal women type of feeling. Estrogen goes to the mouth.

Libido and erections and depression, like suicidal depression is— is actually a risk for having super low estrogen. And we can go down the road of estrogen, but sometimes it's not really even the testosterone that's making you feel better. If you go on testosterone replacement, your testosterone goes up, but so does your estrogen because you have something to aromatize into estrogen. So sometimes the good feeling, the good effects of testosterone replacement is also the fact that you're just, you're replacing all your hormones. And then you feel better as well. So it's not always just the testosterone.

So a good segue into, all right, I'm a guy, I've done my research, internet like every other guy does, reading forums and so forth. And he says, I want to start going down this road. I went to my GP, which is where a lot of guys start, laughed out of the room. Fine. Well, the market has recognized that there's a lot of guys in that boat that are getting laughed at and they're just clueless. I don't know what to do. All I know is I'm pretty sure I need this based upon this test I took. And so they say, well, we've recognized the need here and we're willing to fill it. And they have these clinics that are popping up everywhere and they are typically founded by, or I guess you could say overlooked by, quote unquote overlooked by an MD. But then when you go in, you never see an MD. Usually, usually it's nurse practitioners who are dishing out the stuff and they will look at your numbers and say, well, based upon this, we'll give you our standard protocol, which is 150-200 milligrams per week, maybe some Arimidex, maybe some HCG, maybe a vitamin B12 shot, whatever to make you feel really good. There, those clinics, and they'll be the first to tell you, we want you to feel amazing because we want you to keep coming back and paying this monthly fee to belong to the club, plus your cost of your, your prescriptions and blood tests and everything else. And we want to do so, and we will take your bloods every 8 weeks or so, and to make sure they're all within range, that you're not killing yourself. So as long as you're within range for your cholesterol and everything else, and your lipids and your red blood cell count and everything, and you're feeling great, voilà, we've done our job, away you go. And these clinics, you can tell by virtue of the fact that there's one on almost every corner in major US cities, It's working and it's making them a lot of money. Thoughts on that, on the popularity of that?

Yeah, so on, on the one end, they're probably good in the sense that they are filling a void where a lot of general practitioners don't really understand testosterone replacement. On the other end, they kind of get away with murder. So They're willing to prescribe very huge amounts as long as you keep coming back to them and saying like, "Oh, I feel okay, but I really want to feel better," and they'll be happy to write you more. Some of them will even prescribe anabolics like Anavar, you know, oxandrolone and Winstrol and nandrolone and all kinds of hormone replacement. Get into that category. So it's not even, no longer testosterone, it's hormone replacement therapy. The issue is some of them have like huge, huge client bases, so they're just, you know, you fill out your internet form, you get on the phone with a doctor for 10 minutes, he tells you what the protocol is. It's basically a standard cookie-cutter, we're gonna give everybody this because we got thousands and thousands and thousands of clients. And it's usually like, yeah, 200mg of testosterone, like 0.25 twice a week of Arimidex, however many IUs of HCG, just for everybody. They don't know if you're going to have high estrogen, low estrogen. They don't know if you're going to have estrogen side effects or no side effects. They don't know if 200mg is way overkill for you or not enough. So it's, it's kind of just like, "Churn them out, make tons of money, and we'll talk to you again in 6 months or even a year." Those, those are the kind of most common rejuvenation or TRT clinics you see. So there's not a lot of oversight, so it's kind of up to you to kind of do your homework and kind of figure out like, should I be taking this aromatase inhibitor? Do I need HCG? Um, really? Uh, what if you don't even want to have a child or whatever? So it's kind of like everybody's getting the same protocol, which doesn't make real much sense.

