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Testicular Fatigue?
I spent a lot of evenings and weekends at the beach this past summer. There
I espied hundreds of beautiful, nearly naked girls, many of who were
candidates for future lower back problems, if you catch my drift.
Now, however, I have no energy. I have mild depression and anxiety, and it
takes increased effort to just do my daily tasks. It can only be one thing:
testicular fatigue.
Yes, that's right, all that female flesh made my testicles work overtime in
pumping out testosterone and they plum got tuckered out. Now they just
make a sad little wheezing sound.
Oh, so you're skeptical, huh? Sure you are, because it's not a real condition.
But neither is adrenal fatigue!
Endocrine glands, whether they're testicles or adrenals, don't work that way.
They're not like your great aunt Jules who worked as a scrubwoman for 50
years and finally died of exhaustion while mopping out the crapper.
But for whatever reason, the huge majority of people in fitness believe in
adrenal fatigue. How the hell did this come about?
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Yes, stress induced, sub-optimal adrenal function is a real thing, but it's not
produced by tired adrenals. Instead, it's a result of a hypothalamic pituitary
adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction. It's more brain and nervous system than it is
glandular.
People with true adrenal insufficiency, though, suffer from weight loss,
anorexia, joint pain, confusion, vomiting, diarrhea, dry skin, and low blood
pressure, in addition to fatigue.
Sure, there's a tiny bit of overlap, but not enough to convince a jury that
adrenal fatigue is a real thing.
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Secondly, even if saliva tests are reliable, saliva is often sampled at the
wrong time. Cortisol is highest in the first 15 to 30 minutes after waking up.
This "cortisol awakening response" accounts for about 50% of your daily
cortisol total.
Unless you take your spit sample in this first 30 minutes, you're probably
going to test low and some naturopath with parsley breath is going to tell you
to start taking cortisol-raising supplements.
None of these things, however, suggest an adrenal gland that's too fatigued
to produce cortisol. Besides, as explained above, the symptoms usually
ascribed to adrenal fatigue don't match up well with what happens when
cortisol is truly low or your body is resistant to it.
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Psychological stress
Physical stress
Fluctuating blood sugar levels
Poor sleep
Poor diet
Systemic inflammation in general
Give yourself an honest assessment. What's your work situation? How's your
love life? Is something keeping you up at night? Is your diet spot-on? Are you
taking anti-inflammatory supplements like:
Curcumin (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/curcumin)
C3G (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/indigo-3g)
Rhodiola (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/rhodiola)
Resveratrol (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/rez-v)
Fish oil (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/flameout)
Alpha-lipoic acid
Today
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