June 16, 2022
In this podcast, Dr. Hotze talks about testosterone and thyroid hormones, and heart disease in men. He also explains how low testosterone, hypothyroidism and heart disease are interrelated.
0:48: What about your initiative, your assertiveness, your sense of well-being, your self-confidence, your moods, your goal orientation, your drive, your directiveness? All these are mental functions and they are affected by your hormones, particularly testosterone and thyroid hormones.
1:10: Testosterone, of course, is the quintessential male hormone. It’s what drives men.
1:46: Well, as men age and as they mature, inevitably, your hormone levels will decline. And this has an adverse effect, not only on your mental function, but also on your muscle tone and your muscle mass, on your cardiovascular function, on your romantic moods and inclinations, and your abilities.
2:16: Now, by the time a man reaches 40 years old, his testosterone level has declined by almost a half of what it was when he was young and in the prime of life in the early twenties. By the time you’re 50, it’s a third of the level. By the time you’re 60, it’ll be a fourth of the level. And by the time you’re 70, you’re just in the gutter, and oftentimes in the gutter long before that.
3:17: The petrochemicals are everywhere in the world and petrochemical products, which are derived from petroleum or oil, are hormone disruptors. What they do is they go to the receptors and they bind the receptors so your testosterone levels, so testosterone, your body can’t properly affect…and cause changes in your cells because testosterone affects every cell in your body.
6:40: Now, we can give testosterone in an injectable form. We can give it in an oral form using capsules.
6:59: So we like to adjust the dose and we know clinically what doses work for individuals who may be low in their 20’s and 30’s in testosterone or low in their 70’s and 80’s. We know what level to get them to so they feel better.
7:50: Now andropause is analogous to women’s menopause. Like women, they lose their hormones completely when they go through the change of life around 50 years of age.
8:38: Now testosterone will dramatically increase your muscle strength and your muscle mass. So if you’re working out and you can’t seem to gain any traction and increased muscle mass and you can’t really lift weights like you used to, or you’re not able to jog or run like you used to, well, testosterone can be dramatic in its effect.
9:27: Now people ask, “Well, isn’t it dangerous taking testosterone when you get older?” Let me ask you this. How many young men do you know that have heart disease and have heart attacks or have strokes few and far between?
9:43: Now, as testosterone levels go down, that adversely affects your cardiovascular function.
9:52: Well, testosterone dilates up your arteries. It lowers your blood pressure.
10:19: It has been shown that individuals with low levels of testosterone have a dramatically increased risk of heart disease over those men that do not have low or marginally low levels of testosterone.
12:25: Testosterone causes your bone marrow to increase your red blood count. So as men decline in their testosterone, their blood count, red blood count goes down.
15:22: And we do treat for thyroid even in the face of normal blood levels because the range for thyroid and all the hormones is determined by where the average is, plus or minus two standard deviations, which is a statistical term that incorporates 95% of the population.
16:56: Well, thyroid gland is the gland in your neck shaped like a butterfly that produces thyroid hormones and the thyroid hormones are what enable your cells, not your blood, your cells, and every cell in your body to produce energy.
17:44: It’s men that are older whose hormone levels have declined who experience significant health problems, primarily cardiovascular disease which deals with heart attacks, atherosclerosis which is the hardening of the arteries, leading to heart attacks.
18:44: By the way, the anti-inflammatory medication can lead to heart disease. Vioxx was one of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories that was taken off the market because it caused heart disease. Well, ibuprofen does the same thing, that’s Advil.
19:25: In studies, it’s been shown that people that have hypothyroidism or low thyroid levels, as well as low testosterone levels, have an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. So if you want to keep yourself in good health, it’s important for you to replenish your hormones, and those hormones are primarily testosterone and thyroid hormones. That’s the way you can help prevent yourself from developing cardiovascular disease.
20:22: It takes about 25 years to cook a good heart attack. So if we have some mild or minimal amount of atherosclerosis, we know you have inflammation which could ultimately, over a period of decades, contributes to you having a heart attack, and you don’t want to have that.
Dr. Steven Hotze: Hello, I’m Dr. Steve Hotze, welcome to Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution. Today, I’m going to speak to you men. I’m going to talk about three things. We’re going to talk about testosterone, we’re going to talk about low thyroid, called hypothyroidism, and we’re going to talk about heart disease, and I’m going to explain to you how testosterone, thyroid hormones and heart disease are interrelated.
