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Understanding Testosterone - a conversation with Ryan Parke The Men’s Coach
0 Playsin 10 hours
When a friend takes his own life, the impact is different to other types of bereavement. There is the big unanswered and perhaps unanswerable question; Why?
Faced with the suicide of a friend Ryan Parke, The Men’s Coach decided to try to answer the Why question.
So far, that question remains unanswered But on his learning journey Ryan learnt a lot about Testosterone, the hormone that makes a man a man.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast Fit For My Age Ryan shares what he learnt about testosterone and the important role testosterone plays in men’s health.
Ryan dispels some of the widely held myths about testosterone that both men and women believe are based medical evidence.
Ryan also explains some of the ways in which a man can better understand and manage their testosterone levels and how that can result in improvements in health and well-being.
Proactive Positive Ageing.
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Visit York Test and use this discount code AGE25.
Fit For My Age is made on Zencastr, because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform, that really does make creating content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Travel
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Find out more about both Michael Millward and Ryan Parke at Abeceder.co.uk.
Matchmaker.fm If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests or if like Ryan, you have something interesting to say Matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made and great podcasts are hatched. Use our offer code MILW10 for a discount on membership.
Being a Guest
If you would like to be a guest on Fit For My Age, please contact using the link at Abeceder.co.uk.
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Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sensitive Topics
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Hello and welcome to Fit for My Age, the health and well-being podcast from Abbasida. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
00:00:18
Speaker
Today, i am talking to Ryan Park, the menscoach.co.uk about testosterone. Just to make you aware, our conversation does make reference to suicide.
Podcast Philosophy and Promotions
00:00:31
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, Fit for My Age is made on Zencastr. Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon and YouTube Music.
00:00:51
Speaker
Zencastr really does make making podcasts so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using zencastr visit Zencaster, visit zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abbasida.
00:01:05
Speaker
All the details are in the description. Now that I've told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:19
Speaker
Very importantly, On Fit For My Age, we don't tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
Guest Introduction and Personal Story
00:01:27
Speaker
Today, my guest is Ryan Park.
00:01:30
Speaker
That's Park with an E. Ryan is the men's coach. He's based in Bedfordshire, where the vans come from. If you plan to visit Bedford or Bedfordshire, do as I would do,
00:01:41
Speaker
and make your travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because that is where you can access trade prices on flights, hotels and holidays and all sorts of other travel related purchases.
00:01:53
Speaker
You'll find a link and a membership discount code in the description. Now that I've paid the rent, it is time to make this episode of Fit For My Age. Hello Ryan. Hello Michael, thank you so much for inviting me on Fit For My Age.
00:02:07
Speaker
It's great to have you here because I am fascinated by this subject. I know absolutely nothing about it and yet it defines me as it does every other bloke on the planet. But I know so little about it.
00:02:20
Speaker
So I'm eager to learn. But please, could we start our conversation with you explaining how you became so interested in testosterone and were able to make it your life's work?
00:02:32
Speaker
Great question. And I have to start by saying that a few years ago, Michael, I was the same as you and lots of other men in that I really knew nothing about it. And then in June 2019, I bumped into a lady who I hadn't seen in years.
00:02:46
Speaker
And I was really excited to hear the latest about her son because Jenny's son, Brad, was taller than me, more muscular. But the important thing to know is that Brad had a fast car, a big house and a great job.
00:02:59
Speaker
Plus he was a dad with a loving wife. And I like to believe at the time that I was on the same trajectory as Brad, but I was just a couple of years behind because of the age difference.
00:03:11
Speaker
Then I saw the look on his mum's face and I thought, oh no, what have i said to upset her? And she said, oh my gosh, Ryan, you're asking me how Brad is. You don't know. Brad's taken his own life.
00:03:24
Speaker
Now, I was really taken aback by that for a few reasons. One reason was, of course, the initial loss of Brad. I really wasn't expecting it. But the other thing that took me back at the time was up until that point in my life, I'd always heard and believed that the reason why men might die from suicide at higher rates than women is simply because they don't talk.
Challenging Male Stereotypes and Suicide
00:03:48
Speaker
There is a lot of logic to that, isn't there? And it is a story that we hear an awful lot of. If more men talked, expressed their feelings, they wouldn't get them bottled up inside them. And I'd always heard that and never really questioned it.
