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| ROCK COUNTY NOW DAILY NEWS: Health |
5 Easy Ways to Increase Your Manpower
How to tap into your secret source of sexual stamina, energy, and drive
A testosterone shortage could cost you your life. As if losing muscle mass,
bone density, and your sex drive to low T levels wasn't bad enough, new
research shows the decline can also increase your risk of prostate cancer,
heart disease, and even death. Follow these steps to lift your levels and
lengthen your life.
1. Uncover Your Abs
As your waist size goes up, your testosterone goes down. In fact, a 4-point
A testosterone shortage could cost you your life. As if losing muscle mass,
bone density, and your sex drive to low T levels wasn't bad enough, new
research shows the decline can also increase your risk of prostate cancer,
heart disease, and even death. Follow these steps to lift your levels and
lengthen your life.
1. Uncover Your Abs
As your waist size goes up, your testosterone goes down. In fact, a 4-point
increase in your body mass index -- about 30 extra pounds on a 5'10" guy -- can accelerate your
age-related T decline by 10 years. For a diet that'll help keep your gut in check, try the new TNT Diet.
2. Build Your Biceps
Finnish researchers recently found that men who lifted weights regularly experienced a 49 percent boost in
their free testosterone levels. "As you strengthen your muscles, the amount of testosterone your body
produces increases," says David Zava, Ph.D., CEO of ZRT Laboratory. You need to push iron only twice a
week to see the benefit. For a 6-week muscle plan, take the MH Challenge.
3. Fill Up On Fat
Trimming lard from your diet can help you stay lean, but eliminating all fat can cause your T levels to
plummet. A study published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that men who
consumed the most fat also had the highest T levels. To protect your heart and preserve your T, eat foods
high in monounsaturated fats -- food such as fish and nuts.
4. Push Away From The Bar
Happy hour can wreak havoc on your manly hormones. In a recent Dutch study, men who drank moderate
amounts of alcohol daily for 3 weeks experienced a 7 percent decrease in their testosterone levels. Limit
your drinking to one or two glasses of beer or wine a night to avoid a drop in T.
5. Stop Stress
Mental or physical stress can quickly depress your T levels. Stress causes cortisol to surge, which
"suppresses the body's ability to make testosterone and utilize it within tissues," says Zava. Cardio can be
a great tension tamer, unless you overdo it. Injuries and fatigue are signs that your workout is more likely
to lower T than raise it.
age-related T decline by 10 years. For a diet that'll help keep your gut in check, try the new TNT Diet.
2. Build Your Biceps
Finnish researchers recently found that men who lifted weights regularly experienced a 49 percent boost in
their free testosterone levels. "As you strengthen your muscles, the amount of testosterone your body
produces increases," says David Zava, Ph.D., CEO of ZRT Laboratory. You need to push iron only twice a
week to see the benefit. For a 6-week muscle plan, take the MH Challenge.
3. Fill Up On Fat
Trimming lard from your diet can help you stay lean, but eliminating all fat can cause your T levels to
plummet. A study published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that men who
consumed the most fat also had the highest T levels. To protect your heart and preserve your T, eat foods
high in monounsaturated fats -- food such as fish and nuts.
4. Push Away From The Bar
Happy hour can wreak havoc on your manly hormones. In a recent Dutch study, men who drank moderate
amounts of alcohol daily for 3 weeks experienced a 7 percent decrease in their testosterone levels. Limit
your drinking to one or two glasses of beer or wine a night to avoid a drop in T.
5. Stop Stress
Mental or physical stress can quickly depress your T levels. Stress causes cortisol to surge, which
"suppresses the body's ability to make testosterone and utilize it within tissues," says Zava. Cardio can be
a great tension tamer, unless you overdo it. Injuries and fatigue are signs that your workout is more likely
to lower T than raise it.
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Find More Health News... Article of the Day | Women's | Men's
This Story Will Put You to Sleep
In the crib, you had it made. Fuss a little and you got a breast in your mouth.
And when you weren't suckling, you were comatose--up to 18 hours a day.
Now? You sleep like a man--lousy. By the time you reach 20, that 18 hours is
slashed to 6. And as you age, the number shrinks even further.
