Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Everything You Need to Know About Estrogen Blockers

Episode Date: January 26, 2018

You’re probably here because you want to gain muscle or lose fat faster and you’re wondering if estrogen blockers can help. You’ve probably also seen fantastical claims about what these drugs and supplements can do to your physique. You’re not alone. Thousands of others are searching about estrogen blockers every day, too, because they’ve heard the same blarney that brought you here. And in this episode, we’re going to get to the bottom of it all. Now, the war against estrogen is at a fever pitch these days because it’s riding on the coattails of its big brother, testosterone, which is also on a lot people’s minds. It’s common knowledge that raising your testosterone levels can help you gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster, which is why more and more people are snapping up testosterone booster supplements and signing up for testosterone replacement therapy. Most people also know that raising testosterone levels also raises estrogen levels, and that high estrogen levels is generally associated with higher levels of body fat, erectile dysfunction, and feminizing effects like gynecomastia. Furthermore, it’s also often assumed that lowering estrogen levels in and of itself can improve body composition and virility, and especially in people that are “estrogen dominant” and thus incapable of gaining any considerable amount of muscle and strength. Is all the estrogen hype warranted, though? And are estrogen blocking drugs and supplements effective, safe, and legal, like many people claim? Well, here’s the long story short: Synthetic estrogen blockers absolutely work. With the right drugs, you can plunge your estrogen to rock-bottom levels. Unfortunately, however, that isn’t going to help you build a better physique, and it’s going to screw up your health, to boot. And what about natural estrogen blockers? Well, they’re even more worthless in that they won’t even significantly impact your estrogen or testosterone levels, let alone help you gain muscle or lose fat faster. By the end of this episode, you’re going to understand all this and more, so let’s start at the top… 5:39 - What is estrogen? 7:01 - What are estrogen blockers? 9:38 - How do pharmaceutical estrogen blockers work? 11:31 - Why are estrogen blockers popular? 17:08 - Are estrogen blockers safe? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

The idea, at least, is that by suppressing the body's estrogen, by suppressing production or suppressing estrogen's effects in the body, that you can enhance testosterone's effects and maybe even increase your total testosterone levels by reducing the amount that is naturally converted into estrogen. converted into estrogen. If you want to learn how estrogen blockers work, how effective they are, and what kind of side effects they cause, then you want to listen to this podcast. Now, my guess is you are here listening to me because you want to gain muscle or lose fat faster. And you're probably wondering if estrogen blockers can help. You've probably also been on the interwebs and seen many of the fantastical claims about what these drugs and natural supplements in some cases can do for your physique. And you are not alone, of course, because there are many thousands of other people that are searching about estrogen blockers every day because they have heard the same blarney that brought you here. And in this podcast, we are going to get to the bottom of it all. Now, the war against estrogen is at an absolute

fever pitch these days because it is riding on the coattails of its big brother, testosterone, which is also on a lot of people's minds. TRT, for example, is more popular than ever. And it's pretty much common knowledge at this point that if you can raise your testosterone enough, you are going to gain muscle and strength quite a bit faster. You're also going to lose fat faster, and you are going to find it easier to stay lean. Now, what many people are also learning, at least many of the GenFit crowd are also learning, is that when you raise your testosterone levels, you also raise your estrogen levels. And high estrogen is generally associated with higher levels of body fat and other unwanted conditions like erectile dysfunction, gynecomastia, and other feminizing effects in men in particular. Now, many people are making a leap

from there to claim that if high estrogen is bad, then lowering estrogen levels just in and of itself, regardless of what you do with testosterone, should be able to improve your body composition, improve your virility, and especially in people that are more estrogen dominant and therefore have trouble gaining muscle and strength, which is a thing. There's no doubt. Some people's natural hormone profiles are far more conducive to being big, strong, and muscular than others. And a big part of that is how much testosterone and estrogen they produce. So the question here for this podcast that we're going to answer is, is all of this hype over estrogen warranted? Are the estrogen blocking drugs and supplements out there effective? Are they safe? Are they legal?

And what can you really expect from them in terms of bottom line results? And here's the long story short, synthetic estrogen blockers, so man-made drugs absolutely do work. With the right estrogen blocking drugs, you can plunge your estrogen to absolute rock bottom levels. Unfortunately, however, not only is this not going to help you build a better physique, it is going to screw up your health. Now, what about natural estrogen blockers? Unfortunately, these are even more worthless because they won't even significantly impact your estrogen or your testosterone levels, let alone help you gain muscle or lose fat or do

anything that you want to do faster. And by the end of this podcast, you're going to understand why this is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for women, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they

truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you want to read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audio books. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to thinner, leaner, stronger for free. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now,

at least let's get to the show. All right, let's start this discussion at the top. What is estrogen? So estrogen is a hormone and a hormone is a chemical messenger that your body uses to communicate with cells. A good analogy is you could think of hormones as outgoing male that contain orders on how cells are supposed to behave. And when they reach a cell's mailbox, so to speak, a hormone receptor, the orders are then carried out. in women's ovaries with smaller amounts produced by the adrenal glands and also the fat cells, actually. And estrogen affects the body in many different ways, including increasing enzymes that are responsible for storing glycogen, which is a form of carbohydrate that's stored mainly in the muscles and liver, and also responsible for repairing muscle tissue. Estrogen also helps regulate the menstrual cycle. It helps ward off urinary tract infections. It helps raise levels of growth hormone and insulin-like growth

