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Hormone Therapy, and specifically testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) and HGH therapy can improve heart health by enhancing cardiac function, improving exercise capacity, and improving certain risk factors. TRT has been shown to improve exercise capacity and reduce symptoms in men with heart failure and coronary artery disease. HGH therapy can increase cardiac output and peak oxygen consumption, especially in adult patients diagnosed with HGH deficiency.
Generally speaking, using testosterone to treat age-related testosterone deficiency does not increase a patient’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The is a lot of confusion and controversy surrounding the use of testosterone replacement and the risk of a cardiovascular incident such as a stroke or heart attack.
In 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated its recommendations for testosterone and added a label warning to any prescription product that contained testosterone stating the possible increased risk of heart attack and stroke for men. However, while the warning remains, since then, there have been many other studies that suggest the original studies that lead to the implementation of the warning label were flawed. There have even been studies since the regulation was put into place that indicates just the opposite, that in men with low testosterone replacement can actually lower their chance of having a cardiovascular event.
We can now confidently say that not only does testosterone therapy not increase your risk of stroke or heart attack, but it can actually decrease your chances of such cardiovascular incidents.
Men with low testosterone often develop a number of “metabolic conditions,” all of which increase the risk of coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, heart attack, and stroke. Low testosterone decreases your ability to burn fat and build muscle. This often leads to obesity. The links between being overweight and an increased risk of stroke or heart attack are well known, particularly since being overweight increases your risk of atherosclerosis, a condition marked by the buildup of fatty deposits in the coronary arteries known as “plaque.” This plaque buildup clogs the proper flow of blood to the heart and brain, and often a stroke or heart attack is the result.
Men with low testosterone are also at a greater risk of developing insulin resistance and type II diabetes. Diabetes also increases your risk of cardiovascular disease.
A recent meta-analysis found that there is a link between low testosterone in men and an increased risk of developing heart disease. The review published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, showed significant evidence suggesting a connection between low testosterone levels and heart disease.
Hypertension is the medical term for “high blood pressure.” There is definitely a link between low testosterone and heart disease, and that includes hypertension. But the link between testosterone replacement and hypertension is a little bit different than it is for other heart health risks such as heart attack or stroke.
Since testosterone replacement can help you to build muscle and burn fat, it lowers your BMI and therefore reduces your chances of being obese, which, like reducing your risk of stroke or heart attack, may help lower your blood pressure. However, unlike other forms of heart disease, there is a way that testosterone could, under certain conditions, cause an increase in blood pressure. Among its many benefits, testosterone replacement increases your production of red blood cells. Additional red blood cells have many benefits, such as increased oxygenation in the blood, which can provide you with increased strength and energy. However, the increased production of red blood cells that results from testosterone injections could, in some men, cause a thickening of the blood. This blood-thickening could raise your blood pressure. Therefore, men on testosterone therapy must have their blood pressure carefully monitored. If your blood pressure goes up consistently while on testosterone therapy and it is linked to blood thickening, you may need to donate blood periodically to avoid the condition.
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a condition that happens when your heart doesn’t pump blood as well as it should. When this occurs, blood often backs up, and fluid can build up in the lungs, causing shortness of breath. Certain heart conditions, such as narrowed arteries in the heart (coronary artery disease) or high blood pressure, gradually leave the heart too weak or stiff to fill and pump blood properly – these are the leading causes of congestive heart failure, sometimes referred to only as “heart failure.”
Since testosterone therapy may indeed reduce your risk of developing clogged arteries and other heart conditions that can precede CHF, it can reduce your risk of developing heart failure.
Furthermore, patients suffering from congestive heart failure have a lack of oxygen and, therefore, a limited capacity to exercise. This only makes the condition worse and increases their risk of dying from stroke or heart attack. A recent study published in the medical journal Heart found that testosterone replacement therapy can increase exercise capacity in patients with CHF and thereby help to increase their overall health and lower their risk of heart attack or stroke.
Myocardial infarction is the medical term for a heart attack. When used as prescribed, for most patients, testosterone does not increase your risk of heart attack or myocardial infarction. Despite an overabundance of evidence to the contrary, it has been said that testosterone replacement therapy could increase the risk of having a heart attack. Not only have many recent studies debunked this commonly held misconception, but the latest research also suggests that just the opposite is true – testosterone replacement can actually decrease a man’s risk of a heart attack.
The study, published in the European Heart Journal, found that increasing the testosterone levels in men with low testosterone who have suffered a heart attack helped to prevent a second heart attack or other cardiovascular issues.
For most men, testosterone replacement does not increase their risk of cardiovascular disease, and in fact, research seems to suggest that when properly prescribed and used with doctor supervision, testosterone replacement therapy can actually reduce your risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease.
A 2015 study published by the world-renowned Mayo Clinic set the record straight on testosterone and the risk of heart disease or increased risk of a heart attack.
According to the study, published in the January 2015 edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, “evidence from research conducted around the world for several decades suggests a beneficial relationship between [testosterone] therapy and cardiovascular health.”
The lead researcher on this study was Dr. Abraham Morgentaler. Dr. Morgentaler is a well-known specialist in men’s health. Dr. Morgentaler published his first paper on testosterone in 1978. He has since become a recognized expert in the field and wrote the extremely popular book, Testosterone for Life in 2008.
This paper by Morgentaler was what is known as a “meta-analysis” It took a look at all of the studies on testosterone and the increased risk of cardiovascular disease between 1940 and 2014 and analyzed them in detail.