And you're exactly right because the difficulty here is that it sounds like a cop-out, but it's true. Everybody's a little different. Everybody's unique. This guy, if I give him X amount of testosterone, I feel great, all my numbers are wonderful, you know, hallelujah, great. Give this other guy the exact same thing, my estrogen is through the roof, my anxiety's through the roof, I'm— my nipples are hurting, um, I feel— I do not feel very good. And they look at his numbers and, yeah, in addition to that, your blood pressure is sky high, etc., etc. So everyone, it takes a little tweaking. Now, the clinic that I go to, in their defense, is pretty, what's the word, reactive to this kind of thing. And in fact, they were the ones who were very against an aromatase inhibitor to start with, with me. Let's see how you do. I didn't do too well. The initial prescription was 200 a week, and I got up to 900-something total for my testosterone, and the estrogen was through the roof. And how are you feeling? Not very good. Well, it could be this number here. Let's try this little pill. Ah, much better. And then they're like, eh, your testosterone's a little high, doesn't need to be that high, let's knock it back to 150 a week. So there I am, 150. If I do need an aromatase inhibitor, it's relatively rarely. I don't know what's going on environmentally or otherwise where some weeks I do and some weeks I don't based upon how I feel. So there's all kinds of— see what we're getting at? We keep coming back to this. It's kind of a shoulder shrug. I don't know, you know, kind of thing. There's no defined take this, this, and this and everyone will be fine. It's a difficult world they're getting into, and as you say, there are some of those clinics out there, a lot of them, which are just here you go, cookie cutter, and it's not a small cookie either. They are giving you a big, big chunk. And well, Dr. Tellis, what are some of the not so good things that can result from, you know, some guys are listening to this saying, Sounds good to me. Give me a bunch. I don't see you for 6 months. Who cares? Well, what are some of the dangers of taking this stuff and taking too much of it and taking the wrong protocol?

Well, it starts with this kind of— first of all, the kind of bad premise, which is like, okay, we're going to take a drug. And here's the thing, people think those are side effects, like raising your estrogen is a side effect. Those are the effects. Testosterone does what it does, so it's not really a side effect. Now, you might not want it, but, but that's, that's basically why researchers started developing anabolic steroids to give to, well, young people, women, males in higher dosages, because those are the androgenic effects. Of testosterone. So, um, steroids were produced to raise the anabolic effect of testosterone and lower the androgenic effect. So you have to decide, like, well, if I take this much testosterone, I'm gonna have this much androgenic effect, and you have a choice. You can either add something in there to reduce the androgenic effect, or you can lower the dose. Well, most people do not want to lower the dose. They would take as much as, as much as the doctor will say, "Oh yeah, this will be good for you, take this much." So 200 milligrams is actually above the medical prescribed dosage. It's very difficult for your general care practitioner to prescribe 200mg because they go, "Okay, 200mg is like, you know, you're gonna be a teenager again," which means you're gonna have elevated estrogen, you might have acne, you might have body hair growth that you didn't have before. I talked to a guy the other day that had, first time in his life, his back hair started growing. He's, I don't know, in his 40s or something like that. So yeah, and the reduction in fertility, all these things are what testosterone does. So they start with this premise that you're going to add a bunch of drugs to fix the problem of another drug. So that's, that's already kind of a not a good place to start when ideally you would start with, "Okay, we'll put you on 100mg. Let's see what happens." Right? And then, "Oh, you know, you feel pretty good. You could feel better. Let's try 150mg." And then, "Oh, I still don't feel good, but I don't have any estrogenic side effects. Let's have 200mg." So elevated estrogen, I always say, you know, it's kind of like cocaine and whiskey. Uh, more is better until it's too much. Mm-hmm. So estrogen has these great things. Um, it reacts well with your natural growth hormone production. Um, it, uh, raises your IGF-1, which helps with your joint repair, your bone growth. It raises your good cholesterol, your HDL. Lowers your bad cholesterol, your LDL, which is typically why women live longer than men because they don't get the heart disease associated that men get with lower HDL. Um, but if it's too high, then you're gonna get a lot of water retention, same way a female gets at certain times of the month, which is gonna raise your blood pressure When it's too high, you might get acne. When it's too high, you might get sexual dysfunction. You might get anxiety. You might start crying at the end of Titanic. All of those type of things, but it's not a guarantee. So there's this— again, there's this medical number somewhere between 20 and 40 nanograms per deciliter of estrogen is is considered normal, but one person can have 80. I've seen estrogens on blood work in the 200s.

Oof.

And you talk to the guy and you say, "How do you feel?" He says, "I feel great." "Did you check your blood pressure?" "Yeah, blood pressure is normal." Right? Other people, their estrogen is 30 and they have water retention.

There you go.

They have high blood pressure, they have acne, they have irritability.

Everyone's different. Everyone's different.

So some people— now, that's not normal for somebody to have 200. Like, 99% of people who have an estrogen of 200 are probably going to get gynecomastia.

