Men’s Health
The Connection Between Men’s Hormone Health, Gut Health and Common Health Risks
Our habits compound over the years of our life.
By Kasee Bogle June 2023
The habits we develop will compound over the span of a lifetime. Those habits will either consistently improve our life or consistently devalue our lifespan. However, you are never too old to begin better self-care in order to change the direction of the compounding effect your habits have on your health.
Men can have the tendency of putting aside preventative steps to take care of their health. This lack of prioritizing leads to an increase in health risks.
When it comes to health, the focus should be on discovering “the why” all the way to its deepest roots.
Why is it happening? What causes each symptom? What is the body saying through those symptoms? What other connections are related to those symptoms?
There is most always a direct connection to hormone levels, gut health, inflammation levels, and/or nutrient levels. Note the following examples commonly seen within men’s health that can easily be addressed with intentional lifestyle habits.
Hormone Health
The topic of hormone health is more commonly connected to women than men, however, this area of health is just as critical for men.
Insulin is the master hormone that speaks to ALL other hormones.
Almost 9 out of 10 people have a hormone problem (men and women) called insulin resistance. This occurs when cells in your muscles, body fat, and liver start ignoring instructions from the hormone insulin to send sugar out of the bloodstream.
Insulin Resistance
The pattern that creates insulin resistance becomes a vicious cycle. Here’s what happens… you eat a piece of pizza – your blood sugar level goes up – your pancreas secretes insulin to deal with the excess sugar in your blood. Some gets stored in your muscle and used for energy and all the extra gets stored as FAT! The more insulin your body has to put out the more resistant your body becomes to insulin. If you can keep blood sugars from swinging up and down, the body can release less insulin and become more sensitive to insulin. Fortunately, there are supplements that can support and pair with good eating habits to help in balancing these insulin levels.
Insulin plays a lot of crucial roles, doing much more than regulating blood sugar levels. It is used to store nutrients in your cells. There is not a hormone in the body that insulin does not affect, if not directly control.
The effects of this resistance cycle can result in high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, poor blood flow, imbalanced glucose levels, and an increased risk of heart disease.
Every other hormone becomes level when insulin is level. Insulin levels play an important role in EVERY area of men’s health.
Belly fat
Excess weight around the belly seems to be one of the main factors that contributes to insulin resistance. In turn, excess belly fat can be increased due to the process of imbalanced hormone levels.
There are two types of belly fat, visceral and subcutaneous.
- Visceral is the fat surrounding the liver and other abdominal organs. The risks developed from visceral fat are metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
Chronic stress can lead to accumulation of visceral fat due to high levels of cortisol, which is a stress hormone essential for survival (think fight or flight).
- Subcutaneous is the layer of fat that sits directly under the skin. It’s less harmful, serving as a layer of protection for organs and insulation to regulate body temperature, however, having high amounts of this fat is linked with a higher amount of visceral fat, therefore, increasing your risk of health problems.
Excessive abdominal fat also risks reducing testosterone production.
Different factors, such as a sedentary lifestyle, hormones, and the foods you eat may increase abdominal fat. This can include consuming too much sugar and empty carbs while not consuming enough fiber and protein.
Time for a change? Simple and intentional living, like walking daily, increasing healthy food choices, proper hydration, and regulating blood sugar levels can provide the results you’re needing.
Inflammation, Cholesterol, Blood Pressure and Nitric Oxide connections.
Inflammation can be caused by insulin resistance, it is also one of the largest causes of high cholesterol levels. HDL, “good cholesterol”, impacts heart disease risk and blood pressure levels.
High blood pressure, often called “the silent killer” because it typically doesn’t present symptoms, if left undetected and uncontrolled can lead to serious conditions including heart attack, stroke, heart failure, kidney disease, and sexual dysfunction.
Inflammation limits and restricts blood flow. The key here is to improve blood glucose levels, reduce inflammation levels and you will improve blood flow.
Nitric Oxide (NO) is one of the most important signaling molecules in our body involved in virtually every organ system. NO prevents inflammation and arterial thickening that can restrict blood flow, cause hypertension and increase the workload on your heart. It also reduces the stickiness of LDL and other elements in our blood that leads to plaque buildup in arteries.
Gut Health
It has been established that the oral and gut bacteria microbiome play a role in Nitric Oxide production, probiotic bacteria help normalize cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and commensal bacteria in the digestive system drive the body’s metabolism.
Improving gut health makes it easier to make healthier food choices when you’re not drawn to the thing that negatively impacts your health.
Gut health is often thought to be only about how often you go to the bathroom, however, this area of health is directly linked to every single health system within the body.
If you find yourself struggling with nutrient absorption, mood, cravings, belly fat, hormones, sleep issues, weight management, and poor immune health then gut health is going to be a wise focus for next steps in health improvement.
As you can see, every single area connects to another directly, bringing improved healthy levels or disrupting the body’s levels bringing imbalance and poor health symptoms.
These symptoms do not need to become a new normal, and they do not have to be a part of the aging process.
If you continue to live how you have been living, making the choices you make daily…what does the long term result look like for your health?
This is the compounding effect, doing the things that are easy to do, but just as easy not to do. The aging process will be determined by the amount of attention and care that we provide to our changing gut health and hormone health and the level of priority we place on living a lifestyle that supports overall health.
Prevention and Improvement Helps:
- Hormone regulation
- Reduce inflammation levels
- Support Nitric Oxide production
- Improve gut health
- Improve eating habits
- Stress management
- Improve sleep patterns
- Increase daily movement and exercise
- Invest in specific supplement protocol that will support your health needs
Schedule a free health consultation with Kasee Bogle at radiantimpactllc@gmail.com if you’re looking for guidance in the next steps you should be taking to experience health improvements or preventative care.