Hypogonadism, or low testosterone, is estimated to affect 10-40% of all men in the world, with some data even suggesting that it could be as high as a percentage in populations over 40 years. While generally viewed as a natural side effect of aging, reduced testosterone levels can also be modulated by a man’s diet.
Ahead, hormone experts weigh in on why healthy testosterone levels are essential to optimal overall health and wellbeing, along with ways in which diet can affect T for better or worse. Plus, they reveal four daily eating and drinking habits that may unknowingly send one’s testosterone into a freefall.
- ABOUT OUR EXPERTS Andrew Y. Sun M.D. is a board certified urologist and the chief medical advisor for Marius Pharmaceuticals, a health organization helping people achieve healthy testosterone levels. Charles M. Carlsen, the Co-founder of Drsono Medical and wellness specialist. Sarah Wragge is a holistic health expert, Certified by the Institute of Integrative nutrition, Nutrition advisor for Kroma and Co host of The Way with Stacey Griffith podcast.
Testosterone 101
Though everybody produces, utilizes, and requires some testosterone, due to its impact on male sex characteristics – deepening of voice and male hair patterns among others – it is colloquially referred to as a male sex hormone. Though just 15 to 70 ng/dL of testosterone in the blood is the normal range in females, men ideally land anywhere between 300 and 1,100 ng/dL.
In addition to supporting sperm production and erectile function, testosterone also affects bone health and density, muscle mass, strength, and recovery, libido, inflammation levels, and so much more. Healthy testosterone levels mean pretty much your entire system functions more optimally.
Considering testosterone’s importance in the body, most individuals can experience a number of negative effects if their levels get too low. “Fatigue or low energy, unexplained weight gain, low sex drive, lower muscle mass, decreased bone density, difficulty sleeping, and even depression and anxiety are all common symptoms of lower testosterone,” explains board-certified urologist Andrew Y. Sun M.D., the chief medical adviser for Marius Pharmaceuticals, a health organization that helps people reach healthy levels of testosterone.
How Your Diet Affects T Levels
Clearly, testosterone has a far-reaching impact on the body that ultimately steers your overall wellness in one way or another. Curiously, this hormone also is greatly affected by a range of health and lifestyle influences.
“The single most important thing humans can do to influence our testosterone levels is to get enough sleep,” says Sun. In fact, sleep apnea is an incredibly common cause of low testosterone. That said, other lifestyle factors-such as keeping a healthy weight and body fat percentage, eating well, keeping stress levels low, and engaging in some form of exercise routine-all support healthy T, he adds. Meanwhile, obesity, poor diet, high amounts of stress, and inactivity are associated with lower testosterone. It means, in short, that all of this translates to yes; what you eat can actually drive your testosterone levels uphill or downhill.
Broadly speaking, foods generally regarded as toxic or lacking in nutrition do a number on testosterone, while foods deemed nutrient-dense are good news for overall testosterone production and maintenance. “A diet high in processed foods and sugars potentially reduces levels, while a diet replete with proteins, healthy fats, and specific vitamins and minerals encourages healthy T,” says doctor of osteopathic medicine and licensed wellness specialist Charles M. Carlsen.
If you’re experiencing the symptoms of low testosterone, your first visit should be to a healthcare provider specializing in hormone health before you make significant changes in your diet. Many other health issues can exhibit similar symptoms, and in some instances, low T can be a consequence of various health problems like type 2 diabetes, testicular cancer, thyroid dysfunction, and other diseases and disorders as stated by the National Library of Medicine.
Once you’ve got the all-clear on that front, moving toward a more testosterone-friendly diet is certainly a good move.
4 Food and Drink Habits That Can Lower Testosterone
So where you should start when eating for healthier T? You’ll do well to nix these testosterone-sabotaging habits.
1. You Restrict Calories
While one can probably guess that overindulging in food can affect testosterone production for the worse, what most people don’t realize is that too little food can do the same thing, says Sarah Wragge, holistic health expert with certification from the Institute of Integrative nutrition, nutrition advisor for Kroma, and co-host of The Way with Stacey Griffith podcast.
Long-term calorie restriction can decrease testosterone levels in men, she says. This is true for men who are within the normal weight range. In fact, in a 2022 review in Nutrition Reviews, researchers concluded that testosterone often declines-often significantly-when men already at a healthy weight restrict their calories. What that says is that when healthy men stop taking in adequate calories to sustain weight levels, their body scales back hormone secretion because they no longer have the stores-energy reserves-to fuel the production of such hormones as testosterone.
Hence, T levels decrease. Yep, this means working to get shredded in those warmer months may leave even the healthiest of gym-goers and bodybuilders with lower testosterone. In fact, one study published in The International Journal of Sports Physiology Performance found that testosterone levels among male bodybuilders actually decreased during competition prep-e.g., the period in which they enter a calorie deficit-and didn’t return to normal levels until they increased caloric intake post-competition.
Here’s where things get tricky: While calorie restriction can cause a downturn in testosterone production for people who are at a healthy weight, it can support healthy testosterone levels in people who are overweight or obese, says Wragge. The reason being: Testosterone is a fat-soluble hormone, meaning it often hangs out in body fat rather than the bloodstream-where it can actually be utilized well by the body-when someone has more fat cells, she says.
