Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones (28 page)

I may not live one day longer than nature allows me, and I may not be able to avoid future disease, but I am having the time of my life, and I feel better than I ever have and a lot better than any of my friends, who are really a bunch of grouchy old farts who pooh-pooh what I am doing while they are losing their minds and their bodies
.

Kudos for you, Suzanne Somers; you have entertained me for decades and you have provided me with the Fountain of Youth. For you nonbelievers, take a good hard look at Suzanne, who I believe is 60 years old. That’s a hot-looking babe!

CHAPTER 13
B
RUCE:
A F
ORTY-YEAR-OLD
IN
P
ERIANDROPAUSE

For the sake of my readers, I will tell you right off the top that this is a conversation between me and my son, Bruce Somers (so the adoring tone will be noted, but I will try to keep it under control). Bruce has always been forward-thinking, long before I was. He is one of many young men who have experienced periandropause. His work and lifestyle are stressful. Additionally, I did not nurse him, which makes me wonder if other young men his age, born to mothers of the sixties who were encouraged to give their babies formula rather than breast milk, have experienced the same syndrome. If you are one of those mothers, Bruce’s interview may give you some insight
.

SS:
So, Bruce, how old were you when you started taking vitamins?

BS:
Thirteen.

SS:
And you made me nervous.

BS:
I know. But I had read Earl Mindell’s
Vitamin Bible
, and while most kids were reading
Lord of the Rings
and
Lord of the Flies
, I needed something more concrete. As relaxed as I seemed to be, I was already worried about living forever, so I thought, no better time to start than now.

At thirteen—that would have been 1978—I remember going to you and Alan and asking if I could get these vitamins I had read about, and there were a lot of them. You said, “How do you know that what you are doing isn’t hurting you, and how much can it really
help you?” But you relented and said, “All right, if you go to our doctor and he says fine, then we’ll support you in this.” The interesting thing is that our doctor at that time said, “Well, if you want to waste your money, go ahead and take all these vitamins.”

SS:
As in “expensive urine.”

BS:
Exactly, which I think is the common belief. But I do remember how sick I was as a kid. I was always getting a lot of colds, flu, and bronchitis. But do you realize that when I started taking vitamins is when I started saying, “Oh, I never get sick”?

SS:
You know, you’re right.

BS:
I remember being kind of a sickly child.

SS:
And you had the stress of my divorce when you were a toddler. Then you missed me when I had to take a trip. And then there were some unpleasant stepmoms, and it was also a time when there weren’t many kids from divorced families.

BS:
Absolutely. It was stressful, whereas today there is not much social stress for a child to come from a divorced family, at least in metropolitan cities. So the sickness could have been partially psychosomatic. But my well-being today stems from the time I started taking vitamins right up until this very moment. I know there has to be a psychosomatic element, but I think psychosomatic positive thinking is part of wellness.

SS:
The mind/body connection.

BS:
Right. Studies have shown that when a patient has a strong belief in his or her medical practitioner, the potential for healing goes up about 40 percent.

SS:
What do you think it was about you (besides the fact that you are incredibly smart, says the mother) that you would have such innate intelligence about this? Because it was very forward-thinking at that time.

BS:
Being a child of divorce had a maturing effect on me, one that a child from a typical 2.3-sibling family doesn’t experience. A part of you becomes a little adult, which is interestingly similar to being a child of an alcoholic or any other addiction. Other parts of you aren’t so mature, of course. But being a little adult and being your best friend—you know, going out with you all the time and getting a lot
of pop psychology early through the talks we’d have, or the talks I’d have with your friends—made me mature for my age. Your friends would talk about taking care of their bodies, for example.

SS:
So way back then you decided to choose to take good care of yourself?

BS:
Absolutely.

SS:
So I guess it would follow that you would be the first one in your age group to start working with hormones.

BS:
The first hormones I started taking were in a tablet—DHEA.

SS:
How old were you?

BS:
I was thirty-three. My doctor recommended I start taking it. I remember you and I shared a smile over it because Alan was also taking it, and it was strange that someone in his sixties was taking it, so why did I need it, too?

SS:
Why
did
you need it?

BS:
Quite simply from my blood results. My DHEA was low for my age.

SS:
Do you think it was stress-induced?

BS:
I think so. I guess I have always been stressed, but from the time I went to graduate school, and well into the birth of our two children, pulling all-nighters was very routine. You know, there’s that dumb badge of honor of working harder than anyone, which is pandemic in our driving society.

SS:
And also there are particular stresses on young men to achieve and “make it.”

BS:
That’s true. You see, I was in my chosen field but not doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. I know this sidesteps the hormone discussion, but it is hard to understand when you are going through these passages that you are supposed to be experiencing this kind of stress for life’s lessons. But somehow God or the forces protecting me steered me toward a career that enabled me not only to feed my kids, but to be there for them. I think my biggest guilt in life would be not being there for my kids and my wife.

SS:
Your lucky family. Walk me down your hormonal path. What was the first sign that you needed something beyond DHEA?

BS:
With the pressures of marriage with kids, my libido was
suppressed because there was no time. If you do have the ability to sleep, you take it, because between work and kids, you’re up every few hours, and that’s universal. Something was “off” with me. My libido was low. I would feel sexual and feel stimulation, but I was just too fatigued to do anything about it. One of the questions my doctor, Dr. David Allen, asked me was: “If you see someone hot walking down the street, do you notice her and do you say ‘hmm’ … you know, if you could, you would?”

SS:
And what was your answer?