factor one, which are two anabolic hormones, two hormones that help create tissues in the body. It also helps bolster mood and alertness, and it does many, many other things. So as you can see, it is a very fundamental, very important hormone. Now, strictly speaking, estrogen blockers are a group of drugs. Whenever you hear the term estrogen blocker, they're usually referring to man-made drugs, not the natural supplements. And what these drugs do is either directly reduce the production of estrogen or reduce the effects of estrogen in the body or both. And some of the more common estrogen blocking drugs are Arimidex, Aromacin, Cytodren, Femora, Novodex, and Clomid. Now, these days, the term estrogen blocker has also come to

include natural supplements that contain various ingredients that are purported to positively impact your hormone profile, like resveratrol, grape seed extract, curcumin, maca, wild nettle root, and 3,3-diendylol methane. And there are actually many others that you'll find in these types of products, but we can save ourselves time and just cut right to the chase here. And as far as the natural stuff goes, the stuff that you can just buy in your local supplement store, nothing in any of these products has ever been proven to work in healthy humans. In short, they are just as much of a scam as natural testosterone boosters, and you really don't need to be wasting your money on them

because none of them are going to meaningfully alter your hormones or help you get jacked faster or even help you feel more manly or alpha or all the buzzwords they use to sell this crap. So not only do I think you should spend your supplement money on other stuff that can actually help, at least with some of those things. For example, creatine isn't going to impact your hormones, but it can help you gain muscle and strength faster. And so yeah, not only do I think you should spend your money elsewhere on other products, I think you should actively boycott any supplement companies or any fitness gurus that are shilling these products because it tells you a lot about them. It tells you that they either have no idea what they're doing or they're just

trying to rip people off. And it's usually a bit of both. Now, pharmaceutical estrogen blockers are a whole other story because most of these drugs are actually developed to help combat breast cancer because estrogens can be carcinogenic in female breast tissue. And the scientific research on these drugs is very clear. They actually work. They work remarkably well. And in some cases, they can even reduce estrogen levels by 90% or more. Now, I don't want to put you to sleep with a bunch of technical jargon, but these drugs can accomplish their purpose in one of two ways. They can suppress your natural estrogen production, or they can make the estrogen that you produce unable to affect your body or unable to affect it as significantly, or do a bit of both. And the first point is pretty

straightforward. Reducing natural production is what it is, right? But if you're wondering how number two works, then allow me to explain. So a large portion of the estrogen in men's bodies is created from the testosterone that is created using an enzyme called aromatase. What many estrogen blockers do is they render this enzyme ineffective, which then of course reduces the amount of testosterone that gets turned into estrogen. Other drugs that make estrogen less effective in the body do it in other ways. Like for example, some deny estrogen entry into the cell's mailboxes, so to speak, into the cell's receptors for the hormone,

leaving it to kind of just wander around aimlessly in your system and eventually be eliminated. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Now, there are two primary reasons why these drugs are pretty popular in the bodybuilding space and

why many gym rats take estrogen blockers. One, the first one is steroid use. And the second one is they're not on steroids, but they think that the estrogen blockers. One, the first one is steroid use. And the second one is they're not on steroids, but they think that the estrogen blockers are going to improve their body composition. And to the first point, the reason why people on steroids also take estrogen blockers, if they know what they're doing, is because synthetic testosterone and other anabolic drugs that you can take also greatly increase estrogen levels. Therefore, estrogen blocking drugs are included in steroid cycles, or at least most well-designed steroid cycles. I'm not super knowledgeable on steroids, but I know my way around and I don't really know

of a cycle that would not include it, but hey, I could be wrong. Anyways, these drugs, you'll often find them combined with steroids because they help prevent problems that are associated with elevated estrogen levels, like increased water retention, increased bloating, bitch tits, fat gain, and stuff like that. And to the second point that I mentioned, you know, people taking estrogen blockers who are not on steroids, this is fairly common these days because they think that estrogen blockers are going to help get them bigger, leaner, and stronger faster. And the reason why is the idea, at least, is that by suppressing the body's estrogen, by suppressing production or suppressing estrogen's effects in the body,

that you can enhance testosterone's effects and maybe even increase your total testosterone levels by reducing the amount that is naturally converted into estrogen. More testosterone, or more powerful testosterone as you could say, is then of course believed to mean more muscle growth, more strength gain, and so forth. And as I mentioned earlier, this might sound good in theory, but it really doesn't pan out. Interestingly enough, research does show that synthetic estrogen blockers do indeed raise testosterone levels, and in some cases, by as much as 50%. That said, though, studies show that these drugs don't appear to raise testosterone levels in skeletal muscle in particular, which means that you don't see the same muscle-related benefits that are normally associated with increasing your

