Why Western Men lack balls-

Are You Going to Let Them Turn You into a ‘Girly Man’?
Men's Health
Published on October 1st, 2009
Written by Dr. Al Sears

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Tags
Bisphenol-A, BPA, estrogen, Perfluorooctanoic acid, phthalates, testosterone
Maximize Your Performance and Shift Your Energy into High Gear
You already know that industrial chemicals can be dangerous. But did you know that modern industry is putting hundreds of chemicals into your everyday environment that mimic the female hormone estrogen?
These estrogen look-alikes are waging war on your masculinity. This saps your strength, muscle, ambition, competitive spirit and sexual performance. As your estrogen rises and your testosterone drops, you can expect:

Fat Gain: Fat replaces shrinking muscles.
Sexual Problems: Sex drive fades and erections become seldom or difficult.
Loss of Ambition: Fatigue and low energy sap your drive and will to succeed.
Increasing Risk of Prostate Disease: Excess estrogen causes both prostate enlargement and prostate cancer.
Today, I’ll tell you why fake estrogens are a threat and where they are. Then, I’ll show you how to reduce or eliminate your exposure. You’ll also discover foods and supplements that can reverse this feminizing process.

Know What You’re Up Against
The problem is that many modern synthetics used in today’s products have structures almost exactly like estrogen.
When they get into your bloodstream, they give your cells a new set of instructions. They tell your body to become more feminine.
The most specific sign of excess estrogen is extra fat in your breast. But long before “man boobs,” most men will get a gradual “softening.” You develop a soft, “dough boy” appearance as your muscle turns to fat.
Over time, you start to lose your masculine edge, your confidence and sense of purpose. You may feel fatigued or depressed and your sex drive usually plummets.
If you go to a doctor for advice, he’ll run useless tests, put you on drugs that have nothing to do with the cause of your problem, or tell you that, “you’re just getting old.” Sadly, most men accept their loss of physical power, mental focus and sexual potency as part of the normal aging process.
Few ever realize they’re being poisoned. With the FDA insisting that adding estrogens to our food is safe and doctors knowing virtually nothing about it, how could these men know that they’ve been chemically castrated?

The Dangers of a Plastic World
Since you can’t see, smell or taste them, you can’t tell which products contain estrogen look-a-likes. But they are very common. Here’s a short list:
Vinyl Flooring
Deodorants
Moisturizers
Pesticides

Detergents
Perfumes
Garden hoses
Fertilizers

Shampoo
Hair Spray
Inflatable toys
Plastics

And the list goes on… But plastics are the worst – because they are everywhere. From plastic bags and water bottles to the packaging your food comes in – plastic is almost impossible to escape.
Two of the big offenders are bisphenol A and phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates). These man-made chemicals have structures that look strikingly similar to estrogen.
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is another. It’s used to make Teflon and Gore-Tex. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tested for the presence of phthalates and PFOA in the general population. The results were sobering. Every person tested – without exception – had trace amounts of both chemicals in their bloodstream.1
Jim Pirkle, deputy director at the CDC’s Environmental Laboratory warned that these findings have serious implications – especially for men. “The big concern with phthalates is that they have anti-androgen activity. They get rid of things that are in the testosterone line – the things that make a man a man.” 1

Rising Estrogen Can Lead to Infertility – Even Cancer
More than 15 percent of couples in the U.S. are unable to have a child.2 And in 30 percent to 40 percent of these cases, male infertility is the problem. But not just in America. British sperm counts and sperm density have dropped dramatically between 1938 and 1991.3
Scientists in Britain suspected the chemical HPTE, commonly found in pesticides. By experimenting on rats, they found that HPTE directly interferes with testosterone production in the testes.4
Tufts University researchers found that crop dusters who handled estrogen-mimicking pesticides lost their sexual desire and developed very low sperm counts.5 It’s no small wonder that male breast cancer has increased 26 percent over the last two decades.6
Yet prostate disease is a far bigger threat. German researchers found that estrogen levels in prostatic tissue increase, as men get older.7 And the journal Prostate reported that estrogen increases your risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) – or swollen prostate.
Even more incriminating, a Japanese team discovered that prostate size directly correlates with the ratio of estradiol (a form of estrogen) to free testosterone. They reported, “patients with large prostates have more estrogen dominate environments” and “estrogens are the key hormones for the induction and development of BPH.”
This problem is made worse when it coincides with another hormonal problem – falling testosterone.

Measure Your Masculine Ratio
Testosterone is the source of your masculine features. But as you get older, your levels drop.
Once you hit 40, your testosterone level decreases about one percent a year.8

As your levels fall, and your body accumulates estrogen, the ratio of testosterone-to-estrogen starts to shift unfavorably:


(Adapted from Dilman and Dean, 1992, based on data from Moroz and Verkhratsky, 1985)