Yeah. And for those that don't know, gynecomastia is quite literally the growth of breast glandular tissue in men. You grow boobies. It is very possible to take some estrogen, get a shot of it, and a few weeks, months later, you'll be like, oh my gosh, I have boobs. It happens. Um, if you have an eye for it, you can see it in some professional bodybuilders. You'll see lumpiness and puffiness in their neck area.

Yeah, if you got an eye for it, whether they've had surgery or not, but pretty much all of them.

Yep, yep. So they're taking massive amounts of these compounds that we're talking about, which— grams we have in the professional bodybuilding world. Um, in doing some reading up on this, I didn't realize here recently we've had a lot of deaths I don't know if you've seen this, um, a lot— I shouldn't say a lot, uh, in, in relate— in relation. And then, um, as far as a ratio is concerned of number of bodybuilders to death, I say it's a little alarming. There's not that many professional bodybuilders out there, and we've had in the last, I think, several months, several deaths. Um, which begs the question, is this because of the large amount of androgens that they're taking? Is it because, um, I think some of them are probably taking compounds to lose water so they look ripped and on stage and impressive. Diuretics are very dangerous, especially for the heart. A large amount of androgens, as we know, can mess up that ratio with the LDL/HDL, as well as cause all kinds of— oh, what's the term— blockages in the heart. The arteriosclerosis. That's a hard to say, hard word to say. So I'm sure a lot of these guys— I'm sorry, a lot of these guys are walking around with, you know, 80% blockages and don't even know it. I think that's probably what they found with a lot of these guys are dropping from heart attacks. So, um, for you guys that are looking to jump on the horse, so to speak, go to a clinic and so forth, um, make sure they know what they're doing and make sure that they're testing you on a regular basis and looking at your blood work just to make sure everything's healthy. You will probably be fine, but there are some of you that, no, you got to keep an eye on it. Watch what you're doing. Get the— I did recently, my, um, my father and my father's father both died in their 50s of heart disease, so I'm very well aware of I better watch my heart. My blood pressure is great. I'm doing the fish oil, the CoQ10. I'm doing all kinds of stuff. And I just recently did a scan to see about calcium deposits in my carotids and so forth to see if there's— and they've detected zero. So I'm like, sweet, so I'm doing something right. Now, in hindsight though, my dad was a chronic smoker from the age of 18 on. Smoking is huge, it's awful. He drank caffeine like it was going out of style, and he had a horrible diet. So all those things, he had like the trifecta of awfulness. You don't do that when you have a history of heart problems. So a case could be made that somebody like me wants to jump on testosterone, oh, be careful, dude, you have to be proactive about this. So I have been. So for some of you guys that are wanting to jump on this horse and look into it, you're going to have to be proactive and you're going to have to take your health into your own hands. Don't, don't rely on a doctor. Hey, take my story of the urologist, for goodness sakes, wanted to prescribe me some compounds that would have made me feel like horseshit and would have probably been detrimental to my health in a very big way. But it took me to go, oh, I know a little enough about this to go, I don't think so. And I backed away slowly. So you got to be aware of this kind of stuff. You can't just go in completely blind. As we've testified to, this is a weird world that is very vague and a lot of gray area here, and everyone is different. So you're going to be very proactive about this. And a lot of guys get into this world of testosterone, and I feel great, I feel amazing, and oh, look at this, I've gained some muscle, and look at this in the mirror, I don't even know who this guy is anymore. I'm like, you can actually see abs now and pecs, and this is amazing, this is wonderful. Boy, they want to keep it going and they want to keep it going, and it doesn't take long where they start getting on the internet and they start researching other things. Well, maybe if I supplemented with a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And then you mentioned before, some of these clinics are like, yeah, we'll give it to you, sure, what do you want? And which is surprising, I've heard those stories. Um, I'm trying to think of, um The one I've heard— you said Anavar and some— I've not heard of that being prescribed. That kind of raised some eyebrows. Wow. I've heard of Deca being prescribed, um, quite a bit, which the proper term is, uh, is it nandrolone?

Yeah, nandrolone decoanate. It's the only— which is why we call it the only drug that they named after the ester of the, the drug, which is not a, not a drug. The ester just like, um, allows the drug to be cleaved from the oil in a certain amount of time. But yeah, its nickname is Deca, but it's, it's nandrolone decoanate is typically what's prescribed. Nandrolone is what's called a 19-nortestosterone. So it actually does occur in the body, but very, very small amounts, and it is less androgenic than testosterone itself. So of course it was researched in the '70s, prescribed a lot in the '80s, actually starting as hormone replacement therapy. They were looking at that to see if that was a better idea than testosterone replacement. And you could prescribe it to women as well because it's less androgenic.