BS:
Yeah. So he said, “Okay, well, that’s a good sign.” Still, I just wasn’t in the mood like I once was. But think about it: Sex for most people doesn’t just happen. Jokingly you say foreplay, but it’s long before foreplay where you have to set the mood. You know, gotta make sure you don’t have a little argument.

SS:
Yep.

BS:
Gotta make sure you help with the dishes. You gotta make sure you’re clean, and that was too much effort, let alone the physical act. You know, you gotta set the whole thing up.

SS:
So you were fatigued; you were just tired?

BS:
I don’t know that I realized I was tired then. I’ve been tired, I mean, I’ve been trying to be cognizant of being tired in the last few years and not letting myself get burned out. I’m not good at it. You see, I have a mom who’s a workaholic in everything she does. She’s the best mom, the best nightclub entertainer, the best salesperson, the best at everything she does.

SS:
I’m working on it. I left dishes in the sink last night, you’ll be proud to know.

BS:
Good for you.

SS:
So what did Dr. Allen say?

BS:
About three or four years ago, he said that he wanted to put me on testosterone.

SS:
What was your reaction?

BS:
I guess my reaction was “Really?” but he said my levels were very low. Interestingly, my testosterone has always been lower on the baseline than it should be. But it got to the point where the things we
were doing that should help my body stimulate its own testosterone production like DHEA didn’t seem to work. So he put me on testosterone, and my levels started to go up.

SS:
In writing this book, I have learned about periandropause in men. It sounds like this is the phenomenon that happened to you. Are your hormone numbers now at optimum?

BS:
Yes.

SS:
So once you were on testosterone, did you feel any difference, even though your lifestyle hadn’t changed?

BS:
I felt a difference. My hobby is cycling. It’s totally illegal to use testosterone if you’re cycling when you’re racing. Even on amateur races, you’re not allowed to use it. First off, I would never hide it, so when I was on the bike, I’d tell everyone that I was trying to get to where I’m supposed to be hormonally for my health.

SS:
When you were cycling after taking testosterone, did you feel a newfound strength that you hadn’t felt before?

BS:
Yes. With cycling, it is tough to hang in there with the other cyclists, even on training rides, fighting for the front and going toe-to-toe with people. I was nowhere near the strongest, but I was on the front line. I was in the big group.

SS:
You’re also the first person I knew to inject human growth hormone. Once again, you made me nervous.

BS:
Right.

SS:
How did you have the confidence to do that? Who recommended that you take HGH?

BS:
Again, it was Dr. Allen, and it was based upon tests. A lot of the motivation for me was because of sports. You’ve always heard about HGH and athletes, and frankly, testosterone is considered a steroid. So when my doctor recommended I take HGH from looking at my blood work, I asked him about athletes. “How come it’s okay for me, but it’s not okay for athletes to do it?” He told me that a lot of these athletes are ten to fifteen years younger than me. Their testosterone and HGH levels are already through the roof, and they’re topping off the tank, basically. They’re trying to get that extra 1 or 2 percent, which frankly is what separates the gold medalists from the losers.

So basically he was trying to get me balanced yet better for my age level. He wasn’t trying to make me a twenty-five-year-old. That would be weird and dangerous. Everything is about moderation. Dr. Allen has been trying to get me five to seven years younger on the inside. That will manifest on the outside. That’s the benefit.

SS:
Yes, but at the time you started, you were somewhere between thirty-five and forty.

BS:
Right.

SS:
Were you declining in hormones?

BS:
Yes.

SS:
Okay, so you were declining early?

BS:
Yes, and he said that by thirty-five most people are declining. He’s a very smart doctor. I hate to say we live in a vain world, but when you look good to yourself, your self-perception is better, you feel better, and you do things to keep that feeling. I attributed a lot of that good feeling to the testosterone, the HGH, and the sixty-five vitamins, minerals, and Chinese herbs I take twice a day. That good feeling motivates me to get up early in the morning. I like that. It’s worth waking up early to go cycling or running or to go to the gym to lift weights.

SS:
Do you feel any different on HGH? Do you feel the strength that they talk about?

BS:
I go through periods where I might be training for the summer, so that requires that I spend all spring in training. As part of training for cycling, you climb mountains, and I know how fast or how slow I can do them at any given point of the year because I’ve climbed them so many times. Now, I am cycling better than I do during the summer when I’m at my peak, even better than I was five years ago.

SS:
Could that be that you’re a better cyclist, or is it a combination of your training and the regimen you’re on?

BS:
I think it’s a combination. I’m certainly smarter. I certainly have more mental resolve. People think of hormones and vitamins as purely something to do to have an end benefit that is a physical manifestation, but it’s equally important that it ends up being mind-empowering,
meaning that it helps to control your attitude. By taking all of these vitamins and minerals, I believe I’m programmed to work harder when I’m on the bike. I have the mental acuity to sit there and say, “This is temporary.” I can relate to Lance Armstrong when he says, “Pain is temporary; quitting is forever.” It’s a mantra I use when I’m climbing. With each year I seem to be able to have that much more resolve and focus.

A lot of people probably think that with HGH you just get bigger muscles and you go faster. I think your muscles are going to be leaner for sure, and you’re going to drop fat. I did have a little love handle, but the HGH has recontoured my body in conjunction with the exercise that I do. I also think you are feeding that part of you that says, “Hey, I look good. My wife thinks I look good.” So now I feel sexy, and I also …

SS:
Do the dishes? (laugh)

BS:
Yep. Now I do the dishes. I make sure we don’t fight. I dim the lights. I think ahead. That part is great. But also, I have the mental resolve to focus, and I see it in my work as well. Whatever the task at hand, it gets done. It’s that ability to focus and get to the bottom of whatever business challenge I have.