Every adult male should be familiar with his estrogen levels. There are many things that depend on them, like his overall health, his appearance, his emotional well-being, his physical and mental capacity as well as his ability to produce offspring. It is safe to say that even his very life may depend on knowing precisely if his estrogen levels are too high or too low.
A tale of two hormones, testosterone, and estrogen…
Testosterone is what makes a man a man, and estrogen is what makes a woman a woman, however, estrogen is in many aspects just as important to a man’s health as testosterone. And, despite them being regarded as the polar opposites of human sexual development and behavior, on a molecular scale they are very similar.
If you try to merge both molecules into a 3D figure you would find them looking identical except that testosterone would have one extra carbon atom into its molecular structure. And it is precisely in this similarity that we find the reason why some men experience high estrogen levels. Considering that the testosterone molecule is so similar to estrogen, it is extremely easy for various aromatase enzymes to cut off the one extra carbon atom from the molecule and convert it into estrogen.
This is a good thing because as we already explained, you need a certain estrogen level. Not only does it have lots of positive effects on your health, it is also a part of an efficient feedback mechanism where overly high levels of estrogen send an alert signal to the testicles, via the pituitary gland, to reduce the production of testosterone for that particular day.
This way, the feedback mechanism keeps a perfect balance between estrogen and testosterone levels throughout the system. There are instances, however, where too much testosterone is converted into estrogen. This amount added to the small quantities of estrogen already produced in the testes, adrenal glands, brain, and fat has the potential to create a dangerous hormonal situation. The feedback mechanism is also to blame. Estrogen levels stay consistently high and keep sending the signal to reduce the production of testosterone.
There are also many other ways in which your estrogen levels can get too high and even though this is not often discussed, having low estrogen levels can sometimes be even a greater problem than having high levels. In any case, estrogen levels have to be in a certain normal range, neither too high, nor too low, but just right.
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