Testosterone is an important hormone in all bodies although we rarely discuss its role in women’s health. In particular, maintaining appropriate testosterone levels can have a protective effect on the brain, especially later in life. While there remains some uncertainty as to why this is the case, there seems to be a connection between both the cardiovascular benefits of testosterone and overall brain health.
Testosterone: Setting The Mood
Testosterone is linked to personality traits like dominance and confidence more generally, but more importantly, a decline in testosterone levels can leave men with sleep disturbances, a situation bound to cause poor mood and difficulty concentrating.
The sleep disturbances alone is enough reason to be concerned about dropping testosterone levels – difficulty concentrating makes it more difficult to perform a range of daily tasks, from driving and cooking to math or reading comprehension tasks vital to our work lives. As we know, chronic sleep deprivation can be the equivalent of functioning with a BAC above the legal limit. A drop in the hormone may also cause depression and should always be investigated as the source of mood disorders before undertaking other forms of treatment.
Testosterone Levels And Cognition
One of the major benefits of testosterone outside the brain is an increase in blood flow to the muscles, but that effect may also extend to the brain. That’s because testosterone and the resultant increased vascularity means more blood flow to the brain as well. For young people with appropriately high testosterone levels in midlife, the hormone’s influence on blood flow may also result in better preservation of brain tissue in the later years.
We see this improved mental performance in the link between midlife performance on Stroop effect tests – a test in which color names are written in a different color ink – and incidences of dementia later in life. On the other hand, those with lower fitness levels and lower testosterone levels may also suffer brain lesions and other forms of neurological deterioration.
Where Fitness Comes In
Testosterone levels typically rise for a period of time after exercise in both men and women, which can sometimes make it hard to differentiate between the impact of the hormone and the impact of exercise on long term neurological health. Those who raise their heart rates regularly through exercise – swimming, biking, running, or other forms of activity – will experience more of these testosterone peaks. The question then becomes a chicken and the egg conundrum: which caused the brain health, the cardio or the testosterone?
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which came first here, but it is an interesting question, especially when concerns about dropping testosterone levels arise in a medical setting. Should supplemental testosterone be administered to protect the brain or are the effects negligible without the fitness component? Only further study will tell. Until then, however, exercise is a safe bet.