But it has its side effects like anything else. And some of those— well, we could go on and on about, well, this one does this, but then it also does this. Like Anavar, for example, I know from reading, um, has the negative side effects on that HDL/LDL ratio. You look good, you feel great, etc., etc. Some of these drugs, you lose your hair like crazy. Some of these drugs like D-Ball, which is one of the most popular orals back in the probably '60s, '70s, '80s, in the Arnold Schwarzenegger days, they were taking that like candy. Well, extremely estrogenic in nature. As far as aromatization is concerned. Big puffy watery looking dudes, well, they're probably taking that. And I'm sure that, that does a lot of wonders for their blood pressure and everything else. So we are not going to sit here and say jump on that world because that has all kinds of crazy involved in it. You don't know what you're taking, number one, because you're getting some pill probably from some back alley guy, some guy at the gym or something like that. And where's he getting it from? He probably doesn't know. He's just— he has a source, and that source has a source, and so forth. And it's probably from some lab in China somewhere that is also mixing up who knows what right next to the drugs, and who knows what falls in the vat, and just all kinds of craziness you don't want to get involved in. Um, but that's that world. Unless you have some clinic that's willing to give you the real stuff that comes out of an American pharmaceutical lab or something. Yay, um, great for you, but you're still going to have the sides and all of that fun stuff. It's a, it's an interesting world for sure.

Yeah, and I'm gonna say something that's typically not said. You don't hear it a lot about, like, you know, the athletes or bodybuilders that die at an early age. All those things that you mentioned are true, but I think what people don't overlook, or what they do overlook, is What androgens and steroids do is what? Their main effect is they raise your body weight. And that might be the biggest detrimental to your health. We know that larger people don't live as long. That's a personal choice. I'm a bigger guy. I like having shoulders and whatnot. So I know that might cut a few years off of my life, but I enjoy my lifestyle. Um, but we know like bigger dogs don't live as long as smaller dogs. So the, the elevation of body weight is probably the number one reason why people don't live as long. And that is why I'm not convinced that testosterone prolongs people's life. I've had this discussion with kind of the people who are into longevity, and sometimes they disagree with me. There's the one side of it which is like If you're truly hypogonadal and it keeps you on the couch and makes you feel bad and you're not getting up and moving around and all that kind of stuff, of course you're going to die at a younger age. Or if you're 65 and you can't get off, you know, your chair to do common tasks, you know, your life is going to be gone real fast. So there's that side of it. Which is true, but also maybe your testosterone is supposed to go down, not just because you no longer are needed for reproduction, which is one of its main jobs, but maybe your body weight is supposed to go down as well. And so if you have this throughout your life, this chronic elevation of testosterone, 800 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter, which is basically like higher than most young men. A lot of young men are somewhere 400 to 600 even in their 20s. And maybe you've never had testosterone in your life. Maybe even as an adolescent you never had 1,000 nanograms per deciliter and you're just gonna chronically elevate it for the next 40 years of your life. Well, maybe your body weight wasn't supposed to be that high. Maybe your hematocrit wasn't supposed to be always at 50, that sort of thing. Maybe there's a reason— biology's a lot smarter than we are. We won't convince ourselves of that, but Mother Nature, whether it's God or evolution, something designed us to have this reduction in hormones, and you're basically saying nope. So that's something to understand, that there may be a risk that we're not seeing in the future. Even though it makes you feel better, maybe it's— you're risking your— it's a trade-off. Maybe you're saying, okay, better lifestyle for maybe a couple years off my life, which I'm perfectly okay with. But that's something you should just kind of understand going into it, that just because it makes you feel better doesn't mean it won't have repercussions when you're in your 60s or 70s or whatever.

I have heard the statistic of— I've heard a scientist say, and don't ask me or quote me who said this, but it was— the stat was, we know based upon studies that the higher the testosterone of X population, well, that is, there's a correlation to the lower the lifespan. So you can take that and come to the conclusion of testosterone kills people faster than if they didn't have testosterone. So if you're higher in testosterone, your lifespan is going to be shorter than those who have lower in testosterone. Well, then that begs the question of why. There's the thought of men who have higher testosterone are also more aggressive, risk takers and so forth. So they're going to put themselves in life positions where their life is going to be cut short. They're more apt to jump out of an airplane, so to speak. Fight more wars, fight more wars, be more aggressive, get in a fight with some guy in, in the alleyway. You know, the guy who's low in testosterone, he won't do that. He'll be sitting at home type of thing. So you have that, plus you have— you just mentioned the body weight's a big thing. Um, if you're 6% body fat but you're 300 pounds, you're still 300 pounds.

