Hormone Disorder Could Be Caused by Sugar
By Patty Oh
Here's another reason to reduce the amount of sugar you eat. Researchers have determined that if you eat too much sugar, the gene that regulates your levels of estrogen and testosterone can be turned off. In a recent press release, the BC Children's Hospital Foundation said that this discovery would help physicians when they are diagnosing hormone disorders. Common hormone disorders include PCOS, and type 2 diabetes.
Prior to this discovery, doctors assumed that insulin contributed to the reduction of the gene that regulates our hormones, SHBG, in our bodies. Physicians had come to this conclusion because pre-diabetic, overweight people typically had both a low level of SHBG and a high level of insulin.
This groundbreaking study proves that how our liver metabolizes sugar is what affects SHBG, not our insulin level. Researchers said that physicians can now use the SHBG amounts in our blood to monitor how our liver is functioning.
Armed with this information, physicians can intervene long before problems become apparent.
How the liver is involved
Sugars are metabolized in the liver. When someone eats too much sugar, their liver changes the sugar from sugar into fat (a lipid). When our bodies have too many fats, SHBG gene shuts down.
About the SHBG gene
Our bodies have a gene referred to as the SHBG, or sex hormone binding globulin gene. This gene regulates the amount estrogen and testosterone that our bodies produce.
When the SHBG gene shuts down, our body senses that it does not have enough hormones, and produces more testosterone and estrogen, regardless of the current levels of testosterone and estrogen currently in our system.
Having an excessive amount of these hormones puts us at risk of infertility, uterine cancer, acne, and polycystic ovaries.
Abnormal amounts of SHBG genes are also implicated in several other diseases, including cardiovascular disease and a person's risk for developing type 2 diabetes.
"We discovered that low levels of SHBG in a person's blood means the liver's metabolic state is out of whack - because of inappropriate diet or something that's inherently wrong with the liver - long before there are any disease symptoms," said Dr. Geoffrey Hammond, the scientific director of the Child & Family Research Institute in Vancouver, Canada, and professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of British Columbia.
Sugars
Both fructose and glucose are sugars. Fructose and glucose are used to make table sugar. Fructose is also a common ingredient in hundreds of food products, including syrups, low-fat products, and sweetened beverages.
Sources:
Child & Family Research Institute (http://www.bcchildrens.ca/)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid
source:www.associatedcontent.com
How Excessive Testosterone Leads To Your Hair Loss
Hair loss has been observed and studied for ages, and some interesting discoveries were made in ancient times. It was noticed that eunuchs:
* those males without genitals-never went bald.
* men who were castrated as a result of accidents in battle also never went bald.
This was the first sign that testosterone had something to do with hair loss. It has also been found that the more recessive the hair gene, the chances you have of becoming bald.
Androgens Testosterone and Adrenaline.
What exactly are androgens' Androgens are sex hormones mainly produced by males. The main male androgen is testosterone. Androgens are produced by your adrenal glands - testosterone and adrenaline - which protect your body in stressful situations and give you the power to respond to dangerous situations.
When you are under constant stress, you have adrenals that are overactive. Under this stress, you are are producing both testosterone and adrenaline. The excess testosterone, you create can be a cause in your hair loss. Also if you constantly over eat fatty foods and red meat, this will cause an overactive adrenal gland.
Hair Loss and Prostate Gland.
There is a definite connection between Male Pattern Baldness (MPB) and the prostate gland. The prostate gland is actually a cluster of small glands in males surrounding the urethra, located just below the bladder. There is not a lot known about all the functions of the prostate, except that it serves to squeeze seminal fluid into and through the urethra during ejaculation.
Prostate problems can cause serious problems with urination if it becomes enlarged, and sometimes the prostate becomes cancerous. Non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate is called benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).
DHT is responsible for the division of cells in the prostate, and is normally expelled by the prostate. However, when the prostate fails to expel the DHT, it builds up and causes enlargement. It has been confirmed that typical North American and northern European diets lend to the perpetuation of BPH and prostate cancer, whereas these are uncommon phenomena in other lands and was even uncommon here in the past.
This is significant since the overproduction of DHT is responsible for BPH and prostate cancer, and is also responsible for MPB or androgenetic alopecia.