production with exogenous drugs like, well, testosterone. Scientists aren't completely sure why this is yet. We don't have the mechanistic side of it taped, but it does help explain why estrogen blockers have never been proven to enhance body composition and why anecdotally speaking, bodybuilders have been saying this for a long time, that these are drugs you take with anabolics, not in place of anabolics. Now, another way that estrogen blockers are sold is to enhance workout performance. And the pitch there is if you can do better in your workouts, if you're stronger in your workouts, if you can get more reps in your workouts, you have more energy, whatever, then you can push yourself harder and you can more progressively overload your muscles and thereby gain muscle

faster over time. Unfortunately, as of now, there are no studies that have demonstrated that. There are no studies that have shown that estrogen blockers can improve athletic performance whatsoever. And in fact, there's actually good reason to believe that they could worsen performance because one of the most common side effects of estrogen blocking drugs is fatigue because estrogen heightens attention and it sharpens focus. And heightened levels of fatigue, of course, makes for markedly worse workouts. This, by the way, is one of the reasons why many people who are on powerful cocktails of anabolic steroids and estrogen blockers often experience chronically

low energy levels despite getting enough sleep and eating enough food. Now, as far as estrogen blockers and steroids go, as I mentioned earlier, these drugs are included in steroid cycles, not because they're anabolic per se. They just allow you to take larger amounts of steroids with fewer side effects. And just to give you some context, the base of any steroid stack is always testosterone. And it's not uncommon for people to increase their testosterone levels to over five or even 10 times what their bodies produce naturally. And when you do this, of course, your estrogen levels spike as well, because as we covered earlier, the more testosterone you have floating around your system, the more will be converted into estrogen. And then after you have testosterone, you know,

there are usually more drugs, other very powerful anabolics that only further raise estrogen levels. So that's why an estrogen blocker is more or less a necessity if you are going to be running a real steroid cycle. Now that said, there are certain steroids that don't impact estrogen levels at all. And that's one of the reasons why some of these drugs like primobolin, trenbolone, and masteron, for example, are very popular. Lastly, sometimes you run into someone who's on a low dose of testosterone with no estrogen blocker because it's simply not needed. And that's fine in and of itself, but that approach is not going to deliver the type of results that people expect when they get on steroids. To get the true steroid experience, you have to stack and you have to dose very aggressively, which is going to raise your

estrogen levels higher than you want them to aggressively, which is going to raise your estrogen levels higher than you want them to be, which of course then requires the estrogen blocking drugs. Now, what about safety? Are these drugs safe? Well, studies have shown that estrogen blockers are likely safe if they're used for short periods, like a few months, but there is good evidence that long-term use could lead to various health problems. For example, research shows that these types of drugs can increase the risk of bone demineralization and fracture, osteoporosis and joint pain, as well as elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and increased risk of heart disease and stroke, and deep vein thrombosis, which is a blood clot in a vein that

is deep below the skin, usually in the legs, and which can be quite dangerous. Studies also show that estrogen blockers are known to increase the incidence of hot flashes, constipation, vertigo, skin itching, nausea, and even depression. So all in all, it's really not a pretty package. That said, it's worth mentioning that most of the human research we have on these drugs was conducted with women who were fighting breast cancer. So we actually may not see the same effects in healthy people. It's also worth noting that there are no long-term studies that I know of that were conducted with men. So that's kind of just a big question mark. That said, you definitely can count on experiencing at least some negative side

effects if you were to take these drugs, and especially if you were to take them for long periods of time. Just as artificially increasing your estrogen levels would disrupt your physiology to one degree or another, and your body would have to try to compensate, artificially decreasing estrogen levels would also do the same thing. So the bottom line here is if you're like most people who are considering these drugs or supplements to help them improve their body composition, you can safely skip them all. And really, honestly, the same can be said for natural supplements of any kind that purport to enhance your hormone profile. They're all more or less worthless. Don't waste your money.

That's why I don't sell one despite being asked multiple times a week to sell one. It'd be easy money to just make a hormone optimization supplement. If I wanted to go full shill, it would just be a testosterone booster. But if I want to try to be a bit more hormonal optimization, but yeah, that's why I don't have anything like that because I wish, I mean, I wish there was something we could do naturally that would actually make a difference. I mean, the best we can achieve is maybe a slight increase in feelings of manliness or virility, but that's about it. We can't really impact our hormones significantly with supplements. We can do it through lifestyle. That takes time. And that

is reliant, obviously, a lot on our genetics as well, how our body's naturally programmed. Now, that said, there are, of course, a handful of drugs out there that can greatly reduce your estrogen levels. And these are the types of drugs that many people on steroids use to minimize the unwanted side effects. Now, while these drugs do work, remember, they will not help you gain muscle or strength or lose fat faster. The only drugs that can do that are anabolic steroids, which I do not recommend for various reasons that I have written and spoken about at length. So instead of trying to speed up your progress in the gym by hacking your endocrine system with

estrogen blocking drugs or supplements, or even testosterone boosting drugs or supplements, I recommend that you focus on the basics, focus on proper diet, focus on proper training, focus on proper rest and stay patient and you'll do just fine. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and

learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode,

and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in, so instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for women, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half

star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you wanna read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account,

which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audio books. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for free.