|
The Natural Prostate Cure
Download This Book
|
Chapter 13: Home Hormone Testing
It is commonly agreed that prostate problems are largely hormone-based. Our prostates are more affected by hormones than any other factor, yet even urologists almost never test their patients for hormone levels, especially testosterone. If you demand a hormone test, it requires seeing a licensed medical doctor, getting blood drawn and paying up to $200 per hormone, a second office visit, and then usually an expensive prescription. The results you get back often do not distinguish between bound (unavailable levels) and free (bioavailable levels). In fact, most doctors are simply unaware of the difference and aren’t at all familiar with its importance. Even endocrinologists are surprisingly uninformed about how hormones work and which hormones to test much less how to properly administer them.
Proteins in our bloodstream called SHBG (sex hormone binding globulins) bind themselves to the majority of our sex hormones, making them biologically unavailable. Testosterone, for example, is about 98 percent bound, leaving only about 2% free testosterone to actually affect our metabolic processes. For about twenty years now, scientists have been able to accurately measure hormone levels by using saliva samples, but this has taken place only in clinics and medical studies. Now, with technological advances, saliva samples can be collected at home and sent to a laboratory for an RIA analysis (radioimmunoassay), at a cost of approximately $30 per hormone. The World Health Organization approved this method in the 1990s due to its ease, efficiency, reliability, and practicality. Now you can test estradiol, estrone, estriol, testosterone, DHEA, melatonin, pregnenolone, andro-stenedione, cortisol, and other hormones by simply putting your saliva into a test tube and mailing it to one of several testing labs. Soon, we’ll also be able to test insulin, our T3 and T4 thyroid hormones, as well as growth hormone.
Saliva testing is a tremendous breakthrough in both traditional medicine and alternative, natural medicine, yet very few people are aware of it, much less where to buy the test kits. One would think they would be available not only in every pharmacy and chain drug store, but also the mass retailers. It may take years for such a great benefit to become widely utilized. No matter what illness you have, medical doctors, and even naturopathic doctors and chiropractors, rarely test for hormone levels of any kind. Even life-extension advocates who promote the use of over-the-counter hormones, like DHEA and melatonin, often don’t advocate testing your levels to see if you need to supplement them in the first place. Obviously, our hormones are extremely critical to every aspect of our health, including mental functioning. It is a little-known fact that men and women have exactly the same hormones, only in different amounts. We all have the exact same hormones.
Women have testosterone and androstenedione, while men have progesterone, LH (luteinizing hormone), FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone), and the three estrogens, as well as prolactin (the milk-secreting hormone). The vast majority of people have no idea what any of their vital hormone levels are, or whether they are too high or too low. You can never know the true state of your health, or obtain your optimum health, unless you know your basic hormone levels.
For women, estrogen deficiency after menopause is a well-established myth that is disproved by thousands of clinical studies in women around the world. Medical doctors and pharmacists know nothing about estriol - the most basic human estrogen. Their real problem is progesterone deficiency. As women age their levels of melatonin and pregnenolone fall. Testosterone can either be too high or too low in women as can DHEA. Thyroid deficiency is epidemic especially T4 (L-thyroxine). Insulin resistance is all too common.
In men, estrogen (estradiol and estrone) rises while testosterone falls, thus reversing the traditional testosterone-to-estrogen ratio and causing serious problems, such as prostate disease, breast enlargement, baldness, weight gain, heart problems, and many other conditions. Literally nothing is known of the effects of estriol on men and almost no research has ever been done. Male levels of DHEA, melatonin, and pregnenolone fall steeply after forty. (Men really don’t need to test their progesterone levels if they’re using 1/8th teaspoon five days a week.) Even though they have no ovaries, men have a dramatic rise in LH, FSH, and prolactin, which can cause various health problems.
