Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, is a disease that can be caused by many things, and plagues about 1 out of every 3 adults in the United States. Your blood pressure refers to the force at which your blood pushes against the walls of your arteries as the blood is pumped through your veins.
When your blood pressure is high, it means that your blood is being pushed against the sides of your arteries with more force than normal, damaging the lining of your arteries, and potentially harming your body in many ways.
The lists of causes, possible, probable, and definite, are endless, but there are questions about hypertension as it relates to low testosterone.
What Does Testosterone actually do?
Testosterone is a hormone produced by the human body, mainly in the male body, but also produced in smaller amounts in the female body. Testosterone is most widely known for its functions in the male body, specifically in the sexual organs, but it has many other functions apart from growth of male sex organs, sex drive, and sexual function.
Testosterone is also responsible for the distribution of hair on your body, most specifically facial hair, but testosterone also plays a role in change of muscle concentration, change in fat cells, and changes in your energy level and mood.
So how is it possible that these two things are linked beyond simply being a part of the human body?
Obesity and Hypertension
Although it is not a connection that can be made without being knowledgeable about the different diseases and deficiencies, it is fairly obvious once all of the pieces are put together.
One of the many causes of hypertension is obesity. Obesity has become a serious and rapidly spreading problem in the United States, and along with it, rates of adults in the United States with hypertension have skyrocketed.
More than anything, obesity and hypertension are intimately linked to one another. On the simplest level, a higher level of body fat and a BMI that is in the obese category causes the heart to have to work harder to push blood through the arteries and veins of the body. This puts stress on not only the heart, but on the arteries as well.
If you look deeper into the connection, you will find that obesity increases the risk for heart disease by causing the body to produce less HDL-cholesterol (good cholesterol) and more LDL-cholesterol (bad cholesterol). Translated, this hardens your arteries and increases the risk of heart attacks. And those who have had a heart attack are far more likely to have hypertension.
The Bridge: Obesity and Low Testosterone
Just as obesity and hypertension are closely linked, so is obesity and low testosterone. Those with low testosterone are more likely to be obese, and those who are obese are more likely to have test results showing that they have low levels of testosterone. It works both ways.
Fat cells in the body possess the ability to convert testosterone into estrogen. Estrogen is very much the (mostly) female equivalent to testosterone. It is made in both the male and female body, but it is made mainly in the female body, and its main functions are sexual. Estrogen is produced by fat cells, whether it is produced or converted from testosterone, and it has a large hand in the development of things such as breasts in pubescent females.
Obesity also diminishes the levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) in the body, which is a protein that carries testosterone in the blood to the centers where testosterone has its effects. Less SHBG means that there is less testosterone in the body, or that particular person has low levels of testosterone. That person is also obese, which increases the risk not only of heart attacks, which increase the risk of hypertension, but the risk of hypertension itself.
Hypertension and obesity are so closely related in all of these ways, so if you find that you do have hypertension, it’s possible that there’s more to it than your stress level or your diet. It’s impossible to tell from an online article, but if you find that some of this may apply to you, ask your doctor. The more you know, the more able you are to identify your problem and, with the help of your doctor, go about fixing it.
http://www.webmd.com/men/what-low-testosterone-can-mean-your-health
http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@sop/@smd/documents/downloadable/ucm_319587.pdf
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/hbp/
http://www.androgel.com/what-testosterone-does
http://www.obesityaction.org/educational-resources/resource-articles-2/obesity-related-diseases/hypertension-and-obesity-how-weight-loss-affects-hypertension
http://www.livescience.com/38324-what-is-estrogen.html
Kate Stefenaski is currently a nurse practitioner who, in her free time, writes articles on little known health risks and hazards. For the proper treatment of low testosterone, she recommends patients in the Orlando area visit http://www.rejuvehealthclinics.com as soon as possible. You can find out more about Kate by visiting her Google+.