00:04:02
Speaker
And the thing that really challenged that perception I had at the time is that Brad was the most open and articulate man that I knew. I found out after he died that two years before his death, he reached out for help with his mental health.
00:04:17
Speaker
Now, one of the routes that he took is he went to see his doctor. and And so, of course, Brad was referred to talking therapy and prescribed antidepressants. Well, Brad attended talking therapy, took antidepressants, and two months before his death, his mum, Jenny, who worked in mental health herself, said, Brad, call me every night, tell me how you feel, because you've got to get these so feelings off your chest.
00:04:44
Speaker
Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not for one second suggesting these things didn't help Brad. I'm sure they did. But what struck me at the time, Michael, was here was a man who'd done all the things that we tell men in crisis to do.
00:04:56
Speaker
And yet he still wasn't here. I wondered what else could Brad have done? A big, big question. Absolutely. And Brad's mum, Jenny, said to me, Ryan, you should learn about this because...
00:05:08
Speaker
Every five hours, four people take their own lives in the yeah UK and Ireland, and three of them are going to be men. Just say that again, please. Every five hours, four people take their own lives in the UK and Ireland, and three of those four people are men.
00:05:25
Speaker
Wow. Wow. It's an epidemic, isn't it? It appears to be, and it's getting worse all the time. Yes. So I took what Jenny said really seriously. And there and then I set aside a day each week from June 2019 to the end of the year because I wanted to learn everything that I could.
00:05:43
Speaker
about male mental health. On my very first day of research, I was reading a study. i didn't go to Google. I went to what I thought were, you know, good scientific journals that might give me some insights.
00:05:56
Speaker
And I was reading a study on life expectancy in men, and it just happened to mention something that stopped me in my tracks.
Testosterone Misconceptions and Health
00:06:04
Speaker
which is that there appeared be day every year where heart attacks in men jump up by around 30%. And yet on the same day of the year, heart attacks in women actually decrease significantly.
00:06:21
Speaker
Can you guess what day that is, Michael? ah There's all sorts of things going through my head, but ah is it the day of the Victoria Secrets fashion show? I've never heard that guess before.
00:06:32
Speaker
I can see why you went there though.
00:06:37
Speaker
I know it's it's bound to be something that is where men feel under pressure of some sort. So it might be a Valentine's Day or it might be Christmas Day or it might please I'm i'm intrigued.
00:06:48
Speaker
So they're all really good guesses as Victoria's Secret show very original. ah then You'd expect nothing less. hey Valentine's Day, maybe if a man forgets Valentine's Day, that could lead to a heart attack.
00:07:02
Speaker
So good guess, but it's not it's not the one. And actually Christmas Day is a very interesting guess because on Christmas Day, heart attacks do jump up in men, but they also jump up in women as well. And we're looking for up in men, down in women. Would you like to know?
00:07:16
Speaker
Please. So the day every year that this study referenced, the heart attacks appear to jump up in men significantly. And on the same day of the year, go down in women. is the Monday after the clocks jump forward by an hour.
00:07:30
Speaker
Why? That's exactly what I wondered. So no single study says this, but I had to know more about it. I wanted to know how can the same thing impact men and women so differently?
00:07:45
Speaker
It's not the day that something happens, it's the Monday after it happens. And of course the clocks change on a Sunday, so it's the like the first working day for most people after that that change.
00:07:56
Speaker
Absolutely. And so it turns out that what happens in your body when you lose either an hour of sleep depends upon whether you're biologically male or female.
00:08:09
Speaker
In a male body, losing even one hour of sleep lowers a hormone called testosterone significantly. And in a male body, as testosterone goes down, the chances of having a heart attack go up.
00:08:25
Speaker
These sort of interesting facts like stop me in my tracks a little bit and go, I'm going like, well, I would never have imagined that, but I can understand that. Yeah, if your hormones are not balanced, then you're more likely to have some sort of ill effect.
00:08:41
Speaker
But it's like, it just but it just gets you thinking, doesn't it? If you lose an hour's sleep, your hormones, and including testosterone, will be impacted.
00:08:52
Speaker
Which may explain why, you know, the the night before a big, important business meeting, you don't get the sleep that you need. So the meeting that you go into where you're expecting to have a bit of an argument, you don't have because the testosterone is the is the hormone, and I understand at least, that gives you that fight aspect. It gives you the strength and the competence.