Liberating some of that T is a good thing, in this case.
Ultimately, exactly how much you need to eat to help keep T levels healthy really depends on your weight, body fat, and a number of other factors. Your best bet for deciding your calorie intake for testosterone optimization is consulting with a specialized health professional in the field. If you’ve been under-eating, Wragge recommends adding a heavy dose of healthy fat into your diet, such as avocado and salmon.
Fats are more calorie-dense than carbs and protein and, therefore, can help increase overall calorie intake with ease.
In addition, these healthy fat-rich foods are also high in nutrients like zinc and vitamin D, which promote testosterone levels, she adds.
As it happens, you’ll find these two nutrients-among others-in many supplements touted to support healthy T in men.
2. You Party Too Hard Sure
Drinking alcohol is in line with your sense of fun, but it doesn’t exactly do your testosterone any favors. “Alcohol and recreational drugs affect testosterone adversely due to their noxious effects on the testicles and adrenal glands,” says board-certified urologist Dr. Alex Tatem, M.D., corporate director of the Men’s Health Center at Urology of Indiana and Advisor to Marius Pharmaceuticals. It just so happens that alcohol is particularly poisonous to testosterone production. That’s both after just one drink and with chronic consumption, too.
In one 2019 study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, researchers found testosterone levels drop within just 30 minutes of drinking.
They also discovered that chronic alcohol intake-as few as five drinks per day for men-can lower T levels over time by damaging the cells in the testicles that manufacture testosterone.
The biomechanics involved that make alcohol consumption result in lower testosterone levels are complex,” says Dr. Tatem. Drinking alcohol has also been shown to impact the brain in a number of ways that can all send testosterone tanking. While the research is more limited here, it too has shown drugs like cannabis and opioids to have a detrimental effect on testosterone production and overall health, says Tatem. How and why various recreational drugs do so varies, but avoiding them is universally a good move for anyone concerned about their T. If you only drink or do drugs now and then, you may be able to get away with a simple “no thanks” or substitution of a boozy drink with non-alcoholic beer or a mocktail. If drugs and booze pop up with more regularity in your daily life, however, you may want to seek out the services of an addiction counselor or call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP for advice.
3. You Feast On Trans Fats
Trans fats have been considered some kind of public enemy over the last few years because of their negative effects on heart health and cholesterol levels. However, very few people know that trans fatty acids can disrupt testosterone production, too.
“Research has clearly indicated that there is a strong association between trans fat intake and lower testosterone levels,” Wragge says. One such study, which was published in Human Reproduction, compared testosterone levels among men with a high(er) intake of trans fat to those with the lowest intake. Those who consumed the most trans fatty acids had testosterone levels 15 percent lower than the men who had the lowest trans fatty acid intake.
The exact mechanism behind how consumption of trans fatty acid lowers testosterone is not well understood. Previous data does suggest a link between trans fat consumption and accumulation of fat tissue; thus, that could certainly be a piece of the puzzle.
Fried foods, frozen meals, baked goods, and margarine contain the highest amount of trans fats, further inclusive of other imitation butter spreads. Thus, reduction in highly processed foods can help cut down overall trans fat intake.
One no-brainer move here: Swap out any fake butters and their ilk for testosterone-friendly fats like olive oil, avocado, almonds, and fish, all of which supply omega-3 fatty acids to fuel testosterone, Tatem says. And if you’re not consuming the recommended two servings of fish per week, try supplementing your diet with an omega-3 pill to meet your bare minimum needs for these essential healthy fats.
4. You Drink Tonnes of Sugary Drinks
Whether it is through soda pop, fruit juice, or with a sports/energy drink, it doesn’t matter-one way or another, it’s not going to help your testosterone levels much.
Indeed, one 2018 study published in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology found a ‘significant’ link between the intake of sweetened beverages and lower testosterone levels. Testing the blood serum testosterone of nearly 1,000 men aged between 20 and 39 years-you know, the time in life when the levels are usually highest-and factoring in variables previously known to influence the ‘T’, such as BMI and alcohol consumption, the researchers found sweetened beverage consumption as an independent determinant of ‘T’ levels.
Why do sweetened beverages affect testosterone levels with such remarkable severity? Plain and simple, it’s because of their sugar content. The major sugar in food, glucose, is rapidly increased via its consumption, which, correspondingly, causes a fast spike of the hormone insulin. And when insulin spikes, research shows that testosterone takes a tumble. In fact, one study found that 75 grams of sugar-or glucose-consumption was associated with a 25 percent decrease in testosterone levels from baseline.
Moreover, sugar-sweetened beverages reportedly play a major role in contributing to another major cause of lowered testosterone levels: weight gain.
Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference as far as what you replace it with. But if you’re nixing these drinks for the sake of your testosterone levels, opt for a higher-protein drink option in replacement. “Protein is essential to maintaining the healthy body composition ultimately needed for testosterone production,” says Tatem.
One option here is bone broth, which contains “highly available protein and contains trace minerals, such as selenium, that have been shown to support healthy testosterone production,” Wragge says. Of course, if meat juice doesn’t quite strike your fancy, you can always shake a tasty-flavored protein powder up with your usual water or blend it into a smoothie.