Yeah.

And as far as your heart is concerned and every other organ in your body, oof, it's tough to maintain this 300 pounds. And that the aging process accelerates. That's a very simple way of looking at it. And also, you know, your heart having to pump and do all that work to keep that 300 pounds of muscle going, that's a lot of work. And it's not necessarily healthy. There is a community of people that are very much into longevity, and I'm going to stay on this planet as much as humanly possible. And what they've all come to the conclusion is, is that a hypocaloric diet, Yeah, don't eat. Eating as little as humanly possible, just enough to keep you alive. Be super skinny. Um, yes, walk around and so forth, and— but you don't necessarily strain yourself where you're squatting 800 pounds and so forth. They don't do that. They don't want to build up any muscle because they want to keep their body weight low. Um, the sleep and everything else. So there's something to the, um, the caveat of if you get into this world, you could very well be cutting years off of your life. It's nothing to sneeze at if that's a concern for you. Now, um, in, in my world of the Dad Starting Over world, why this is so prevalent is that a lot of guys have kind of been kicked between the legs, so to speak, by life, and they're left going, who am I as a man? What's my role in this world? Etc., etc. My wife left me, yada yada, and here I am and I want to start over and I want to do things right, and man, I just feel like crap. And then they go right down the rabbit hole of testosterone. That's how they get into it.

Yeah, it's a new, uh, it's a new midlife crisis.

It's a new midlife crisis. Absolutely right.

No car, testosterone.

We've been on for about, according to my timer here, about 45 minutes or so. How to wrap this up? And talking about the world of testosterone, um, we didn't even really dip into the world of illegal or the more seedy anabolic world. That's a whole other world in itself and a whole other hour of discussion. Any final thoughts on the world of testosterone in men? Let's say one of your athletes comes to you and says, "Coach, I haven't been feeling too good. I know my numbers have been down on the weights and so forth, and I'm not putting out in practice like I should. So I went and I'm 20 years old and I went to the doctor and sure enough my testosterone is like 198." And the doc's like, "Whoa, that's really low, dude. You should be— maybe you're overtraining, maybe you're not eating enough, maybe you're not sleeping enough, etc., etc." If that kid, that's 'cause he's 20, if that kid was 40, I think we'd be saying, "Maybe you wanna go check out one of those clinics or something." But if that kid's 20 and he's seeing that, what do you feel? Is it, let's knock off some of the lifestyle stuff first before we jump into the prescription world?

Yeah, I mean, something's up. Something's causing that problem. So it could be like a pituitary adenoma. Once you rule that out, it's like, well, are you binge drinking? A big thing is alcoholism. I read one study where it— I can't remember off the top of my head what the numbers were, but the conclusion was pretty much just like 100% of alcoholics are hypogonadal. They don't even know it.

And if you're so drunk, you maybe don't even care, but Uh, on that note, the use of cannabis I think also is becoming more and more prevalent, and we're seeing that that's having a big effect too.

Yeah, I don't know exactly the mechanism, but I know cannabis is very like catabolic in some ways. Depress— we can get into the weird science, but it depresses mTOR, which is anabolic. Um, it raises your estrogen. Maybe it has phytoestrogens. I'm not sure. I'm not I've never been a cannabis guy, so I haven't like researched a whole lot of it, so I don't want to speak out my behind here. But yeah, that's something to look at as well, is a marijuana user. Lack of sleep is, is like probably the biggest cause though, outside of obesity, is people just are sleeping 5 hours a night. Or a lot of times when they try to figure out the relationship between sleep and hormone levels, they look at shift workers, people who are working like 16 hours, 3 days straight, and then they have 3 hours, 3 days off, and their schedule's all screwed up. Those people are very likely to be hypogonadal. I know in my own case, I had my testosterone checked for the first time, I think I was 33 years old, and I had 1,200 nanograms per deciliter. Which a lot of people would go like, whoa, you're a freak. Um, at the same time I was a strength athlete and that's probably, if you're going to be a good strength athlete, that's probably kind of your natural genetics. I was in the top 20 in the country, um, during my 20s and all that kind of stuff. So, uh, the sport kind of chose me for, for a reason. But then I had my testosterone checked, you know, a few years later and it was like, 350. So not good, not terrible, but I had started my PhD, right? So that's when— and I even tracked it. So I looked at my testosterone during the school year where I was teaching, coaching, taking classes myself, working on my PhD. Um, and again, it would be like 350. And then I had it tested in the summer no students, no real work besides recruiting, and my testosterone would be 800.