00:09:15
Speaker
Is that right? So I used to believe that too, but it's not true. Oh, right. Every day is a school day. Every day is a school day, especially I'm fit for my age.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yes, yes, I'm learning so much. So while testosterone has this perception of making males aggressive, making them want to fight, it is associated with competition,
00:09:39
Speaker
But it seems that competition drives testosterone levels. That's a conversation for a different day, wildly fascinating. But actually the scientific evidence is that testosterone actually has a calming effect on males.
00:09:54
Speaker
And when I learned that, I started to think, well, that means testosterone is not as bad as I thought it was. And I can tell you years later, it's absolutely not bad. It's totally vital.
00:10:05
Speaker
just unfortunately, there's a lot of stigma around this hormone that means that men don't find this stuff out. I wanted to know, how can this hormone protect men from having a heart attack?
00:10:18
Speaker
And so I decided I had to learn about this hormone called testosterone. So the following week comes around, and my first research question of the day was that why does testosterone make men aggressive? I found out exactly as we've spoken about, it doesn't, it's just a myth.
00:10:36
Speaker
So knowing that testosterone wasn't bad, the next thing I wanted to know is why does it seem to protect a man's heart? And five years on, I can tell you, there are lots of specific reasons why testosterone seems to protect a man's heart.
00:10:50
Speaker
But what I learned that day that I found even more interesting is not only does it seem to protect a man's heart, it also seems to protect a man's mental health. In fact, there are multiple studies that suggest that on average, men who are depressed have much lower levels of testosterone than men who are not depressed.
00:11:09
Speaker
The difference might be as much as 30%. thirty percent And the only study of its kind that measured testosterone levels in the bodies of men who'd sadly taken their own lives found they too had very low levels of testosterone at the point where they died.
00:11:25
Speaker
This is ah hormone that has wide-ranging uses in the in the body, and when it's not performing or present in the right amount, then there's there are serious consequences.
00:11:38
Speaker
You're absolutely right. it has wide-reaching effects. i couldn't I didn't know at the time whether these problems are caused by low testosterone or whether a sign of a bigger problem. Well, we'll probably get to that.
00:11:50
Speaker
But what I found interesting about that is The biggest killer of men in the UK and Ireland today from the age of 18 to the age of 50 is suicide. And suicide in men and depression in men are both linked to having a low level of testosterone.
00:12:06
Speaker
But once men get to about 50, it's not that they become less likely to die from suicide. It's that another killer takes over, which is heart disease, becomes the biggest killer of men in the UK and Ireland over the age of 50.
00:12:21
Speaker
And heart disease, heart attack, heart failure, and high blood pressure in men are all linked to having a low level of testosterone. right And the next biggest killer of men over the age of 50 in the UK and Ireland after heart disease is cancer.
00:12:37
Speaker
The most likely cancer that men will be diagnosed with is prostate cancer. And you can probably guess where this is going. What is one of the single biggest indicators that a man will be diagnosed with prostate cancer?
00:12:49
Speaker
Something is wrong with the level of tosterster testosterone. Yeah. It's either too high or it's too low. So specifically, it's too low.
Lifestyle Impact on Testosterone
00:12:58
Speaker
Once a man develops prostate cancer, actually testosterone is one of the things that can cause it to grow further.
00:13:06
Speaker
And so at that point, testosterone is lowered. But there's lots of evidence to suggest that It's once men develop a low level of testosterone in the first place that they become significantly at risk of prostate cancer. In fact, there's a very interesting American study where a group of men who were tested for prostate cancer and given the all clear based on what's called PSA levels.
00:13:31
Speaker
That's the primary method of finding prostate cancer in males in the UK and the US. So they they were tested based on their PSA levels. They were given the all clear. They even had to ah digital exam. I'll let you guess what that is.
00:13:46
Speaker
But 77 of them were recalled to the clinic because they had low testosterone levels. And it was found that in 15% of the men who were given the all clear because of their PSA levels, they actually had...
00:13:58
Speaker
prostate cancer that had been missed. So it appears, and that study concluded that by screening men for prostate cancer using testosterone levels, we would probably detect more prostate cancer and sooner when it's more able to be treated.
00:14:14
Speaker
And it's all down to this testosterone. Well, that's the story i always like to start with because this was my first two days of trying to understand male mental health.