The findings in research for BPH cures have usually simultaneously produced benefits in hair growth.
So to minimize the genetic tendency for hair loss be aware of excess stress in your life and work on reducing it. Learn what kind of diet is necessary to keep your prostate healthy.
Two additional facts about hair loss are.
* If you are blond-haired, you have a greater tendency toward hair loss than darker-haired people. But if you are Caucasian, then you have a greater tendency toward hair loss than non-Caucasian people.
* Beyond the genetic tendency of certain people for hair loss, diet seems to play a factor in hair loss. This is good to know, since this is one additional you can make changes to you to your lifestyle.
How To Get Rid of Man Boob / Male Breast Problems
BYSylvia Dickens
If you are embarrassed by your male breast, there are steps you can take right away to get rid of man boob problems. I don’t mean tomorrow or next week, but right this minute. Start today and you can be seeing results in a matter of a few weeks.
Begin by improving your nutrition and adding exercise to your life. In other words, start taking steps to lose weight, because the man boob or male breast problem can be directly associated with excess fat in the chest area. By reducing your weight and balancing your body’s chemical make-up, you can get rid of your man boob.
Nutritional changes to get rid of man boob
First, make significant reductions in the quantity of red meat you eat. Red meat contains a lot of fat-inducing elements that you just don’t need. Also, find the right combination of vegetables to boost the alkalinity of your diet. An alkaline diet encourages a healthy weight, which is significant where man boob problems exists.
Exercise to get rid of man boob
The key to success is interval training. This involves stopping and starting an exercise to put extra work on your heart, lungs and muscles. For example, if you speed up, slow down, rest - speed up, slow down, rest throughout your workouts, you’ll see significantly faster improvement in your conditioning. In turn, you’ll soon get rid of your man boob problem.
Begin by boosting your cardio workouts. Although all exercise is beneficial, make sure your methods give you the absolute best results. That means doing interval exercises, as explained.
Rather than stepping onto a treadmill or onto the street and start running full out, pace yourself with frequent slow-downs and speed-ups to maximize the effects on your cardiovascular system. Slowing down your heart and speeding it up throughout your workout will make it work harder.
Resistance training is strongly advised as well. Adding weights or stationary resistance to your exercise will stimulate testosterone as well as sculpt muscles where you want them. Because muscles help to burn fat and increase testosterone, related exercises will also help balance your hormones.
Resistance can be added by using the wall or the floor to aid in your exercises. Pushing your back against the wall while in a semi-sitting position is a very effective exercise, although using the equipment available in a gym will further boost the effects of your workouts.
Do exercises that work your chest muscles to their maximum. This will burn fat in that area, especially if you aim for three sets of 12-15 repetitions each. By toning the area, trimming the fat, and developing lean muscle, you will soon see a drastic improvement if you want to get rid of man boob problems forever.
Other great fat-burning exercises include playing squash regularly and swimming. Another good one is aerobic walking.
All this conditioning will bring fat loss, including chest fat. Add to that healthful nutritional and dietary changes and will get rid of your man boob problem.
For more tips and advice on how to get rid of man boob / male breast problems, read The Chest Coach – Lose Your Man Boobs System.
Sylvia Dickens is an award-winning journalist who has struggled and overcome depression, panic and anxiety. Stop Smoking, Natural Anxiety Relief, Dog Training, Music Instruction (piano, guitar) and Travel ideas are some of the topics covered on her site at http://www.book-titles.ca . Visit her Fat Loss and Fitness Blog for more information on fitness and health-related topics.
source:users.search-o-rama.com
Estrogen 101: The Basics of Estrogen and Your Hormones
By Jenny May
There's a lot of information out there in regards to menopause and estrogens - the hormones predominantly responsible for menopause in the first place. This series of articles is an in-depth look at Estrogen, exactly what it is, how your body makes it and how it influences, well, Everything.
Plus, I want you to see for yourself exactly why menopause weight gain happens along with how you can make this whole estrogen thing work to your benefit -- menopause or not.
I'll try and keep it simple - forgive me if it's gets a little "Science Geeky" here and there but sometimes it's hard to keep the science out. After all, we are talking about your body's biochemistry! My goal is that with this information you will be able to make better choices, which will lead to your improved health, appearance and life.
