We all know the benefits of Testosterone, we all know the symptoms of Low Testosterone. But what does Testosterone actually do in your body? This video will answer that question!
Today I want to talk about how testosterone works in your body.
We’re all familiar with the benefits of testosterone and we probably all have a good understanding of the symptoms of low Testostorone.
Do you know why testosterone works?
Do you know how Testostorone works from a physiological standpoint?
I think in order to truly understand something you have to know how it works. For example, you can simply memorize the fact that two plus two equals four, or, you can grasp the concept of adding individual items together by understanding things conceptually. You go from being able to solve a single problem to being able to solve an infinite number of equations. Let’s not just understand what testosterone does let’s understand why!
Testosterone is produced by the gonads in men and the ovaries in women. Testosterone is an androgen, which means it stimulates the development of male characteristics. I don’t want to turn this video into a scientific white paper so let’s just put it into plain English. Since I’m a military vet let’s use a war analogy. Say you have a scout that’s constantly looking for hostile activity which is the hypothalamus. The Scout detects enemy movement which is low T and sends a message which is GnRH back to headquarters, which is the pituitary gland. Headquarters then sends its own message which is FSH and LH to air support which is the testicles. Air support then sends in the a-10 warthog, which is testosterone, and neutralizes the threat. Once the enemy is under control, the Scout stops sending messages back to headquarters and continues to monitor for future hostile movement. That is how testosterone is produced.
Now we need to look at what your body actually does with that testosterone. What happens to testosterone when it enters your bloodstream ?Let’s use another analogy – the government in the form of taxes. Taxes in this analogy is what happens to testosterone when it binds to sex hormone binding globulin or SHBG. In fact about 45% of your paycheck is going to taxes and you’re not getting any of that money back. We’re now left with about 55 percent of your original paycheck. About 50 percent of your money will go to regular bills. Tthis is when testosterone binds to albumin. Now we’re sitting here with about 5% of our paycheck left and then you have those damn kids represented by the aromatase enzyme which is taking the little portion of money you have left and spending it on stupid shit like video games and overpriced clothing. In reality, the aromatase enzyme is taking what’s left of your precious testosterone and converting it to estrogen. The more kids you have, the more money is wasted. Just like the fatter you are the more enzymes you have and the more estrogen is being created. So as you can see while it’s important to know what your total testosterone is it’s really the free testosterone that’s useful . You can have high total testosterone levels but if your shbg is out of control, you my friend have low Testosterone.
One way to increase your free testosterone is to lower your SHBG or in the previous analogy, lower your taxes. As a side note one of the reasons HGH has such a synergistic effect with testosterone is that HGH has been shown to lower shbg levels and that’s in addition to all the other great stuff HGH offers.
Another way to increase your free testosterone is to increase the amount of testosterone in your system or in the analogy you need to make more money. It’s important to understand how things work because if you need to troubleshoot an issue you have the knowledge to do so. For example if you’re having problems with your testosterone levels and you have low FSH or LH you know there’s an issue with your pituitary.
In conclusion I’m fully aware that this was an extremely simplified explanation of how testosterone works in your body but I hope it was still informative.