Interesting.

A huge, huge deficit. So one of the benefits of testosterone replacement is— you can say it's a benefit or detriment depending on how you look at it— you can keep your testosterone elevated here all the time, which is not natural. Which is not normal.

Yeah, it's supposed to have peaks and valleys.

Yeah, you keep it at 800 nanograms continuously, where otherwise, you know, you, you don't sleep for 2 days, it's 400, you know, you get a couple good night's sleep, back up to 600, you know, so you got this gradual big— and that's why, that's why it's illegal in sports typically, even, even if you're at a replacement dose where it's not super physiological levels, you have the advantage of no matter how your lifestyle is, it's always kind of there. So yeah, lifestyle factors play a big role for sure.

Yeah. And that sleep you hit on, boy, that's huge. And I think we have an epidemic of a lot of guys being sleep deprived out there. And they use it as a badge of honor. I only get 5 hours of sleep a night. Well, you're functioning at a way substandard level. It's just all there is to it. I think the evidence shows 7, 8 hours is optimal for most people, and that's where you begin to see what you're really made of and what you're— what's possible when you're at that optimal level. And rest is everything. Your diet is everything, what you're shoving in your face. Um, but here is the caveat though, and you agree or disagree with me here. Um, I'm a perfectly natural guy. I'm eating right. I'm sleeping like I'm supposed to. I'm working out like the devil. I'm working out consistently versus this guy over here next to me who is— he'll miss a workout every now and then. He's not afraid to eat some pizza every now and then, but he shoots 500 milligrams of testosterone in his butt every week. Guess who's going to win the gym wars? And that's unfair, but that's, that's real life. I'm sorry. That's where a lot of guys, they see that mentality when they get into so much of the, I want to gain muscle, I want to look my best, I want to feel my best, I want to be a He-Man. This guy over here is taking it, he's not putting in nearly as much work as I am, and look at him. That's really what it boils down to. But what you don't see is that guy also has a little clock over his head that's counting down that shows the years of his life going away. 500 milligrams, I use that as an example, that's a very basic, um, First cycle. First cycle of stack. Usually it's that plus some kind of oral or some other ancillary drug for your steroid cycle. But it's not healthy and it's not good. And I think all of us eventually get to the point, I know it took me maybe until my early 40s where I said, what am I doing with trying to get as big and muscular as humanly possible? Who am I trying to impress? I'm not gonna be up on stage at any point. I don't make money from my body. I can understand if you're a model or fitness model or a professional athlete. Boy, we can get a whole world of that world and how common anabolics is in that. Little hint: very. Um, but, uh, for most, you know, John Doe out there listening to this, um, be careful. Have a good long look. Introspection is everything. Good long look at yourself. What are you trying to prove? What are you— are you in fact trying to be as healthy as humanly possible, extend your life? Look good, feel good. It may be for you, but you're going to do a lot of reading. You have to really be proactive in this. Really know yourself. Don't compare yourself to that dude at the gym. That's him. You are you. And what's the end game here? I mean, how many guys do we see on the group who are, dude, yesterday I deadlifted 4 plates for the first time ever, so-and-so, and I'm 40-some years old. Great, good for you. But I want to say What's the end game here? Um, and you're a weightlifting coach and you're probably thinking the same thing, dude. Why, you know, my guys do that with the clean and jerk, snatch, and all that other stuff because they're in competition and they're trying to win medals and get a little bit every time. You, dude, are in your 40s and 50s who are, you know, deadlifting 405 and up. Why exactly? Um, your body's going to reach a limit. It's going to reach a point where it's going to say This no bueno. And here, let me show you, because now you have a herniated disc, now you've torn a hamstring, now etc., etc., keep going. And, um, I, I am evidence of this. I have right now as we speak, my right shoulder's hurting, my right elbow's hurting, um, I'm gonna have to stretch for a half an hour today or otherwise I'll feel like total shit tomorrow. It's just, um, and then I look back and I say my 20s and 30s were in and out of the gym some pretty heavy-duty stuff, and a lot of it I look back and say, and for what exactly? If I could rewind the hands of time, I'd probably say half that time I would spend doing some flexibility mobility work just so I don't have to be in the shape that I'm in today. So I don't know, long-winded way of saying, um, it's a good idea, guys, to just sit back and think, what am I doing and why? And then in the end, this may be the right path for you. But then again, I think of a lot of us really took a good long look, we wouldn't go down this rabbit hole that we've gone down.