Here's why: Inside every brain lurks the suprachias-matic nucleus, or "internal
clock." It knocks you out and wakes you up. At birth, it's set for maximum crib
time, but as you get older, the clock shifts your metabolism and hormones in
ways that deprive you of deep, dead-to-the-world sleep. Add that to
age-specific wake-up calls--alcohol when you're 20, kids when you're 30, your
bladder when you're 50--and your bed becomes bedlam. And that puts you in
And when you weren't suckling, you were comatose--up to 18 hours a day.
Now? You sleep like a man--lousy. By the time you reach 20, that 18 hours is
slashed to 6. And as you age, the number shrinks even further.
Here's why: Inside every brain lurks the suprachias-matic nucleus, or "internal
clock." It knocks you out and wakes you up. At birth, it's set for maximum crib
time, but as you get older, the clock shifts your metabolism and hormones in
ways that deprive you of deep, dead-to-the-world sleep. Add that to
age-specific wake-up calls--alcohol when you're 20, kids when you're 30, your
bladder when you're 50--and your bed becomes bedlam. And that puts you in
line for any number of daylight nightmares, including high blood pressure, decreased resistance to
invading microbes, a compromised bodily repair and maintenance system, and the tendency to fall
asleep while the boss is talking, rather than safely back at your desk. That's why we came up with
decade-by-decade strategies for dealing with life's worst sleep saboteurs.
Read 'em and yawn.
Your 20s
Six hours and 54 minutes. That's the amount of shut-eye the National Sleep Foundation says you're
getting. It's also 2 hours and 6 minutes shy of the 9 hours--not 8--the experts say your body needs. "We
need more sleep from puberty through age 25 than at any other time in our lives, except when we're
newborns," says James Maas, Ph.D., a Cornell University sleep researcher.
The Four-Step Fix
1. Be in bed by 9:30 every night. In no time you'll want to kill yourself, but at least you'll be well rested for
the job. The alternative: Take every other night off. If you go out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,
then turn in an hour early on Tuesdays and Thursdays. "While this is far from optimal, it will help pay off
your sleep debt before it becomes so large that you feel tempted to try to make it all up on the weekend,"
says Michael Vitiello, Ph.D., a professor of behavioral sciences at the University of Washington.
2. On bar-hopping nights, order your last drink 3 hours before you call it quits. According to Vitiello, this
should give your body time to process the booze before you (a) crash (on the drive home) or (b) crash (in
bed). If your blood is clear of alcohol, you'll sleep more soundly. Or, if the damage is already done, make
the last call a double virgin screwdriver. Fructose, one of the sugars in OJ, can speed up the metabolism
of alcohol by as much as 25 percent.
3. Each night at around 11, your internal clock shifts you into slumber mode by secreting the hormone
melatonin. And that's a good thing, unless you need to fall asleep earlier. MIT researchers have found that
taking 0.3 milligrams of a melatonin supplement can help you fall asleep faster (if you can't find the right
dosage, pick up easy-to-break scored pills). Swallow one of these sleeping beauties a half hour before
you want to nod off into oblivion.
4. If you follow tips 1 through 3 and still feel like sleeping in on the weekends, don't. Your internal alarm
clock will fight you all the way. Instead, force yourself up at your normal waking time and your inner clock
will thank you with a deeper, longer sleep the next night. Awake but dragging? Hang on until noon.
Japanese researchers found that sleep-deprived subjects who took a 15-minute nap right after eating
lunch were less groggy and more alert for the rest of the day than the bleary-eyed control group.
Your 30s and 40s
You're probably getting a little more sleep than last decade, but still not enough. Worse, according to a
recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), men in their 30s and
40s get 82 percent less deep, "slow-wave" sleep than men in their late teens and early 20s. Slow-wave
sleep is the phase in which your body receives the serious R & R it needs to rebuild itself.
The Four-Step Fix
1. Before you go to bed, pop some vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid). According to Ron Klatz, M.D., president
of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, this is your antidote to too much cortisol, the stress
hormone that surges in middle-aged men. If that doesn't help, ask your doctor about taking some Bayer
with your B; aspirin may also help lower cortisol production.
2. Until you get your cortisol under control, it will limit your deepest sleep, so you'll spend the night
teetering on the edge of consciousness. Buy stuff to screen out the distractions: specifically, MSA Safety
Works foam earplugs, a SleepMate white-noise generator, and Roc Lon blackout drapes. You'll be less
accessible than God.
