The Effect of Diet on Testosterone
In my video on dietary pollutants that may affect testosterone levels, I talked about the impact of various industrial toxins on libido, sexual function, and penis size. These industrial contaminants tend to be fat soluble, but the influence of habitual dietary fat intake on testicular function is inconsistent. Acutely, however, high fat meals can have a dramatic effect on testosterone levels. Feed men a McDonald’s sausage and egg McMuffin breakfast and their testosterone levels plummet 25% within an hour and stay down for up to four hours. Initially it was presupposed that the testosterone dip was due to the inflammation triggered by such a meal.
Researchers have been able to mimic the fast food meal effect by injecting men with inflammatory endotoxins. Inflammatory mediators profoundly inhibit testosterone production from testicle cells in a petri dish. It makes sense that testosterone would fall during times of infection. The corresponding drop in sexual interest would allow the body to recuperate while reducing the chance of spreading infection to others. But that can’t explain the fast food effect, because the drop in testosterone was found to precede the bump in inflammation from the saturated fat. In fact testosterone can significantly drop within 15 minutes of eating a ham and cheese sandwich, which is hardly time for it to even be digested at all. This led scientists to focus on digestive hormones like GLP-1, which is released within 15 minutes of a high-fat meal and appears to have a suppressive effect on testicular function.
In the sausage and egg McMuffin study, testosterone levels dropped from an average of about 330 to 250, returning to baseline five hours later. But by then it’s lunchtime and the researchers expressed concern that men could therefore “be placed into a continuous hypogonadal state during waking hours if they frequently consume meals and snacks high in fat.” So they suggest “men should minimise their fat intake…in order to optimise testicular function.”
High-protein diets can also suppress testosterone contrary to the “flagrant misuse of scientific information” in Men’s Health magazine. Even if you keep the fat content the same and just switch from a high-protein diet packed with fish, chicken, other meat, and egg whites to a lower protein diet centered around bread, fruits, and vegetables, testosterone can rise 28% (about 100 points) within 10 days. This may be why high protein diets cause greatly decreased testosterone levels, by about 150 points. This 2022 meta-analysis concluded that because high-protein low-carbohydrate diets cause such a large decrease in resting total testosterone, individuals consuming such diets may need to be cautious about adverse hormonal effects.
In my video on dietary pollutants that may affect testosterone levels, I talked about the impact of various industrial toxins on libido, sexual function, and penis size. These industrial contaminants tend to be fat soluble, but the influence of habitual dietary fat intake on testicular function is inconsistent. Acutely, however, high fat meals can have a dramatic effect on testosterone levels. Feed men a McDonald’s sausage and egg McMuffin breakfast and their testosterone levels plummet 25% within an hour and stay down for up to four hours. Initially it was presupposed that the testosterone dip was due to the inflammation triggered by such a meal.
Researchers have been able to mimic the fast food meal effect by injecting men with inflammatory endotoxins. Inflammatory mediators profoundly inhibit testosterone production from testicle cells in a petri dish. It makes sense that testosterone would fall during times of infection. The corresponding drop in sexual interest would allow the body to recuperate while reducing the chance of spreading infection to others. But that can’t explain the fast food effect, because the drop in testosterone was found to precede the bump in inflammation from the saturated fat. In fact testosterone can significantly drop within 15 minutes of eating a ham and cheese sandwich, which is hardly time for it to even be digested at all. This led scientists to focus on digestive hormones like GLP-1, which is released within 15 minutes of a high-fat meal and appears to have a suppressive effect on testicular function.
In the sausage and egg McMuffin study, testosterone levels dropped from an average of about 330 to 250, returning to baseline five hours later. But by then it’s lunchtime and the researchers expressed concern that men could therefore “be placed into a continuous hypogonadal state during waking hours if they frequently consume meals and snacks high in fat.” So they suggest “men should minimise their fat intake…in order to optimise testicular function.”
High-protein diets can also suppress testosterone contrary to the “flagrant misuse of scientific information” in Men’s Health magazine. Even if you keep the fat content the same and just switch from a high-protein diet packed with fish, chicken, other meat, and egg whites to a lower protein diet centered around bread, fruits, and vegetables, testosterone can rise 28% (about 100 points) within 10 days. This may be why high protein diets cause greatly decreased testosterone levels, by about 150 points. This 2022 meta-analysis concluded that because high-protein low-carbohydrate diets cause such a large decrease in resting total testosterone, individuals consuming such diets may need to be cautious about adverse hormonal effects.
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