Estrogen is actually 3 separate hormones and they are part of a metabolic process that is devoted, specifically, to the production of your sex hormones. Estrogen is responsible for estrus as well as the development of female secondary sexual characteristics.
And as you know it is the group of hormones that are responsible for all your frustrations with menopause and all of the associated changes - like those pesky hot flashes, night sweats and your expanding waistline.
Estrogen actually refers to three different sex hormones, Estrone, Estriol, and Estradiol. And they are all steroids, as well as progesterone, testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and corticosteroids. All of these steroidal hormones are made from the same basic building block, Cholesterol.
Yes, your hormones are made from cholesterol - this is one reason why eating an extremely low fat or no fat diet can wreak havoc with your hormones. Now, I'm not suggesting an extremely high fat diet either - but a balanced diet with 20-30% of your total caloric intake derived from predominantly HEALTHY fat sources can prove very beneficial to your hormonal profile.
You may already know that your body metabolizes Estrogen predominantly in your ovaries and adrenal glands from cholesterol. Your adrenal glands are located above each kidney and the outer part of that gland is partly responsible the secretion of steroids.
But did you know that with the help of an aromatase enzyme estrogen is also produced in your fat and muscle cells both before and after menopause?
So your Estrogen levels are not totally dependent on your ovaries, there are a lot of other factors that come into play, like your diet and body composition.
There is so much variability in estrogen levels from woman to woman that in a study featured in the American Journal of Epidemiology on the Epidemiology of Serum Sex Hormones in Post Menopausal Women, it was demonstrated that the concentration of hormones in the blood had so much inconsistency that it was clear that neither age nor menopause had a clear cut correlation on hormone levels.
This study also revealed that the amount of body fat and lean muscle tone a woman has will affect the blood levels of estrogen, specifically estrone. And this makes sense since fat and muscle cells are key players in the production of estrogen - remember? There's that armoatase enzyme that helps convert the small amount of male sex hormones your body has to estrogens.
Now whether that conversion to estrogen happens in your fat cells or muscle cells may play a big role in the production of good or bad estrogen metabolites - more on this in the next part of this article, Estrogen 102.
The process of manufacturing Estrogens from cholesterol is a fairly complicated process, as you can imagine, and requires the use of enzymes to convert one hormone to another and back again.
In other words in order for you body to produce any of the estrogens there are several other hormones that need to be metabolized in order to make estrogens. Progesterone, aldosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and many more are all a necessary part of estrogen production and I've outlined some of the roles a few of these hormones play below.
Progesterone:
Progesterone is produced in the corpus luteum, adrenal cortex, brain and in the placenta, during pregnancy. One of its functions is to prepare the uterus for implantation of a fertilized egg. The formation of Progesterone is a critical pre-cursor for the production of aldosterone, cortisol and the sex steroids -- testosterone and estrogens.
However, it also has many roles outside the reproductive system such as thermogenesis (increasing your core temperature). It reduces spasms by relaxing smooth muscle tissue, acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and helps to regulate the immune system.
Progesterone assists in thyroid function, bone building, skin resilience along with joint, tendon and ligament health. It also plays a role in regulating nerve function and provides protection against endometrial cancer (involving the uterine lining) by regulating the effects of estrogen.
Aldosterone:
Aldosterone is a hormone that is produced by the outer portion of the adrenal cortex in the adrenal gland and it regulates sodium and potassium balance in the blood.
Cortisol:
Cortisol is a corticosteroid hormone produced by the adrenal cortex in response to stress; it increases blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and suppresses the immune system. Cortisol is part of the flight or fight response that used to be so critical to our survival.
Cortisol is also an underlying cause of that dreaded belly fat which starts to accumulate from midlife on as a result of the highly rushed and stressed lifestyles of today. When cortisol is secreted for an extended period of time it results in muscle wastage, hyperglycemia, and will suppress the body's immune and inflammatory systems.
Testosterone:
Testosterone is primarily secreted in the ovaries but small amounts are released by the adrenal glands. It is the principal male sex hormone (androgen) and the female body produces about 20 times less than a male body. Testosterone is a key ingredient in estrogen metabolism.
The conversion of testosterone to estradiol is critical in both your bones and brain. In the bones this reaction helps to accelerate the maturation of cartilage into bone and in the brain, or nervous system, this conversion of testosterone to estradiol serves as a feed back signal to help regulate the release of hormones by the hypothalamus.