00:14:25
Speaker
And it had completely flipped what I thought it was all about because I started out believing these assumptions, these sweeping statements, things like testosterone is bad and men just need to talk.
00:14:40
Speaker
And pretty soon I could see testosterone isn't bad, it's vital. Unfortunately, nobody tells men that and there's all this stigma associated with it. But the other thing I could see is that it seemed too simplistic that that stereotype I'd always believe, that the reason why men might be dying is simply because they're not talking.
00:15:02
Speaker
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that's a part of the equation and we can talk perhaps about where it fits in, but I could see straight away. It seems a bit of an oversimplification to suggest that men might be dying of various different issues simply because they're not talking.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah. The mental health issues are wide and varied, but what you're saying from your research into all of this is that there is ah there is a connection between testosterone levels and a wide range of different health issues that are killing people.
00:15:40
Speaker
That's correct. so and And what I say in the talks that i give now is that All the biggest killers of men in the UK today are all associated with low testosterone.
00:15:53
Speaker
And that is suicide, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Yeah. And it's not to say that I suppose testosterone is the only cause of those, but it plays a major part in all of those different situations.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. There's, I wouldn't want anyone to think I was suggesting that all men who are depressed have low testosterone and all men who have low testosterone are depressed. It's of course, there's many different factors to that.
00:16:22
Speaker
But the reason why i tell this story is to show that there is another factor that is really under considered, which is the role that hormones play in male mental health. Yeah.
00:16:33
Speaker
It's almost like if we can get our hormones, right. Then, when we're better able to manage our bodies. But it makes me wonder, sort like if this is so... yeah We can't see testosterone, can we? We can see its impact that it has on on men's lives.
00:16:52
Speaker
What would be the signs? Are there any signs that there is something wrong with a man's testosterone level? So I'm going to give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes here, which is... You might, if if you're listening thinking, well, I've never heard about these connections. It all seems a bit far fetched.
00:17:09
Speaker
I'll give you the behind the scenes, which is low testosterone in males is actually an early warning sign of a bigger problem, which is insulin resistance.
00:17:23
Speaker
That's on the road to diabetes. Yes. Yeah. So insulin resistance in muscles, in skeletal muscles, often ah it can result in a condition called type two diabetes, where there's, you know, lots of trouble regulating blood sugars in our body, but which cells in the body become insulin resistant depends on whether we might develop a condition like high blood pressure and enlarged prostate type two diabetes or low testosterone.
00:17:52
Speaker
So our diet and our level of exercise activity impacts our level of testosterone. Yes. And this is where the conversation goes from being a bit scary to being really positive and practical because I started with a story about me knowing nothing and just in my first couple of days of research, but five years later, I've worked with hundreds of men who've wanted to improve their health, their habits, their hormones.
00:18:24
Speaker
And I've also internalized, it's about 1,300 people hundred different sources and turned it into a framework that men can use. And I work with NHS trusts, fire and rescue services, you know, so amazing industry leaders.
00:18:41
Speaker
While there's a lot to male mental health, if we focus in on testosterone, which is one of the key components, there's five really clear things that men can do for a healthier level of testosterone. Okay.
00:18:54
Speaker
So just quickly, just the titles, what are the five things? And then we'll delve into a couple of them in more detail. So number one is sleep because testosterone is made where men sleep.
00:19:06
Speaker
Right. Number two is what we eat. Mm-hmm. Number three is exercise. yeah Number four is vitamin D. And number five is sobriety.
00:19:18
Speaker
oh Right. Are they ranked in order one to five or is it just five things? I've taken a bit of a liberty here and I've put them in.
00:19:31
Speaker
What I see, what Ryan Park sees as a logical order, starting with, ah you know, I have to start with sleep because testosterone is made when men sleep. So if you get everything right, but you're not sleeping, I don't think you could maintain a healthy level of testosterone from what I've seen.
00:19:47
Speaker
So a few early nights and making sure that you've got like a proper sleep routine and pre-sleep routine will help you have a good night's sleep and that will help help to manage your testosterone levels.
00:20:01
Speaker
Absolutely. Right. Okay. And number two? it diet. Diet. It all comes down to what you put in.
Diet and Testosterone Myths
00:20:10
Speaker
you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out, I suppose.
