Wanna know how to make any problem a lot worse?

(This is not a trick question.)

All we need to do is insist something is the answer when it isn’t and things get a whole hell of a lot worse.

Let’s just put that habit in perspective with a simple everyday occurrence called losing your keys.

When you lose your keys how many times do you look in your purse, briefcase or pockets before you move on to where they really are?  Most of the time you aren’t happy until you’ve emptied everything out, even though the keys aren’t there, weren’t there and won’t get there any time soon.

Here’s a more far reaching example of insistence:  How much stronger will a microscope have to get before biochemists find those pesky, practically invisible creatures that are supposedly killing us?  How much more detail will the health experts need about the insides of our bodies before they find the causes for deterioration and pain?  (Both are trick questions.)

What if they’re all barking up the wrong tree—insisting that the answer to our optimal existence and longevity lies in a direction that it doesn’t, hasn’t and never will?  What a bummer that would be, especially since our economy, or what’s left of it, is dependent on the drug industry.

But if we keep our attention focused on the tree with the bio-chemistry fruits, for example, we’re going to engineer ourselves into something not human, at least as we know it.  Maybe that’s OK in the long run, I don’t know, but most of us don’t even suspect that this is already happening.

Let’s fact it! We’re not looking at the long term results of much of any of our human actions: Not looking at the body from a structural standpoint, not looking at the price of rampaging through our natural unreplinishable resources, not looking at our increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals.

Many people are operating on daily doses of medication cocktails (yum yum) with not the slightest understanding about the effects of one medication taken long term, much less the effects of combo doses.  There is no way to figure out the effects of all the combinations except full speed ahead.

Look around. We’ve already engineering our biochemical and genetic makeup in big ways.  We started with the lowly vegetables who couldn’t talk back—just to give them a more eye pleasing color, a different tasting fruit (pluot) and a longer shelf life. We moved on to animals. You have only to google in ‘cloning pets’ to witness cloning gone wild.  And we already do things to humans on a biochemical level that change them into hybrids.

My father, for example, has a testosterone blocker implanted in his arm, so that he no longer lives his life with the influence of this male hormone.  He was diagnosed with a slow growing malignancy in his prostate gland years ago, and, just to be on the safe side, doctors decided to keep his body from producing testosterone—chemical castration, in other words—the same castration used for sexual predators.

The first time I saw my father after two years of his androgen deprivation therapy implant, I was shocked at how much he reminded me of a female/male crossbreed—the way he talked, decided things, his actual looks, the sound of his voice, his changed attitude about life, his very bent over posture…etc.  I didn’t know about the alterations to his hormones, so I just thought this was his version of getting old.

Most recently, though, my father cracked his tailbone, but not by falling down like you would imagine.  It just cracked for no apparent reason other than obesity. I say no apparent reason because most of his time is spent sitting in a recliner and it’s well padded.  You can see why this tailbone thing has not sat well with me, if you’ll pardon the pun. Plus, no doctors are looking at the cause of the crack, either, so I decided to get cracking on my own.

Testosterone, though much maligned, has many benefits too. Today, I looked into testosterone blocking therapy and found a reason for cracked bones.  Without testosterone, bones get soft, so does the head or mind, by the way.

Just last week, my poor father offered a nurse 500 dollars to bring him a gun so he could kill himself.   I’m not saying that suicide is not a perfectly viable alternative in this case. I can even overlook his only offering the night nurse $500 when she might have done it for $50,000. I’m just saying that asking a nurse for a gun is just plain idiotic—-something he never would have done had he been in his right mind.  My father was anything but a stupid man when it came to judging people and their reactions. He used to be an expert and that was only a short while ago.

So back to testosterone: There are those who lustily proclaim the benefits of testosterone and are adamant about its powers to prevent degenerative conditions. According to people who use and believe in testosterone, both men and women can benefit greatly from it.

Testosterone Benefits for Men

According to Neal Rouzier, M. D. in How to Achieve Healthy Aging (WorldLink Medical Publishing, 2007) low testosterone levels in men are responsible for the bulk of men’s physical and mental decline. Rouzier claims that adding testosterone to your chemical makeup can change the course of male andropause— the male version of women’s menopause.  Over 80% of our male politicians are on some form of testosterone additives and so are the women politicians—-surprise surprise!

Besides being a powerful aphrodisiac, adding testosterone to the biochemical mix improves a man’s emotional state, keeps him from becoming a “grumpy old man.” Some forms of depression may actually be the effects of low testosterone levels. Most doctors, however, treat depressed men with antidepressants, which can lower the testosterone levels even further.

Guess what else happens when you don’t have sufficient testosterone! Pot bellies and spare tires happen, along with the increased risk of Type II Diabetes due to the increase in visceral and belly fat.

Osteoporosis is another degenerative condition that can develop because of low testosterone levels.  Bingo, folks!  There you have it—one reason my father cracked his tailbone and is now in a nursing home asking for a gun.

No worries. He just needs a pill to increase his bone strength and density. Daily Boniva reduces spinal fracture risk by 50%.  Meaning one out of two times you fall on your back you won’t break anything?