What is the reason for the warning about male hormone health risks?

The vast majority of male hormones (clinical reference mainly refers to serum total testosterone and free testosterone levels) have health risk warnings. The essence is that the balance of testosterone secretion and metabolism is broken, and the proportion of congenital organic problems is extremely low. Most of them are caused by the superposition of acquired factors.

Among the consultations I have received at the reproductive health clinic for the past six months, almost 30% of the young men in their twenties have detected the critical value of testosterone. Ten years ago, this proportion was less than 10%. We must know that under normal circumstances, men's testosterone will naturally decline at a rate of 1 to 2% per year after the age of 30. There are also different views in the industry on this trend of younger men.

Many front-line clinicians tend to believe that lifestyle is the first trigger. Think about it, testosterone is mainly synthesized in the deep sleep stage. Nowadays, it is common for young people to stay up until one or two o'clock. The duration of deep sleep is not even 4 hours, and the gonads simply do not have enough time to produce.； In addition, people who eat a lot of high-sugar and high-fat diets will catch a lot of people with excessive body fat percentages. The aromatase in the fat will convert testosterone into estrogen, which is equivalent to being "sneaked" while reducing production. Isn't it a red light? The 27-year-old Internet operator who came here last week is a typical example. He has a body fat of 33%. He keeps milk tea in hand every day. It is common to stay up until 2 o'clock to change plans. The testosterone in his physical examination was only 278ng/dl, which is at the lower limit of the normal range. He only thought that he was tired recently and did not realize that it was a hormonal risk warning.

Some scholars in the field of environmental endocrinology believe that everyone has underestimated the impact of environmental pollutants. Nowadays, many people eat hot food in plastic lunch boxes, use cheap toiletries that contain estrogen-like ingredients, and even some substandard farmed aquatic products that they often eat have small amounts of hormone residues. Long-term exposure to these things will quietly interfere with the signal transmission of the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad axis, which is equivalent to sending wrong instructions to the secretion system, and the testicles will naturally not work well. I once had a patient who owned a small restaurant. He didn’t smoke, drink, or stay up late, but his testosterone level was abnormally low. After a long investigation, it was discovered that he used low-quality plastic bags to pack hot buns and hot dishes every day. The long-term intake of plasticizers interfered with hormone levels.

In fact, there is no conflict between the two statements. Many people's risk warnings are due to the overlap of these two factors. To put it bluntly, it is like charging your mobile phone. Charging is slow. If you play large games while charging, the power will naturally drop quickly. After a while, a low battery reminder will pop up.

Of course, there are a few early warnings that are caused by organic lesions, such as cryptorchidism, pituitary tumors, testicular damage, etc. However, these are generally accompanied by more obvious symptoms, such as abnormal development of secondary sexual characteristics and significant decline in sexual function. Routine physical examinations can also detect them, accounting for less than 5%.

If you haven't been overworked recently, but you always feel that you can't work hard, lose muscle mass quickly, and have an inexplicable bulge in your stomach, you might as well take a fasting blood test to check your sex hormones. It's easy to detect and adjust early, and you can't wait until problems arise.