00:20:13
Speaker
That's exactly right. There's... Some parts of diet that are broad and some things that are just quite nerdy, you just need to know in order to know when it comes to testosterone. So I'm going to give you one really broad stroke when it comes to diet. And then i'm going to tell you one really geeky thing that I find quite interesting about diet and testosterone.
00:20:33
Speaker
Okay. So here's a broad stroke, which is for a healthy level of testosterone, and we need to have enough healthy fat in our diet. Right. And so low fat diets pose an enormous problem for lots of hormones, but it includes testosterone in men.
00:20:49
Speaker
So good fats are the liquid based fats rather than the solid animal fats. no No, not according to evidence. Yes. According to many nutritional guidelines around the world,
00:21:06
Speaker
But really for a healthy level of testosterone and for healthy hormones, we want to focus on the natural fat, the fats that are in nature. And one of those fats is called saturated fat, which often people try and avoid, but it is a key part of a diet that leads to healthy hormones.
00:21:29
Speaker
So wheres where would people find that type of fat? So saturated fat is fat that's solid at room temperature. And, you know, nice examples of that would be butter or ghee.
00:21:39
Speaker
It's a bit oversimplified, but ghee is really the fat from butter, but with the proteins taken out. And it's also very safe to cook in. You can get it warm. Whereas there's liquid at room temperature fats that you spoke about, at least the processed ones, Michael, you know, like the vegetable oil, the sunflower oil, canola oil, um,
00:22:00
Speaker
there's a real school of thought that they're not very safe to heat up and they, they are potentially inflammatory in your body as well. Wow. Right. But as soon as you said butter and I'm thinking like, please don't tell me I can't have butter on my toast.
00:22:14
Speaker
No, you need you potentially might not be having enough butter on your toast. like you more. So the problem for testosterone is the toast, not the butter.
00:22:25
Speaker
Oh, why is that? Because the toast, so you had a a brilliant guest on a little while ago, Sue Thomas, the sugar-free coach. So ah everyone that's listening, I'm going to try not to double up on on what Sue said.
00:22:38
Speaker
But the key thing is, Because many people try and avoid the healthy fats Instead, we derive lots of our energy from carbohydrates like sugar and like so starch. That's starch is the kind of energy that you find in rice, porridge, bread, and pasta.
00:22:59
Speaker
And as a result of that over time, and Sue explains this as well in her episode, your body starts to ignore insulin, which is the hormone that tells it to burn sugar. And insulin resistance is strongly associated with low testosterone in males.
00:23:15
Speaker
There's so much ah around this, I think, that is not what I was expecting. But hormone health is as important as dietary health and it all fits together and all these sorts of things. It's all, it's real, we don't understand enough, do we, about our bodies and how they work.
00:23:33
Speaker
but so It's just simple, straightforward. We do not understand how our bodies work, how our bodies and how we treat our bodies can also the physical aspect of our bodies, how that can impact our, our mental health as well.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'd completely agree with that. And mean, before finding out about Brad, was one of those people who I just didn't think that I needed to look after my body. And I, I didn't think mental health was important. In fact, when I saw that list of key ingredients for a healthy level of testosterone, I remember thinking,
00:24:07
Speaker
Oh, crap, because I knew Brad and I know that, yeah, he did all the things we tell men in crisis to do. He reached out for help. He went to see his doctor. He attended talking therapy, took antidepressants.
00:24:19
Speaker
and called his mum every night and told her how he was feeling. But nobody Brad spoke to realized that Brad was spending all of his time working or preparing for work.
00:24:29
Speaker
And I knew him well enough to know that sleep, a healthy diet, exercise, sunshine and sobriety, they just weren't on list on Brad's list of priorities.
00:24:40
Speaker
And I realized at the time they weren't on mine and they're actually trying to be a man is something that kills a lot of men. That is a very interesting thing. But I just want to pick up on the fact that when you told us about these five things, you listed them and you've just listed them again, but you changed them. And the one that you changed is vitamin D and you called it sunshine.
00:25:00
Speaker
So please explain why you changed from vitamin D to sunshine.
Vitamin D and Testosterone
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah, cool. Lovely question. And so you always find these things, don't you, Michael? love it. so it's my job So there are quite a few deficiencies that can lead to low testosterone and vitamin D is just one of them, but it's probably one of the most common ones.
