Welcome to all things health and abundance podcast. The podcast where we discuss different health related issues and come with real tips and advice. Today we'll be discussing infertility and impotence in men. What is impotence and fertility? Are the two linked? What are the reasons behind these two disorders? Are they in any way related to stress, or is the most common reason the malfunction of the male reproductive tract? And what can we do to restore health? That's what we'll be discussing today. Today with me is Dr. Jean Jacques Durgois, or otherwise known as Dr. JJ. Dr. JJ is a naturopathic doctor in Toronto with a PhD in pharmaceutical science. He offers a wide variety of naturopathic health services for a number of different conditions and health concerns. Anti aging solutions, skin and hair treatment to disease such as cancer. I came across an interview with him, which I simply loved. So I decided that I really had to ask Dr. JJ to be on the show, and he accepted. So I'm really happy that he's with us today. So I don't know if I missed something in the introduction, so maybe you want to let us know a bit about it.

I mean, those are sort of the core notes. I mean, I've been practicing since 2003, and I see a wide array of patients, and some of which are subfertility infertility male and female infertility. So it's a topic I'm perfectly happy to talk about. Yeah, that's great. Thank you for having me. Thanks for putting me on the show.

My pleasure. I was thinking to ask you first if you could describe a bit what is impotence and sterility in men?

Right. Basically, impotence is the inability to have an erection or maintain an erection. Or an inability to ejaculate. So that could be due to a bunch of different reasons, which we will get in in a sec. Sterility infertility subfertility. I don't like to use the word sterility because it sounds very bad. I find it's very almost injuring to a male ego when they're told they're sterile. Fertility is commonly used, but lately I use more subfertility, which means that you're not really, you know, you're not really fertile. You're almost there. Patients will just adapt to the word but basically subfertility basically just means that you're lacking sperm. So in semen, you have a mix of sperm, seminal fluid and prostatic secretions. People often refer to semen as sperm, but the sperm are in the semen. So basically, if you are having issues of subfertility, either you don't have enough sperm, so the numbers are low, they're more damaged. So we'll see chromosomal defects, we see this a lot due to cigarette smoking, environmental exposure, chemicals, anything from paints to VOCs to car exhaust, flame retardants. All these could damage your sperm and also motility. So your sperm needs to swim forward. So we're finding a lot. Now, men are having motility issues, so their sperm either just don't swim or they swim all over the place, but they don't swim forward. They need to swim forward to be able to reproduce

Are the two related?

well, I mean, if you're impotent, it's harder to conceive because potentially you can't ejaculate. You can't maintain an erection or have an erection. So that's where you'll see procedures at fertility clinics where if a man is able to maintain and ejaculate quickly, they could do something called an IUI, an intrauterine injection. So basically the man will ejaculate into a cup and then they'll insert it into a woman as she's ovulating. So success rates on those are so so, but they've helped some patients. If you are subfertile, you're not necessarily impotent. So the answer to that is yes and no

Does it mean that what causes impotence can eventually cause infertility?

yeah, the two could be linked. So, I mean, reasons of impotence, stress, I mean, that definitely would be an issue. Cigarettes, smoking would definitely affect fertility and impotence type two diabetes. There's a number of medications that could affect impotence and fertility rates. Chemotherapy drugs would be an easy one. But even medications that you would use for, say, Crohn's and colitis like sulfosalazine, those are used a lot in the beginning stages of this condition, they could drop your sperm count. If you're celiac, for example, and you're having gluten, well, then that could decrease your sperm count. 3s For tight underwear, there's a reason why the testicles are outside the body because they don't do well under heat. So no saunas, no hot tubs if you're trying to reproduce. So I know in Norway you guys love saunas. Saunas are great. I love saunas too. But yeah, you have to loose underwear. I love bamboo briefs. I recommend that men get bamboo. Bamboo is naturally cooling, which usually helps a lot. It's more comfortable, you sweat less and keep the testicular heat down. I could just go on and on. And then there's physiological or anatomical things. Like you could have a cyst between your testicle and jaculatory duct. So sometimes they're fine, sometimes cause an issue, could have varicose vein between the testicle and then the ejaculatory duct and that could just cause overheating of the testicles. So there's a long list of why people cut up these conditions.

I always thought that it was a myth with tight underwear.

There's also an interesting study where they looked at sperm counts in men who ran, swam and did cycling. Running, no issues, swimming, no issues. But cycling, because the friction, the tightness of the shorts can cause an issue in the short term. So you have to be careful about if they're wearing it for half an hour as they do a workout, it's not the end of the world. But if they're wearing it all day and a lot of men sleep on their underwear, then you want loose fitting stuff, especially at night.

Good, that's good to know. Is it true that anywhere from one third to actually 76% of men have experienced some sort of erectile dysfunction?