Let me ask you a question. Men, do you feel like your energy level has been declining over the years? Are you having difficulty losing weight? What about your initiative, your assertiveness, your sense of well-being, your self-confidence, your moods, your goal orientation, your drive, your directiveness? All these are mental functions and they are affected by your hormones, particularly testosterone and thyroid hormones.
Testosterone, of course, is the quintessential male hormone. It’s what drives men. When men are young, they join the army. If they’re in the military, they learn how to charge hills in the face of machine gun fire because they think they’re invincible. Remember the first time you got your car when you were a young man? You got your license, you got out for the first time, what did you do? You put the pedal to the metal and drove it as fast as you possibly could.
You remember that? You thought you were invincible. Why? Because you had high levels of testosterone surging through your body. Well, as men age and as they mature, inevitably, your hormone levels will decline. And this has an adverse effect, not only on your mental function, but also on your muscle tone and your muscle mass, on your cardiovascular function, on your romantic moods and inclinations, and your abilities.
These all are indicative when these begin to decline, they’re indicative that your testosterone level declines. Now, by the time a man reaches 40 years old, his testosterone level has declined by almost a half of what it was when he was young and in the prime of life in the early twenties. By the time you’re 50, it’s a third of the level. By the time you’re 60, it’ll be a fourth of the level. And by the time you’re 70, you’re just in the gutter, and oftentimes in the gutter long before that.
Now, what causes testosterone levels to decline? Well, it normally declines with age. That’s just the function of getting older. It also declines in the face of being around petrochemical products and petrochemical products are everywhere. They’re in the pesticides that are sprayed on the food, they’re in lotions and colognes you put on your body. They’re in the plastic that you drink. It’s in the water.
The petrochemicals are everywhere in the world and petrochemical products, which are derived from petroleum or oil, are hormone disruptors. What they do is they go to the receptors and they bind the receptors so your testosterone levels, so testosterone, your body can’t properly affect…and cause changes in your cells because testosterone affects every cell in your body.
And when you have petrochemicals in the environment, it also decreases the production of testosterone. Who wants that? Would you believe me if I told you, and you may already know this, that…testosterone levels and sperm counts have dramatically declined over the last 50 years. So we see, even in young men, we see low testosterone levels. Now, you might go to your physician and have a blood test drawn and they check your testosterone and say, “Well, your testosterone level is just fine.”
Fine for what? The testosterone levels are measured in by age group. So there’s a normal level for a 20 to 30 year old, and it’s up here. Then there’s a 30 to 40 year old and the level goes down, the range goes down, 40 to 50 it goes down, 50 to 60, 60 to 70, and it continues down. So you can have at your age, you may have a testosterone level if you’re in your 50’s of a man in the range of 50 to 60 year old.
But, and we have found that most of the men even in that range is always in the very low level of the normal range for their age group, but compared to where it had been in their 20’s and 30’s, it’s dramatically lower, and that’s why men will come to me oftentimes and say “doc”…and I know I’m talking about men that are entrepreneurs that have their own business.
I’ve had them come to me in their 50’s and go like, “I just think I’ve got to sell my business. I just can’t keep up with things the way they’re going. I just don’t have the energy. I don’t have the drive. I don’t have the assertiveness that I used to have when I was a young man.” Now, by the time you’re in your 50’s or 60’s, you’ve had a tremendous amount of life experiences.
If you’re in business, you know your industry, you know your business, you know how to do business. When you were in your 20’s, you were full of testosterone, had all that drive in the world, but you didn’t have a lick of sense. You were running into every wall trying to figure out how to make ends meet, how to try to build a business, how to be more successful in your job. And now that you’ve got all that experience, if you could couple it with the drive you had when you were in your 20’s and 30’s, which is affected by your testosterone levels, this would be a dramatic game changer for you.
So these men, I tell them “Well, let me tell you what I’m going to do for you. We’re going to check your testosterone levels. We get it back, and we find out that it’s within the range limit for whatever age group.” They are always down at the low end of the range, much lower than it had been and way below the normal for a 20 to 30 year old man.
