The Root Causes of Low Libido

Hormones play a big role in determining our sex drive, energy and mood.  Other confounding factors include communication, intimacy and emotional states.  Some research attribute 70% of hormonal imbalance to the food we consume.  Nutrition is a small hinge the swings big doors.

The hormones typically involved in libido are your thyroid hormones, adrenal hormones, as well as sex hormones estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. In Chinese Medicine, your kidney energy governs your libido and ability to maintain an erection. 

If you have sore breasts, are irritable, and having irregular cycles or more frequent cycles, your libido could drop.  These symptoms often indicate low progesterone.  Progesterone is the “connectivity” hormone.  Closeness with a partner has been shown to increase salivary progesterone levels.  Also getting good doses of vitamin C will help build this hormone.

Caffeine – whilst it gives you a boost to your short term energy production, is a stimulant that jolts your cortisol (stress hormone).  Some studies have shown caffeine to block progesterone from binding to its receptors.  Whilst it does not lower progesterone, it reduces the ability of the hormone to do its job by not being able to bind to the receptors.  Good substitutes for coffee are roasted dandelion root tea (which will also cleanse your liver), green tea or rooibos tea.

Alcohol consumption causes oxidative stress to the testicular leydig cells and leads to lower testosterone levels and it also increases estrogen levels, making a male more feminine.  In a man, high stress levels and poor eating habits can dampen kidney energy, hence causing an inability to maintain an erection.  Men need more zinc than women, so check those levels, and using herbs like damiana can also help with male libido. Using high antioxidant compounds like berries and herbs can help reduce oxidative stress.

Healthy communication, clean, good eating, de-stressing through prayers, meditation or yoga and regular exercise can be the answer to your low libido and bring you more fulfilling relationships.  Practising forgiveness and gratitude can only do you good.

How to boost your sex drive naturally

The media always reminds us that there is another pill to increase sex drive, deal with erectile dysfunction or increase our libido. Your sex drive and libido is a reflection of what you are doing to your body.  Nature typically has it that fertility and libido is appropriate when a person’s health is in a good state.

So, if you are having trouble in the bedroom, you may want to consider these factors:

1. Are you on a low fat diet, or a bad fat diet?  Hormones are fat soluble substances and having adequate good fats is important for the body to maintain a good level of hormones.  It may surprise you, but cholesterol is a precursor to the making of hormones!  Bad fats create oxidative stress in the body and can affect the body’s optimal hormone production.  So make sure you are having adequate good fats from raw seeds, nuts, cold water fish and avocado.
2. Are you not exercising enough?  We all know exercise helps to increase our output of endorphins, our feel good hormones.  Adequate endorphin is important to the making of sex hormones and manages the making of stress hormones.
3. Are you overweight? Increased abdominal fats, imbalance in blood sugar levels, diabetes and inflammation often affects peripheral circulation and will have an impact in your sex drive.
4. Are you not eating enough real food and having adequate antioxidant support?  Food as close to its naturally occurring state as possible supplies nutrients for the making of cells in the body, including those of the reproductive system.  Good, lean protein from fish, egg, chicken, lean meat, nuts and seeds help the making of good cells. Antioxidant from fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs has a protective effect on our cells and assist in making healthier cells.
5. Are you stressed?  Stress and sex typically do not go together.  In a fight or flight situation, stress requires us to “run from danger”.  In the “danger” situation, our body shuts down the reproductive system and focuses on giving energy to the muscles and pupils to “run from danger”.  If you have persistent, high levels of stress, take time out for yourself, do some yoga, meditation, prayers or your own de-stressing activity, some people de- stress by tending to the garden, play a musical instrument, play a sport, watch a comedy or do some handicraft.

If you still have trouble in the bedroom after answering “No” to all of the above questions, it is worthwhile to run a hormones test to see what is going on.  You can run a blood sex hormones test but blood is not a good indication of free hormones (the ones that matter) as it measures bound and unbound hormones.  The better choices are salivary or dried urine hormones tests.  We offer these tests at NutriActionz.

Does Fish Oil Cause Prostate Cancer?

The media has been putting up headlines like:

Fish Oils may increase prostate cancer risk – CNBC July 11 2013

Link to Prostate Cancer brings more bad news for fish oil story – Forbes July 11 2013

But, does fish oil really increase prostate cancer risk? We have been asked by our clients what our views are regarding this piece of news.  The study was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute entitled “Plasma Phospholipid Fatty Acids and Prostate Cancer Risk in the SELECT trial” and has generated lots of recent media interest and inquiries from the public.

After reviewing all the information we could get on this study and in consultation with our scientific advisors, we believe that the precautions against omega-3 consumption in this study are largely without merit.  You should be confident that fish oil is still a beneficial supplement.

This study and the conclusions drawn contain many flaws, including:

• This is not an intervention study where the participants were given fish oil to evaluate their prostate cancer risk.  It was merely an observational study to look at the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) where the levels of plasma phospholipids were measured.  Observation does NOT mean causation.  There can be other confounding factors in the study that have caused that observation.
• Plasma phospholipids is a measure that can vary significantly depending on when your last meal of omega-3 or fish or fish oil is. These levels can increase or decrease, based on a single meal within a 48-hour period. 
• The researchers base their conclusions on very small differences in mean omega-3 blood plasma phospholipid levels. The increased prostate cancer risks they ascribe to men who consume large amounts of omega-3 is based on a level of 4.66% in the cancer group, versus a level of 4.48% in the control group.
• If high levels of omega-3 indeed increases the risk of prostate cancer, then countries with high consumption of omega 3 like Japan and Scandinavia should have high rates of prostate cancer.  However, the reverse is true.  It is the countries with low consumption of omega-3 and high consumption of trans and saturated fats that have high incidence of prostate cancer.
• This is a small study and the conclusions are not keeping up with the rest of the literature on cancer risk and omega-3 fish oil consumption.  8 other major studies involving 78,000 participants have found NO increase in cancer risk.

The researchers have ignored many studies collated over many decades of studies of Omega-3 and its health benefits to publicise conclusions that contradict other better designed research.  However, we do advise our patients to be careful about the source of fish oil purchased.  Since the publicity of the health benefits of Omega-3, many companies have jumped onto the bandwagon and there is no shortage of brands of Omega-3 in the market, from grocery lines to properly tested therapeutically designed Omega-3 we dispense in our clinic.  You get what you pay for, not all Omega-3 fish oils are the same.