I mean, that wouldn't surprise me, the type of thing men normally discuss. Yeah,

Ada 6:12

right? Because I find so much about this online about females like menstrual disorders. It's so easy to find information, but it's not so much about men. They don't talk so much.

No, men nowadays, they are a little bit more open to talking about it and also going out and trying to find solutions for it. I think someone, if a man would say that it's never happened to them, I would be a bit suspicious. Alcohol could cause it. And a lot of men drink cannabis. I mean, legalization in a lot of countries now can cause it too. And a lot of men smoke cannabis. So there are medications too. Antidepressants. Anti Anxiety meds could cause that too. So I would be surprised if someone would come out and say, oh no, never me. And be like really? We're really but it happens. I mean, if it happens on an ongoing basis, that's when. Need to look into it and come up with a solution for it. I think it probably happens to everybody. Just people don't want to just sip it and that's it. They just don't want to talk about that.

Yeah, I understand. Is it about the male ego ?

I mean, it's a very sensitive topic. When I see couples coming in for fertility treatments, most of the time it'll start with the wife or the partner. I would say, you know, more now than it used to be. The men will be more open to going for semen analysis to see if the issue is actually with them, which is good. But there are still some men that refuse to have their semen analyzed. They just refuse, I guess just ego issue or virility issue or manliness, I'll take your pick. But there are still some that I have patients that their partners will not go get checked, and they're having fertility issues and partners. That's just not going to happen. Which is unfortunate because it could be due to male or female reasons. Well, there's more openness to it now. I mean, men are a lot more health conscious, I would say. I've definitely noticed that in the last 20 years I've been practicing, men have become a lot more health conscious. Definitely.

Well, the most important part of all this, how do we deal with it in a natural way? Is there any advice you can give to men that are maybe suffering from both or one of these issues?

Yeah, so one, we start with impotence. So first of all, there has to be a desire. So a good question I ask men is, how is your libido or are you sexually attracted to your partner? Do you want to have sexual intercourse? If you don't, well, then there's something going on. So the drop in libido can be due to depression, anxiety. Most of the time it's due to stress. Stress in the relationship, stress at work, stress at school, stress at family, stress. You take your pick because what happens is when you're stressed, you're making adrenaline and noradrenaline, which is true, but you're also making cortisol, which is a stress hormone. And cortisol is very good at binding to a hormone receptor site. So what happens is cortisol, when you have a lot of cortisol kicking around, it's going to bind to your hormone receptors and prevent the attachment of other hormones like testosterone. So that's the first question I ask is if someone's having a libido issue, are you stressed?

Can it be that because they're not in love with their partner anymore, can this be a reason?

Too yeah, that's possible.

Or they're not physically attracted to their partner maybe?

They cannot be physically attracted to their partner also. Maybe they also don't feel as attractive. Since the pandemic, and we call that the pandemic 15, it seems like everyone's put on 15 pounds. Maybe you feel less attractive. That makes you more self conscious. So could be that also, I mean, for libido, a good place to start is well, it isn't. It isn't. You could test testosterone levels. However, testosterone levels are a little bit frustrating. So I have patients that have terrible testosterone levels, but they're horny. They want to have sex with anything that moves, and they're great. They're going to the gym, they're lifting weights, building muscle, and they're all fine. And then I have men with normal testosterone levels, and they can't build muscle. They go to the gym with no energy, they're tired, no libido, terrible libido. I'll there's three you could do. There's biologically available, testosterone, free testosterone, total testosterone. And sometimes the numbers don't match at all how the patient feels. Okay, so libido so you have to have sex drive. And then basically, you need to have nerve stimulation. So that's where it becomes an issue in diabetics. Diabetics often get nerve damage because of the high sugars in their blood. So it attacks the nerves that feed the penis. So the penis is less sensitive and also affects the nerves that feed the blood supply to the penis. So it needs to be sensory, it needs to be nerve supply, there needs to be vascular flow. Same thing for smoking, heart disease, diabetes. Again, if there's less blood getting into the penis and it's not going to engorge and become erect and stay erect. So here, I mean, there's been some neat procedures, shockwave therapy, I think that you might have heard of that in Norway. Also a little bit on the painful side, but it gives a lot of shocks to the penis to stimulate blood flow to the vessels again. And that has some good data. That sounds yeah, but you know what? When men want to have their plumbing work, they'll take a little bit of pain for some long term improvements. Okay? There's the meds too, like the Psyalysis and the Viagras, all that stuff too, that you could take. Acupuncture is useful. And what do you do, too? I mean, for men who come in with erection issues, some questions about their Pelvic floor. So yoga would be right. Have you ever played ice hockey? Have you fallen on the ice on your tailbone? Have you fallen on stairs and hit your tailbone? Car accidents? Do you ride a bike? Do you ride a hard bike seat? Are you repeatedly taking shots to your pelvis? Right? And then pelvic floor physio? Pelvic floor yoga. I think I've had a lot of guys, especially with prostate issues and erection issues, you have them do some Pelvic floor yoga and do you see some really good improvements?