What should a man with prostate problems do? Test all your basic hormones especially testosterone and DHEA, as well as estradiol, estrone, pregnenolone, melatonin, cortisol, T3 and T4 (don’t bother with TSH or T3 uptake), and any other hormones he wants to measure. A glucose tolerance test is in order to determine possible insulin resistance. (Men really don’t need to test their progesterone levels if they’re using 1/8th teaspoon five days a week.) You MUST monitor those that you supplement, at least once a year. If testosterone is low, you can go to a doctor for natural transdermal testosterone creams/gels or sublingual oil solution. Go to a compounding pharmacist and get 100 g of a 3 percent cream and use a half gram a day (15 mg) on thin skin. (Expect about 3 mg of this to be absorbed). Or get an oil suspension with 3 mg per drop and use this sublingually. Do NOT use oral or injectable salts of testosterone such as propionate or enanthate, and certainly never methyl testosterone. The patches are very expensive and have a very poor (about 15%) absorption. The gels sold now in the chain pharmacies also are very expensive and have very poor absorption. You can use a mere 3 mg dose of liquid natural testosterone sublingually. Simply put a drop containing 3 mg under your tongue. You cannot legally buy testosterone in DMSO solution, but you can make this yourself and use 3 mg a day on thin skin like your inner wrist. Sublingual and transdermal DMSO solutions are the most effective ways to use testosterone. You can buy 99 percent DMSO (not gels!) cheaply via the Internet. Do not use androstenedione or its analogs to raise testosterone. Androstenedione is now an illegal steroid. It doesn’t work in some men and raises harmful estrogens. In all men it quits working after a period of time. Yes, it is the biological precursor to testosterone along with androstenediol, but it is just not orally effective long term. There is no way to raise testosterone safely and effectively other than sublingual or transdermal natural testosterone. If DHEA is low, dosages of 25 mg daily should be effective, although elderly or sickly men can require 50 mg. Monitor your levels annually. If estradiol (the most powerful of the three estrogens) or estrone are high, it is very difficult to lower them. “Antiaromatase” drugs, which prevent the metabolism of testosterone into estradiol, and androstenedione into estrone, are dangerous and not advised. You can take 200 mg of DIM and 1 to 2 grams of flax oil daily to help lower your estrogen and improve the metabolism of all your estrogens and their metabolites. You should also lose weight, stop drinking alcohol, consume less food, exercise vigorously, eat more fiber, and quit eating fat and red meat. Fat intake, especially saturated animal fat, is highly correlated with elevated estrogen levels in both men and women. In other words, you can lower your estrogen level safely and effectively with lifestyle changes, more than any other method and all these factors work together very well.
It is commonly believed that testing levels of IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor) is a dependable indicator of actual growth hormone levels. This is simply not true, and clinical studies prove it repeatedly. Men with prostate disease are often found to have relatively high levels of IGF-1 and low levels of growth hormone. Studies have shown that IGF-1 levels (which can be tested by saliva) are NOT dependable indicators of growth hormone at all, and are often elevated in men with prostate and other diseases. If you want to test your HGH (human growth hormone, or somatotropin) level you must go to a doctor and order a special blood test. As discussed earlier, lifestyle will keep your GH level up, and L-glutamine will temporarily “spike” your level, but none of the GH supplements sold have any legitimacy at all, regardless of their impressive claims. No matter how persuasive the advertising, do not listen to the claims that over-the-counter supplements raise GH levels. NONE of them work! To raise your GH you must use real prescription rhGH daily by injection, sublingually, or transdermally in DMSO. Chinese Jintropin rhGH is now about $100 a month for 30 IU (1 IU daily). You can buy this legally on the Internet without a prescription for your own personal use. The best way to use this is both sublingually and in DMSO for maximum absorption.
You can contact the following companies, which offer saliva test kits, or search the Internet under “saliva hormone testing” or “saliva hormone test”. If you aren’t on the Internet get a relative to help you or go to your local public library for assistance. These kits just aren’t sold in retail stores yet.
Aeron Life Cycle
Labs / Jason Products
Great Smokies
Diagnostics / Body Balance
ZRT Laboratories
Life-Flo Labs
Pharmasan, Inc.
Most of these labs offer kits that test 1 to 4 hormones, at a cost of about $30 per hormone. Melatonin has to be ordered separately, as it must be collected by itself at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. The time of day when a sample is taken is very important for many hormones, as levels rise and fall throughout the day and night. For consistent analysis, collect saliva samples for your various hormones at the same time of day, each time you test them. Follow the directions included in the kits. Refer to the various graphs in this book and look for the youthful levels you had at about the age of thirty. Vegetarians usually have lower levels of hormones. You MUST monitor your levels of every hormone you choose to supplement, at least once a year. You simply cannot take these powerful hormones without monitoring them.
|