And I say, “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to give you testosterone.” Now, we can give testosterone in an injectable form. We can give it in an oral form using capsules. Those are two ways. Some people even use pellets. We don’t use pellets here because once you put the pellets in your body, they stay for three months. If you don’t have the right level or you get too much of a substance, that’s not good for you.
So we like to adjust the dose and we know clinically what doses work for individuals who may be low in their 20’s and 30’s in testosterone or low in their 70’s and 80’s. We know what level to get them to so they feel better. But primarily, we give the dose and increase the dose. I like to personally use injectable on the first visit.
Give a good shot of testosterone, and then if a person takes oral capsules, we’ll follow that and see how they do and how their symptoms respond, see if they have more energy, more vitality, more direct drive, they think better, they’re interacting better, and they have better moods.
Remember, as a man goes through his life and his testosterone levels fall, men go through what is called andropause. Now andropause is analogous to women’s menopause. Like women, they lose their hormones completely when they go through the change of life around 50 years of age. Well, men also have a significant decline and their symptoms are very similar to women.
They don’t sleep well, they gain weight, they get muscle aches and pains, their muscle mass declines, cardiovascular function declines. They don’t think well anymore, they just feel moody, and that’s why older guys sit around, drink beer in their underwear and watch TV. And the wife wants them to go out and cut the yard. They don’t do it because they just don’t have the get up and go that they used to have. Well, testosterone can be a game changer for that.
Now testosterone will dramatically increase your muscle strength and your muscle mass. So if you’re working out and you can’t seem to gain any traction and increased muscle mass and you can’t really lift weights like you used to, or you’re not able to jog or run like you used to, well, testosterone can be dramatic in its effect. I personally found out about supplemental testosterone when I was 46 years old.
I’m 71 years old now. I’m full of vitality and energy and enthusiasm for life, and that’s what I want you to have, and you can have that back if you supplement and bring your testosterone levels back up to the levels you were when you were in your 20’s or 30’s.
How Testosterone Affects Heart FunctionNow people ask, “Well, isn’t it dangerous taking testosterone when you get older?” Let me ask you this. How many young men do you know that have heart disease and have heart attacks or have strokes few and far between?
Now, as testosterone levels go down, that adversely affects your cardiovascular function. How does it do that? Well, testosterone dilates up your arteries. It lowers your blood pressure. It causes the heart to contract better because it enables the cells to produce the energy that they need to function in the heart because the heart’s beating 70 times a minute, thousands of times every day, it has to have a tremendous amount of energy. And as testosterone levels go down, guess what heart? Disease goes up.
It has been shown that individuals with low levels of testosterone have a dramatically increased risk of heart disease over those men that do not have low or marginally low levels of testosterone. So testosterone can be a game changer. I like to say this: Testosterone can put a tiger, I’m talking about a tiger, back in your tank, and that’s what you want to have.
I mentioned to you, I’ve had individuals coming in saying, “Well, I’m going to retire. I’m just going to sell my business and move to Colorado and live up there the rest of my life.” And I said, “I’ll tell you what, we’re going to get you on the program and don’t blame me if within two months you feel dramatically better.” And if within two years, if you’re an entrepreneur or a salesperson, or even if you’re in a business, that you’ve dramatically increased your income.
As a matter of fact, I tell them, “You’ve got to promise me after you’re on testosterone and you’re really hitting them a lick, and you’re starting…and you have that drive and you’re growing in your business, you’re growing in your income, you’ve got to promise me you’ll get a wealth advisor to help you manage the increased income you’re going to make.” Your income is going to be directly proportional to your health.
People in good health are more productive for a longer period of time in their lives than men that are in poor health. You know that. You know that from looking at generational changes in your family, remembering how your grandfather was when you were a little boy, was young, he might have been in his 40’s or 50’s and now he’s 70 or 80, and just dragging around, he has no energy.
You ever go to the golf club or go to the club and see the guys come out of the shower, the old guys, and they’re all just slumped down. And their muscles are all hanging, got little muscle. Their drives don’t go near as far as they went when they were younger, and they’re pale and they’re pasty and just look gray and they don’t look well. That’s because they have low levels of testosterone.
Testosterone causes your bone marrow to increase your red blood count. So as men decline in their testosterone, their blood count, red blood count goes down. It stays within a wide range of normal, but it goes down. They don’t have that ruddy, healthy appearance that they had when they were young. You know how young men look, they look vital, they’ve got to get up and go. The older guys look pale, they look fragile and they don’t do well.