So you also mentioned acupuncture, right? Do you want to elaborate

Yeah, so acupuncture is basically the whole system of channels that run on the body. So similar to yoga, you've got different chakras. So they also coincide with acupuncture points. Based on the Chinese system, there's six organs and two other additional channels that kind of run up and down the arms, the legs, the front, the back, et cetera. And depending on which point you're hitting, it has a certain property from stimulating the kidneys. In Chinese medicine, kidneys control your reproductive organs. So you do a lot of kidney work. You could do some local work to try to stimulate blood flow to basically the penis. So you're doing points right around the pubic area or between the anus and the testicles. That's obviously a very sensitive point, but there's some points you could do there. And the philosophy is that if you need to do acupuncture, it's because the meridian is blocked. So you're basically sticking a needle in there just to get the energy, the chi to flow through to allow it

Well, we have the same in yoga. In yoga we see impotence as related to a blockage of pranic circulation, which is the energy of life, like chi. And in yoga, we call it prana.

Right. There's definitely some overlap in terms of philosophy between them. So it's all coming from the the same philosophies, really. 1s Yeah. And then on the fertility side, zinc is key for sperm count. Zinc is a very common one. I read a study a few years back where I think the sperm counts have decreased by 50% in the last 50 years. So likely just due to chemical estrogens or Xenoestrogens in the environment, chemicals, toxins, that's probably been a contributing factor. Likely stress, probably more stress. So zinc is good. Carnitine and acetylcarnitine, they help with sperm. Motility includathione, very useful for protecting sperm against antioxidant damage. Same thing for Coenzyme Q. Ten. Vitamin E. Very useful. Vitamin C, selenium pumpkin seeds. On the diet side, very high in zinc. Good for guys, good for the prostates. Very good. And acupuncture, too, will help for men and women, for acupuncture, for fertility purposes.

All this mixture of natural ways of healing. It actually works, right?

Yeah, absolutely. U2

I totally believe in it. But probably there will be people that are a bit skeptical listening to this. So that's why I wanted to ask this kind of question.

Yeah. So there are good results. Yeah. I mean, there are some rare conditions where some men just don't produce sperm, and those, to my knowledge, can be reversed. I haven't seen a ton of those patients. I don't know. I'd be skeptical if it could be fully reversed. But for the most part, if someone's sitting with subfertility and the numbers are low, usually with these types of treatments, you're normally able to get the numbers up and get the motility going. Obviously, if someone continues to be a drinker, a smoker and continue with risk factors that they aren't addressing, well, then we can't work miracles. But most patients, by the time they come and see me, they're willing to do the hard work and. Get better.

Okay. That's amazing. That's quite some tips, actually. Quite some stuff someone can do on their own. Well, last thing before I let you go, if someone wants to get in contact with you, how can they?

Oh, great. So my website is askdrj.com. So asrj.com yeah, we're in Toronto. You don't have to come here since the Pandemic. We've got fancy microphones and great video and we see a lot of patients virtually. If you have any questions, we're happy to help out. Just visit the website.

So you actually have patients outside of

absolutely. Yeah. I see the farthest patients I see are Australia and Singapore.

Do you have anyone from Norway?

No one in Norway? I do have maybe not yet. Not yet. Could be not yet. Probably soon. Europe. Bunch of Middle East, a bunch of other corners of Asia. Some in the US. So yeah, we've seen no, it's been great. I've admit that one of the good things with the Pandemic is we're quite good in the word virtual. We do a lot of things virtually now. Yeah. At least one good thing. One good thing

Thank you so much. Thank you for being here

you're most welcome. Great questions. Keep doing what you're doing. Yoga is awesome. I'm one of the least flexible people in the world, but I try I do my 2% bending at yoga.

We say that someone doesn't do yoga because they're not flexible. It's like not taking a shower because you're dirty.

That's true. And just need some I know, I know I need to do and

it's not about that anyways.

I'm not person to watch when I do yoga, but it gets done. I won't be posting any YouTube episodes of me of me doing yoga. It's not going to be extremely motivating gets done.

It's about restoring health, actually. That is the point of it. Even though nowadays it has become more of an acrobatic thing, it's actually about restoring health. So that's the most important part of it.

Absolutely, yeah. Moving movements, getting blood flow, getting the prana, getting it all to move. All right, well, thank you.

Well, I hope to have you some other time again here with us.

You're welcome. Take care

Now it's your turn. Let us know what health and abundance subjects you want us to cover in the future. Do that by commenting on the post on Instagram. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you so much to JJ for being here with us today. Hope to have you again on Call some other time. If you liked it, please leave a review@podchaser.com. Just search for the podcast and write a good review. If you have questions or if you want to book a session with me, please do let me know on Instagram. In the next episode, we'll be talking about anxiety

And remember, you’re always creating your health and abundance. What you chose to create today.