Yeah, I would, I would add though that hormone replacement can be literally almost like a lifesaver for some people. There are people out there who feel horrible, they're depressed, they don't know why. They go to their doctor and they're like, hey man, I things are horrible, I have suicidal thoughts, all this kind of stuff, and the doctor goes, here's your SSRI.

Yeah, here's your Prozac.

Antidepressant.

Yeah, yeah.

When sometimes it's like, you know, if your testosterone went from 300 to 600, maybe, and you got in the— it was motivating enough, like, oh, I'm on some hormones, maybe I can do something now in the gym, and to get out there and get some fitness under your belt, and maybe you eat a little bit better, and Now all of a sudden that SSRI was probably the worst thing that would have happened to you because they were just giving you a bandaid when really you just needed to get some pep and now you're on your way. So it's also something like, hey, when you get to a certain age, go see, you know? And then just make sure you do your research and hopefully you find an open-minded doctor. Hopefully you find a good clinic. Hopefully, you know, that's why I'm here too, you know, message me and ask some questions. So, um, for some people it really is like a game changer though.

Oh, I've been the biggest cheerleader of it. Like, you know, you just said it right there, you took the words out of my mouth. How many guys have been like, my doctor just threw Prozac at me, um, and just, or Xanax or whatever it may be. And I said, well, how's your sleep? How's your exercise? And go get some blood work done. Oh, look at that, it's 199 testosterone. Ding, ding, ding. I think we have something here. Maybe you need to go on some therapy. My caveat is that for a lot of guys, this is a— this is a— you're opening the door to something which for not all men, but for a lot of men, especially men in the mindset of I want to get better and be the best that I can, boy, this can be a rabbit hole that can take you down some not so good areas. Once you get that shot in your butt, Guys, you're never the same again. I speak from experience. You can't go back. I can't go back to the old me again. There's no way. If I take this little shot, how often am I taking it? Twice a week, and that's all it takes, and all my other blood values are fine, my health seems to be fine, I'm sure as hell gonna take it. But boy, oh boy, there's that little thing that tells me, if I took a little more, or if I go to that one dude at the gym and get some other da-da-da, I could be, Just be careful because this is a world that there's a tipping point where it goes from cool, everything's healthy, I feel a million bucks, to I feel amazing and but I've just cut so many years off my life. And that tipping point is different for everybody.

Yeah, there's the ethical— like anybody with their medical treatment, there's the ethical side of it. And I mean, if you go down that route, you have to really understand that this is what's going to happen. And maybe, like, I've met people who are like, yeah, I'm, I'm in this for life, you know. If I die when I'm 65 instead of 75 or whatever, that's my trade-off. So just know that there is a trade-off and it's going to be different for everybody. Some, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger is still going.

Couple of heart surgeries later.

Yeah, good medical treatment, good doctors and whatever. Who's Rambo? Stallone. You know, all those guys. But then, like, like you said, there's been some guys in their 30s that are now passing away, obviously like chronic abusers. But yeah, yeah, they're just kind of the example of the other side, the side you can go down.

Exactly right. Exactly right. Well, Coach Vance, as I mentioned before, you are a member of our team. We have a team of 7 of us now, coaches in there, and you can go to dadstartingover.com/coaching. If you are a DSO fraternity member, if you go to DSO or dadstartingover.com/coaching and you look at the pricing on there and you say, oh, I'm not paying that, well, become a DSO fraternity member at $14.99 a month and the pricing on that coaching goes down considerably. And you can chat with Coach Vance himself and come up with a plan to get in really good shape, work on your health, work on your body, and become the best dude that you can be. So Coach Vance, thank you so much again. I appreciate it. And happy holidays.

Yeah, you too.

All righty, have a good one.