I remember one gentleman had a restaurant here in town in Houston and he came to me at the age of 50 and he said he’d been to Mayo and he’d been all over, and they told him there’s nothing wrong with him. He said, “I’m going to have to sell my restaurant, doctor.” I said, “Let me just tell you what, we’re going to get you up on our program which includes testosterone and thyroid and get you on a good, healthy eating plan. We’re going to get you on vitamins and minerals and good exercise program, and we’re going to get you feeling like a million dollars again, and you’re going to make a million dollars.” He told me he was generating about $345,000 net profit in his business. Well, a year later, he had built four new restaurants across the state of Texas, and he says, “Doc, I’m making more money than I ever believed I would make.” I’ve had this story told to me over and over.
Again, I remember one gentleman told our concierge in the front office that he wanted to see me. She calls up and says, “There’s a man here. He wants to see you, and he’s in room three.” So I went down to room three and I introduced myself to him and he said, “Doc, I just wanted to thank you.” And this is what we do at Hotze Health & Wellness Center, we help you. If you’re willing to take charge of your health and you’re responsible for your health, remember, I’m not responsible for your health. You are responsible for your health.
If you’re willing to take charge of your health and make an investment in your health, it’s the best investment you’ll ever make. As I mentioned to you before, healthy people are more productive. They do better in life. They have better relationships with their children, with their spouses, with their friends, with their business associates, with fellow church members. They have not only great relationships, they’re more productive at work. They’re fun to be around, they’re enthusiastic about life. They’ve got ideas.
I had one other young man that worked for Exxon come in. I say young man, I’m 71, and he was about 50. And he said, “Doc, I need help. I’ve been with Exxon for 30 years, and now these young guys are coming in and they’re running circles around me at the conference table. I just can’t keep up with them like I used to when I was young.”
I said, “Look, let’s get you up on some testosterone. Let’s take a look at your thyroid levels and your symptoms and see if they’re related to low thyroid,” which they were. And we do treat for thyroid even in the face of normal blood levels because the range for thyroid and all the hormones is determined by where the average is, plus or minus two standard deviations, which is a statistical term that incorporates 95% of the population. So whenever you get a hormone blood test, 95% of the time you will always fall within this wide range of normal for your age group. Well, you don’t want to be in the…when you were young, you were at an optimal level. Now when you’re older, “Oh, you’re already down to the bottom level compared to when you were younger.”
But the docs say, “Well, your hormone levels are just fine.” “But I’m not, doc. I’m not fine. What’s going on.” Oftentimes they’ll say, “Well, you’re just a little depressed. Why don’t we give you an antidepressant, give you a psychotropic drug and that’ll get you all screwed up.” So you don’t want to do that. You want to replenish your body with the same identical hormones your body used to make, and these are available. They’re not chemical counterfeits. They’re the identical molecule your body made when you were young, and we want to replenish that. We want to fill the glass back up. You don’t want a glass half empty. You want a glass full. You want to be at your optimal levels when you’re taking hormones, both testosterone and thyroid.
Now thyroid hormones are made by the thyroid gland in your neck. I’ve asked men, “Where’s your thyroid gland?” I’ll ask women the same question. Women go like, “Well, it’s right here.” Men will go. “I don’t know. It’s somewhere in here.” Well, thyroid gland is the gland in your neck shaped like a butterfly that produces thyroid hormones and the thyroid hormones are what enable your cells, not your blood, your cells, and every cell in your body to produce energy.
Your thyroid hormones are like spark plugs and they spark the power plant in your cell, called the mitochondria, which produces electrical energy. You are a bundle of electricity. Some of you are low voltage. You’ve got fatigue, weight gain, difficulty thinking, joint muscle aches and pains, you’re constipated. You don’t feel well. You get infections easy, and all this causes health problems. When the hormones decline, you get a host of health problems.
It’s men that are older whose hormone levels have declined who experience significant health problems, primarily cardiovascular disease which deals with heart attacks, atherosclerosis which is the hardening of the arteries, leading to heart attacks. And you get atherosclerosis in other arteries in your body and in the brain, you have strokes. This is what happens as men get older, they have these problems.