Your ratio of testosterone to estrogen should be at least 4:1. That’s four parts testosterone to one part estrogen. All other things being equal – the higher your ratio, the more masculine you’ll look and feel. I try to get my male patients closer to 8:1.
Many of the men who come to my clinic have ratios that are below 4:1. In fact, about 10 percent of the older men coming to my clinic have more female estrogen than male testosterone.
Once you fall below 4:1, you’ll have the following problems: low sex drive, problems achieving and/or maintaining an erection, excess fat, loss of ambition, memory problems, fatigue and sometimes depression and anxiety.
Rising estrogen increases fat. (That’s why they give it to farm animals.) It starts with a smooth layer of fat under the skin. This robs you of muscle definition. If often progresses to a pudgy abdomen and fat-rounding of the face and jaw. But you’re not stuck with it. If you get rid of excess estrogen rapidly, you’ll reduces this fat.
An example from my clinic: Ron L. came in with fatigue and no sex drive. When his blood tests came back, his testosterone was only 384 – a level I’d expect from someone twice his age. To make matters worse, his estrogen was 156 – (more than some women). His ratio of testosterone to estrogen was only 2.7:1 – far too low for a man.
Even though he only weighed 175, he was carrying a lot of body fat at 35%. In other words, he was obese even though he wasn’t particularly overweight. This can happen if you replace enough of your muscle with fat. Notice he had only 108 lbs. of lean tissue.
I put him on the same program to boost testosterone and muscle, and lower fat and estrogen that you have in this article. As you can see in the chart, he built 30 lbs. of muscle and lost 30 lbs. of fat in only a few months:
Body Composition Chart

% of Body Fat
35%
29%
22%
16%

Lbs. of Fat
58
51
37
26

Lean Body Mass
108
125
133
139


Follow These Simple Steps and Boost Your Masculine Ratio Today…
As a start, reduce or eliminate the most common ways excess estrogen gets into your body. Here are a few suggestions you can apply right away:

Eliminate pesticides from water with a water purifier.
Wash your vegetables and fruits before eating.
Buy grass-fed or hormone free meats. If you get meat from other sources, trim off the fat. Estrogen mimickers collect in the fat.
Avoid processed meats – they have fat ground in.
Avoid processed carbohydrates like bread, cereals, and pasta. They cause excess insulin, which builds fat and stimulates feminizing estrogen.
Eat vegetables high in fiber to absorb excess estrogen.
Work with your doctor to reduce or eliminate medications. These interfere with your liver’s capacity to remove excess estrogens.
By making changes to your food, you can easily improve your testosterone to estrogen ratio. Here are my top choices for boosting testosterone and lowering estrogen:

Oysters: These “original testosterone boosters,” are packed with protein, zinc and magnesium – all three play a key role in testosterone production.
Lean Beef: One of your best choices for overall good health. When possible, eat grass-fed beef.
Beans: These offer a great combination of protein and fiber with more zinc than any other veggie. Navy, lima, kidney, and green beans are good sources.
Eggs: Eggs have all essential amino acids, making them the best source of protein. And don’t believe the hype; cholesterol in eggs won’t hurt you.
Broccoli: This is one of the best foods for eliminating estrogens in the urine.
Cabbage: Also great for reducing estrogen and a good source of fiber.
Brussels’s Sprouts: Also estrogen-targeting fiber and nutrient-rich veggies.
Garlic: Enhances testosterone and blocks cortisol, your body’s stress hormone.
In my practice, I use a combination of supplements to bring down estrogen levels in my patients.
Dindolylmethane (DIM), a naturally occurring compound found in brussels sprouts and cabbage, helps your body break down estrogen into safe compounds, clearing away the unwanted female hormone. I recommend taking 100 mg of DIM.
In a study from the University of California at Berkeley, patients who took DIM were able to break down estrogen — and excrete is as metabolites in their urine — much more efficiently than those not taking DIM.
Indole-3-carbinol, a precursor to DIM, helps metabolize estrogen into harmless compounds. It also prevents the negative effects too much estrogen in a male body can cause, by blocking the fake estrogen from attaching to your cell’s receptors. Take 100 mg of Indole-3-carbinol a day.
Resveratrol inhibits the enzyme aromatase. Aromatase is the enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen. By stopping that process, resveratrol allows you to keep your testosterone levels high. Take 200 mg of resveratrol daily.
Chaste tree berry helps reduce prolactin levels.9 Prolactin is a hormone women secrete when they are pregnant. Men don’t want it in their bodies. Take 100 mg a day of chaste tree berry.
A blood test will tell you your testosterone to estrogen ratio. Once you’ve established your “baseline,” use the advice here to boost your ratio. Try to keep your estrogen below 130, with a testosterone to estrogen ratio of at least 4:1.

Weise E. Are Our Products Our Enemy? USA Today. Aug 2, 2005.
Pizzorno JE. Textbook of Natural Medicine, 2nd Edition, 1999:1377-1387.
Carlsen E. et al. Evidence for decreasing quality of semen during the past 50 years. British Medical Journal. Sep 1992; 305(6854):609-13.
Akingbemi BT et al. A metabolite of methoxychlor, 2,2-bis(p-hydroxyphenyl)-1,1,1-trichloroethane, reduces testosterone biosynthesis in rat Leydig cells through suppression of steady-state mRNA levels of the cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme. Population Briefs, Population Council 1999; 5(4): 31-2
Sonnenschein C, Soto AM. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 1998 Apr; 65(1-6):143-50.
Associated Press. Rise in male breast cancer linked to obesity. May 24, 2004.
Krieg et al. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 1993.
Byington, John, Better Than Ever (Agora Health Books, 2005).
http://www.itminfo.be/ITM-NEW.data/TIJDSCHRIFT1%20PDF/BPH-1-1.pdf Institute of Traditional Medicine, 2003, “Herbal Therapy of BHP,” Subhuti Dharmananda