3. Kids waking you up? Order a copy of Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems, by Richard Ferber, M.D. It's
knocked out generations of wakeful tots. If the problem is an older child, take the TV out of his bedroom. A
study at Brown University showed a link between easy access to the tube and increased sleep
disturbances.
4. Go for a brisk six-block walk. According to University of Arizona researchers, that's the amount of
exercise that's best at reducing sleep disruptions in men. (A regular workout program came in a close
second.) Just do it in the late afternoon, like when you get off work. This will cause your body temperature
to drop a few hours later, making you drowsy right before bedtime.
Your 50s and beyond
Here's when it all comes apart. In the previously mentioned JAMA study, the researchers found that after
men turn 50, they get 28 minutes less sleep with each decade that passes. "By the time men reach their
50s and 60s, they have almost no deep sleep," says Sonia Ancoli-Israel, Ph.D., director of the Sleep
Disorders Clinic at the VA Medical Center in San Diego. A man in his 50s has nighttime cortisol levels 12
times higher than when he was in his 30s. Nearly one in 25 also has sleep apnea--a condition that
interrupts normal breathing. And then there's the expanding-prostate problem: A swollen gland may
prevent you from fully emptying your bladder, which means you'll make approximately 7,422 nightly trips to
the toilet.
The Four-Step Fix
1. Grab some vitamin B5 (see "Your 30s and 40s," above) and wash it down with Gatorade about half an
hour before bedtime. British researchers have found that athletes who down a high-carbohydrate drink
have a lower exercise-induced cortisol spike than those who don't.
2. Get checked for sleep apnea. If it's just plain old snoring, ask your doctor about injection snoreplasty.
During this 15-minute procedure, a doctor will stiffen your soft palate--the fleshy area above your uvula that
causes snoring--with an injection of sodium tetradecyl sulfate. Cost: $35, which is cheap compared with a
divorce settlement. Results last about a year.
3. Check your medications. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found
that beta-blockers, a common treatment for high blood pres-sure, decreased melatonin production by 80
to 90 percent. Carvedilol is the only beta-blocker that didn't affect melatonin levels. Another culprit may be
Prozac and similar drugs, which can lead to as much as a 30 percent increase in awakenings.
Contemplate a switch to Paxil; it may actually help you fall asleep faster.
4. If you're peeing three or more times a night, consult a urologist. Odds are that your prostate is enlarged,
a common problem for older men. Before you try drugs or surgery, consider taking saw palmetto. In a
JAMA review of 18 studies, saw palmetto reduced incidences of nocturia--the nighttime urge to
urinate--by 25 percent. Look for ProstActive by Nature's Way; it's the most clinically studied brand of saw
palmetto available.
invading microbes, a compromised bodily repair and maintenance system, and the tendency to fall
asleep while the boss is talking, rather than safely back at your desk. That's why we came up with
decade-by-decade strategies for dealing with life's worst sleep saboteurs.
Read 'em and yawn.
Your 20s
Six hours and 54 minutes. That's the amount of shut-eye the National Sleep Foundation says you're
getting. It's also 2 hours and 6 minutes shy of the 9 hours--not 8--the experts say your body needs. "We
need more sleep from puberty through age 25 than at any other time in our lives, except when we're
newborns," says James Maas, Ph.D., a Cornell University sleep researcher.
The Four-Step Fix
1. Be in bed by 9:30 every night. In no time you'll want to kill yourself, but at least you'll be well rested for
the job. The alternative: Take every other night off. If you go out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,
then turn in an hour early on Tuesdays and Thursdays. "While this is far from optimal, it will help pay off
your sleep debt before it becomes so large that you feel tempted to try to make it all up on the weekend,"
says Michael Vitiello, Ph.D., a professor of behavioral sciences at the University of Washington.
2. On bar-hopping nights, order your last drink 3 hours before you call it quits. According to Vitiello, this
should give your body time to process the booze before you (a) crash (on the drive home) or (b) crash (in
bed). If your blood is clear of alcohol, you'll sleep more soundly. Or, if the damage is already done, make
the last call a double virgin screwdriver. Fructose, one of the sugars in OJ, can speed up the metabolism
of alcohol by as much as 25 percent.