It plays a vital role in your health and well-being. Some examples of testosterones roles are enhanced libido, energy, immune function, and protection against osteoporosis.
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA):
DHEA is a natural steroid hormone produced from cholesterol by the adrenal glands, the gonads, adipose tissue and the brain. It is the dominant steroid hormone and precursor of all sex steroids. Regular exercise is known to increase DHEA production in the body.
Estradiol:
During the reproductive years most of your estradiol is produced by your ovaries, while smaller amounts are produced by you adrenal cortex. Your fat and muscle cells also contribute to estradiol production by means of testosterone conversion and this continues even after menopause with proper encouragement by you.
Estradiol plays a critical role in your reproductive and sexual functioning, as well as other organs including bone structure.
Estrone:
Estrone is relevant to health and disease due to its conversion to estrone sulfate. It acts as a pool of estrone which can be converted to the more active estradiol.
Estriol:
Estriol is produced in significant amounts during pregnancy as it is made by the placenta. Levels of estriol in non-pregnant women do not change much after menopause, and levels are not significantly different from levels in men.
Are you starting to get the picture? Your hormones all tied together and your estrogens are not the only ones that are critical to your well-being. Every single hormone plays an ever important role all by itself and yet the production of each specific hormone is dependent on the other hormones!
You can't affect one without causing a chain reaction that affects all the others. And what you put into your body, as food (energy), and how you use your body has dramatic effect on this whole process.
In the next installment of this article you will be learning about the "good" and "bad" estrogens and how you can start to shift things in your favor!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jenny_May
Cell Phones Can Be Linked To Male Infertility
By: Terry Bytheway
New research suggests that the radiation given out by mobile phones reduces sperm count by up to 30%.
A lot of concerns have been expressed by some male members of the public about the implications of prolonged cell phone exposure to male sperm cells. Considering the possible hazards, several considerations were taken into account.
Researchers of Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University Ohio evoked, that prolonged cell phone use may damage sperm in male users.
Subsequently, the findings were presented at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine conference in New Orleans. The findings were actually based on a study of 361 men attending the clinic for infertility tests. The men were divided into four groups: One group with no cell phone usage; one group that used cell phones less than two hours a day; a group who were exposed for two to four hours a day and a group with more than four hours a day of cell phone usage.
The men who used their cell phones in excess of four hours showed a 30 % drop in sperm motility and viability when compared to the men who did not use cell phones. Thus, the sperm count, quality, and shape were also reduced with each level of increased phone usage.
According to Dr. Ashok Agarwal, “There was a significant decrease in the most important measures of sperm health and that should definitely be reflected in a decrease in fertility which is seen worldwide”. Mobiles could have a devastating effect on fertility but it still has to be proven, he stressed.
In addition, he suggested that cell phones might be harming the DNA of the phone users, disrupting their testosterone-producing cells, or shrinking the tubules that create sperm. He noted that the small study did not prove that male fertility was affected by cell phone use, thus he suggested that further investigation is necessary.
On the other hand, scientists who have heard the results requested that factors such as age, weight, smoking, stress and sedentary occupations should be considered.
Alan Pacey, Senior lecturer in Andrology at Sheffield University, U.K said "If you're using your phone for four hours a day, then it is out of your pocket”. Thus, the question would be how is it that testicular damage is supposed to occur? If you are holding it up to your head to speak, it makes no sense it is having a direct effect on your testes”, he stressed. He added that people who use a phone for four hours a day spend more time sitting, which could mean there is a heat issue. It could be that they are more stressed, or more sedentary. Thus, he pointed out that those factors seem to be better explanations than a phone causing the damage at such a great distance.
Furthermore, Alasdair Philips, director of the consumer pressure group Powerwatch added, "Sperm is very temperature sensitive as shown by many studies, and a short-term rise in temperature could be responsible. He theorized that mobile phones may only heat the groin area when men are doing things like sending text messages while the cell phone is in their lap.
All these new researches were taken into consideration however, the final point is though scientists say that cellular phones can be linked to male infertility, further research has to be conducted to confirm the findings and establish how exactly sperm production is affected by radiation given out by mobile phones.
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