Alcohol Lowers Testosterone, Increases Estrogen

If you're a guy and you're STILL unsure whether to reduce or eliminate alcohol from your diet, here's yet another fact for you to ponder: alcohol lowers testosterone, increases estrogen, and often brings about gynecomastia (male breast enlargement) due to your body's increased conversion of testosterone and other aromatizable androgens to estrogen.

It can also lead to testicular atrophy, low sperm count, and difficulty in performing sexually via erectile dysfunction. Furthermore, if you lift weights to feel and look stronger you should be aware that alcohol is preventing you from making as much progress as you should. It does this by destroying muscle gains in several ways, including lowering testosterone, dehydration, preventing vitamin absorption, and much more.

All of these problems are compounded even more if you're a heavy drinker or have an alcohol addiction, as your liver is responsible for eliminating excess estrogen from your body. In heavy drinkers the ability of the liver to perform this function is greatly undermined and it is unable to perform this essential task.

Ask any guy and he'll tell you that the LAST thing he wants is shrunken testicles, enlarged breasts, and difficulty getting an erection. But those are the inevitable side effects that should be expected when alcohol is involved. By the way, all of this added estrogen is not good for women, either. Too much estrogen in women has been linked to a myriad of health problems, including breast and ovarian cancer.

In addition, if you're a heavy beer drinker you should be aware that the Hops in beer is converted to estrogen by the body, and your over-worked liver can not adequately remove this excess estrogen. The result of all this extra estrogen is that the male body will begin to exhibit female characteristics, such as breast enlargement, shrunken testicles, and loss of body hair.

The good news in all this is that from the very second you stop drinking alcohol you begin to heal. Your body is truly a miracle of design, able to heal the damage that alcohol caused it, but, you have to stop now to have the best chance of getting back the healthy you. For some good tips to quit drinking please read 10 Steps to Quit Drinking Alcohol and Get Sober by Avoiding These 2 Mistakes.

Don't let an alcohol addiction destroy you for one more second. Stop drinking now, and get a fresh start at a new life. You'll be glad you did.