00:25:19
Speaker
And vitamin D, just so we're all aware, it's it's called a vitamin. It's actually, it's a pre-hormone. Just like testosterone, it's made out of cholesterol. It's been found that men who have low levels of vitamin D have very low levels of testosterone and it's thought that vitamin D is required for the process of making testosterone.
00:25:39
Speaker
It's also thought that in Europe many adults are vitamin D deficient and we can't always get the sun we need because we're inside working.
00:25:50
Speaker
And so our NHS and lots of other healthcare providers actually recommend that we might want to consider supplementing vitamin d throughout the winter months. And that's why i tend to use it somewhat interchangeably sometimes with sunshine. and Ideally, sunshine is what we would get.
00:26:06
Speaker
But if we can't, then supplementing vitamin D would be another way to top it up. One quick last thing on vitamin D It is fat soluble and it's been found again, if you don't have enough healthy fats in your diet, you can't get the benefit from supplementing vitamin D. There is an awful lot to this.
00:26:28
Speaker
This is hormone and you can't see, but there's an awful lot of information that we all I think need to take on board. Where can people get more information about this and your approach to this management of testosterone?
00:26:43
Speaker
um I would love to say there's a book out. I'm working on one It's coming out early 2025. And want to make sure that people can get this knowledge without having to to book me.
00:26:55
Speaker
um In the meantime, a great way to... get hold of me if if you're interested or to be pointed to other resources is my website, themenscoach.co.uk. Right, themenscoach.co.uk. We'll put a link in the description and also from the Fit for My Age website.
00:27:12
Speaker
I've got one last question for you though, because I know you got married in 2024, didn't you? 2023, but I had a... Oh, sorry. so But let it that bit out.
00:27:23
Speaker
Let it that bit out. I know that you got married in 2023, didn't you? I absolutely did, to Emma. You did. Right. Well, congratulations. and You married up like everybody else. tried to.
00:27:36
Speaker
Right? But assume you start a family, you've got a son. what should we tell What should we be telling boys about testosterone?
Conclusion and Engagement
00:27:45
Speaker
I think the main thing... that we don't just need to tell boys about testosterone, but we need to get our head around the fact that this hormone isn't bad.
00:27:53
Speaker
It's actually vital. And I think boys, when I mentor boys in schools now, you know, one of the things that comes out of it is a sense that testosterone is bad and they're full of testosterone and perhaps masculinity itself is an issue.
00:28:08
Speaker
And if you're full of testosterone and you identify, you with masculinity, if that's your gender identity, there's a sense that you are the problem. And I think what I would say is you're not the problem. Yes, it's important to behave well and be respectful. Of course, I'm not taking anything away from that.
00:28:25
Speaker
But at the same time, you know, sometimes we can see these hormones as being inherently bad and they're just so important and they play a vital role. I suppose it's all about the management of the hormone, which is vital for your existence.
00:28:39
Speaker
But it's understanding it, understanding how to maintain the right sort of level and and understanding how that then creates the individual that you are. What a beautiful way to put it. Thank you very much.
00:28:51
Speaker
I've been listening and learning, you see, Ryan, the important part of every day. Thank you very much for your time today. I've learned a lot. And you can always tell I'm learning when I'm quiet.
00:29:01
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But um thank you very much. you really do appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. And in this episode of Fit for My Age, I have been having a conversation with the menscoach.co.uk, Ryan Park.
00:29:18
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. but u k If you are listening to Fit for My Age on your smartphone, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data, so listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
00:29:36
Speaker
There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:29:47
Speaker
At Fit for My Age, our aim is proactive positive aging. Knowing the risks early is an important part of maintaining good health. That is why we recommend the annual health test from York Test.
00:30:02
Speaker
York tests provide an assessment of 39 different health markers, including testosterone, cholesterol, diabetes, vitamin D, as Ryan has been talking about, vitamin B12, liver function, iron deficiency, inflammation, and a full blood count.
00:30:20
Speaker
The annual health test is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. Hospital standard tests are carried out in a UKAS accredited and CQC compliant laboratory.
00:30:37
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness hub account.
00:30:48
Speaker
There is a link and a discount code in the description. That description, just like Ryan's book when it comes out, is going to be well worth reading. If you've liked this episode of Fit For My Age, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:31:05
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:31:18
Speaker
Until the next episode of Fit For My Age, thank you for listening and goodbye.