3. Each night at around 11, your internal clock shifts you into slumber mode by secreting the hormone
melatonin. And that's a good thing, unless you need to fall asleep earlier. MIT researchers have found that
taking 0.3 milligrams of a melatonin supplement can help you fall asleep faster (if you can't find the right
dosage, pick up easy-to-break scored pills). Swallow one of these sleeping beauties a half hour before
you want to nod off into oblivion.
4. If you follow tips 1 through 3 and still feel like sleeping in on the weekends, don't. Your internal alarm
clock will fight you all the way. Instead, force yourself up at your normal waking time and your inner clock
will thank you with a deeper, longer sleep the next night. Awake but dragging? Hang on until noon.
Japanese researchers found that sleep-deprived subjects who took a 15-minute nap right after eating
lunch were less groggy and more alert for the rest of the day than the bleary-eyed control group.
Your 30s and 40s
You're probably getting a little more sleep than last decade, but still not enough. Worse, according to a
recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), men in their 30s and
40s get 82 percent less deep, "slow-wave" sleep than men in their late teens and early 20s. Slow-wave
sleep is the phase in which your body receives the serious R & R it needs to rebuild itself.
The Four-Step Fix
1. Before you go to bed, pop some vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid). According to Ron Klatz, M.D., president
of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, this is your antidote to too much cortisol, the stress
hormone that surges in middle-aged men. If that doesn't help, ask your doctor about taking some Bayer
with your B; aspirin may also help lower cortisol production.
2. Until you get your cortisol under control, it will limit your deepest sleep, so you'll spend the night
teetering on the edge of consciousness. Buy stuff to screen out the distractions: specifically, MSA Safety
Works foam earplugs, a SleepMate white-noise generator, and Roc Lon blackout drapes. You'll be less
accessible than God.
3. Kids waking you up? Order a copy of Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems, by Richard Ferber, M.D. It's
knocked out generations of wakeful tots. If the problem is an older child, take the TV out of his bedroom. A
study at Brown University showed a link between easy access to the tube and increased sleep
disturbances.
4. Go for a brisk six-block walk. According to University of Arizona researchers, that's the amount of
exercise that's best at reducing sleep disruptions in men. (A regular workout program came in a close
second.) Just do it in the late afternoon, like when you get off work. This will cause your body temperature
to drop a few hours later, making you drowsy right before bedtime.
Your 50s and beyond
Here's when it all comes apart. In the previously mentioned JAMA study, the researchers found that after
men turn 50, they get 28 minutes less sleep with each decade that passes. "By the time men reach their
50s and 60s, they have almost no deep sleep," says Sonia Ancoli-Israel, Ph.D., director of the Sleep
Disorders Clinic at the VA Medical Center in San Diego. A man in his 50s has nighttime cortisol levels 12
times higher than when he was in his 30s. Nearly one in 25 also has sleep apnea--a condition that
interrupts normal breathing. And then there's the expanding-prostate problem: A swollen gland may
prevent you from fully emptying your bladder, which means you'll make approximately 7,422 nightly trips to
the toilet.
The Four-Step Fix
1. Grab some vitamin B5 (see "Your 30s and 40s," above) and wash it down with Gatorade about half an
hour before bedtime. British researchers have found that athletes who down a high-carbohydrate drink
have a lower exercise-induced cortisol spike than those who don't.
2. Get checked for sleep apnea. If it's just plain old snoring, ask your doctor about injection snoreplasty.
During this 15-minute procedure, a doctor will stiffen your soft palate--the fleshy area above your uvula that
causes snoring--with an injection of sodium tetradecyl sulfate. Cost: $35, which is cheap compared with a
divorce settlement. Results last about a year.
3. Check your medications. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found
that beta-blockers, a common treatment for high blood pres-sure, decreased melatonin production by 80
to 90 percent. Carvedilol is the only beta-blocker that didn't affect melatonin levels. Another culprit may be
Prozac and similar drugs, which can lead to as much as a 30 percent increase in awakenings.
Contemplate a switch to Paxil; it may actually help you fall asleep faster.
4. If you're peeing three or more times a night, consult a urologist. Odds are that your prostate is enlarged,
a common problem for older men. Before you try drugs or surgery, consider taking saw palmetto. In a
JAMA review of 18 studies, saw palmetto reduced incidences of nocturia--the nighttime urge to
urinate--by 25 percent. Look for ProstActive by Nature's Way; it's the most clinically studied brand of saw
palmetto available.