After intensively studying almost 75 years of published medical research, Dr. Morgentaler and his team found only four studies that seemed to indicate an increased risk of heart disease associated with testosterone replacement. However, they found “dozens of studies” that suggested just the opposite, that testosterone replacement can actually reduce the risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease and heart attack. This led him to make only one inescapable conclusion – “In summary, there is no convincing evidence of increased CV risks with testosterone therapy. On the contrary, there appears to be a strong beneficial relationship between normal testosterone levels and CV health that has not yet been widely appreciated.”
Three of the main risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease are:
Testosterone replacement therapy does not increase these risk factors. In fact, it lowers each and every one of them. Clinical research has shown that there is a definite link between low testosterone and metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a group of disorders characterized by high blood sugar, high levels of “bad” cholesterol, high blood pressure, and obesity. It puts people at severe risk of death by cardiac arrest or stroke. Medical research has found that people, particularly men with low testosterone, are at a much greater risk of developing metabolic syndrome than men who have more normal testosterone levels.
Most of the risk factors for developing metabolic syndrome are related to obesity. Men with low testosterone tend to be overweight. In particular, they have an excess of belly fat. Also, men with low testosterone tend to also have one or more of the conditions associated with metabolic syndrome. Lack of lean muscle, and a decreased ability to burn fat, are two of the main symptoms of low T, as are insulin resistance and increased blood sugar, all of which increase the risk of metabolic syndrome and disease.
The bottom line: not only is TRT not contraindicated in men with metabolic syndrome or other risk factors for heart disease, it may actually reduce these risk factors and lessen the chances of death by stroke or heart attack.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is vitally important for maintaining a healthy heart and lowering your risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
Researchers have found a significant amount of evidence indicating that Human Growth Hormone (HGH) therapy can have a positive impact on heart health.
For example, recent research has shown that HGH is particularly important in the development of embryonic heart tissue. This is an important discovery because traditional wisdom dictated that cardiac tissue was end-differentiated, meaning that it is unable to regenerate new tissue. If this was true, if heart tissue was indeed a kind of “biological dead end,” that would mean that tissue that was damaged by a heart attack, heart disease, or another cardiovascular event was dead and gone and could never be replaced.
However, with the use of stem cells and HGH therapy, cardiac tissue is being actively regenerated in clinical use. This newly discovered growth potential of the heart is ushering in a new era of potential treatments for all sorts of cardiovascular disease. However, much of the recent research into the benefits of HGH for heart health has centered on its benefits for sufferers of congestive heart failure (CHF).
In a recent study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the researchers concluded that providing growth hormone replacement therapy to patients with chronic congestive heart failure could slow down the progression of the disease. “Although this is a preliminary study, the finding suggests a new therapeutic approach to a large proportion of growth-hormone-deficient patients with chronic heart failure,” the authors wrote.
The American Heart Association (AHA) defines “heart disease” as coronary heart disease (including congestive heart failure and diseases of the arteries), hypertension, stroke, and sudden cardiac arrest.
According to AHA:
According to the CDC, “heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States. One person dies every 36 seconds in the United States from cardiovascular disease. [And], In the United States, someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds.”
Studies have suggested that growth hormone deficiency affects nearly 40% of patients with chronic heart failure.
Patients with lower-than-normal HGH levels tend to have high cholesterol, are obese, and have a buildup of plaque in the arteries. These are all factors that are known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. So, it is no surprise that adults with GHD also tend to have some form of cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, it follows that growth hormone replacement therapy can reduce these risks, and in some cases, relieve these conditions and improve heart health.
There is a growing body of evidence that HGH is good for your heart. In particular, the latest research suggests that HGH can be an effective treatment for certain kinds of heart disease. The earliest clues that human growth hormone (HGH) therapy may benefit the heart came from research conducted in 1988 that showed that “young adults treated with one week of supraphysiological doses of HGH had improved cardiac contractility on serial echocardiography.” In medical terminology, “cardiac contractility” refers to the strength of the heart’s ability to pump. So, this study indicated that HGH could make the heart stronger.
Since then, there have been many more clinical studies that indicate that HGH is good for the heart, as well as how growth hormone deficiency (GHD) negatively impacts cardiac function.
Here is a summary of the top ten benefits of HGH for heart health
The AHA has identified the following causes of cardiovascular disease:
HGH therapy can help to reduce most, if not all, of the factors contributing to heart disease listed above.
There have been many other studies that also provide evidence that HGH is good for the heart.
A study published in The Journal of Pediatrics concluded that “treatment with [HGH] at least partially reverses cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction.” Cardiac hypertrophy is the abnormal enlargement, or thickening, of the heart muscle, which is a complication in patients with growth hormone deficiency. This increase in heart size often leads to heart failure.
A Mayo Clinic report that summarized the current research on HGH therapy and heart failure said, “HGH therapy can exert a potent beneficial effect on congestive heart failure.” That same paper concluded that for patients known to have growth hormone deficiency and any type of heart disease, “the addition of HGH replacement should be strongly considered as an adjunct to standard heart failure therapy.”
At Nexel we take a different approach to hormone therapy. Just as we know how it can improve heart health, we design our HRT programs for men and woman to lower your risk of all conditions that can impact your quality of life. Our doctors realize that hormone therapy isn’t about simply getting you levels back into the normal range, but to provide a treatment plan that optimizes your overall health and wellbeing.
That means that whether you are considering Hormone Therapy to help you lose weight, build muscle, or improve sexual health, we will craft a program to fit your individual needs, symptoms and wellness goals.
It’s time you took the first step to a healthier more vital you by contacting us today!
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