But thyroid hormone enters your bloodstream. It’s got to be converted from the inactive thyroid hormone, which is T4, thyroid molecule with four iodine atoms attached to it. It’s got to get in the cell, be converted to T3, the active thyroid hormone. It acts like a spark plug and sparks the production of electrical energy.
So the men I see when they come into the office to see me have already seen their several other doctors. They’re on various blood pressure medications. They’re on anti-inflammatories. By the way, the anti-inflammatory medication can lead to heart disease. Vioxx was one of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories that was taken off the market because it caused heart disease. Well, ibuprofen does the same thing, that’s Advil. It causes you to develop inflammation in the arteries, and that leads to the calcification of your arteries to keep them from tearing apart when you have inflammation. The body compensates by hardening the arteries, and when that happens, you throw a clot off and it clogs up, you have a heart attack and you end up at the doctors.
You have open heart surgery, they put stents in that doesn’t stop the underlying problem. In studies, it’s been shown that people that have hypothyroidism or low thyroid levels, as well as low testosterone levels, have an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. So if you want to keep yourself in good health, it’s important for you to replenish your hormones, and those hormones are primarily testosterone and thyroid hormones. That’s the way you can help prevent yourself from developing cardiovascular disease.
Now, what you ought to do is you ought to have a CT, that’s Computerized Tomography, a CT heart scan. We have one here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. I recommend for every man over the age of 40 to have a heart scan to see if he has any hardening of the arteries, which is called atherosclerosis. We want to check that and see what your status is.
It takes about 25 years to cook a good heart attack. So if we have some mild or minimal amount of atherosclerosis, we know you have inflammation which could ultimately, over a period of decades, contributes to you having a heart attack, and you don’t want to have that.
When you get older, you want to be full of vitality. You want to be full of energy. You want to be enthusiastic about your life. You want to be able to enjoy your family, that includes your children and your grandchildren, your friends. You want to be able to be out on the golf course or the tennis court or out jogging or riding horses, if you happen to do that. You want to enjoy yourself and you want to enjoy your life. While you’re alive, you ought to feel alive. There’s no reason in the world anyone should feel fatigued and sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Let me ask you: Sick and tired of being sick and tired? Well, then give us a call here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center, we can help get you on a path of health and wellness naturally so you, too, will have energy, vitality and enthusiasm for life.
Thank you so much for joining me here today. Give us a call at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center (281-698-8698), we’ll be glad to partner with you to get you on that path of health and wellness. Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Dr. Steve Hotze.
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Since 1989, Hotze Health & Wellness Center has helped over 33,000 patients get their lives back using bioidentical hormones that restore hormones to optimal levels, strengthen immune systems, and increase energy levels. Our treatment regimen addresses the root cause of hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, menopause, perimenopause, low testosterone, allergies, and candida.
Led by best-selling author, radio host and leading natural health expert, Steven F. Hotze, M.D., our medical team has over 100 years’ combined medical experience backed by a staff of nearly 100 caring professionals who provide an environment of hope and extraordinary hospitality for each of our patients, who we call our guests. It is our deepest desire to help you obtain and maintain health and wellness naturally so that you may enjoy a better quality of life, pure and simple.
Do you want to live a healthy, happy, purpose-driven life? Do you want to restore your health so that your loss of energy, weight gain, joint pain, depression and lack of drive or motivation won’t hold you back from achieving your personal and professional goals?
Dr. Steven Hotze wants that for you, too. In fact, in his powerful and passionate video entitled, “What I Believe”, Dr. Hotze shares how his Christian worldview and pivotal experiences have ignited a deep desire to offer the message of hope and optimal health to all who need to hear it.
At Hotze Health & Wellness Center, our doctors are changing the way women and men are treated through the use of bioidentical hormones. Our natural treatments have helped over 33,000 individuals with hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, menopause, perimenopause, low testosterone, allergies, candida, detoxification and nutritional deficiencies.
Meet our doctors"I went from from having fatigue to regaining my energy, motivation, and drive after age 50!”
Holistic, functional medicine doctors in Houston, Texas specializing in bioidentical hormones, hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, menopause, perimenopause, low testosterone, allergies and LDI treatment, candida, detoxification, nutritional deficiencies, longevity and aesthetics.
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