Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone, which’s, absolutely crucial for things like building muscle, mass, strengthening our bones, improving our memory and mood, and, of course, increasing our sex drive and libido.
And while certain foods like oysters, pomegranates, and ginger can all help boost testosterone, certain foods will hurt your body’s, ability to effectively produce testosterone, and consistently eating these foods over time can even lower your testosterone levels and low testosterone.
Can lead to a chain of negative side effects, including a loss of muscle, mass insomnia, increased body, fat, depression, and, of course, low sex drive. So today I want to go over seven foods that can hurt your testosterone levels based on scientific evidence, starting first with flax seeds.
Now I know that flax, seed products have gained a lot of popularity over the last few years and some have even called them a superfood. However, even though flax seeds are very high in fiber and ala, omega-3 fatty acids, flax seeds, aren’t that great for optimizing male hormonal health, mostly because they’re loaded with lignans.
Flax Seeds are The world’s Richest Source of Lignans
Flax seeds contain about 75 to eight hundred times more lignans than most grains legumes, fruits, and vegetables. Now, this can be a problem for two reasons.
First is that lignans are highly estrogenic; in other words, they increase levels of the female sex hormone. Estrogen second is that lignans increased levels of sex, hormone, binding, globulin, or SHBG.
Now, this may sound like a good thing, but this hormone binds to free testosterone molecules, rendering them inactive. So the testosterone won’t be able to be used for other beneficial hormonal functions.
We can see the direct adverse effects of flax seeds in some studies. For example, just two tablespoons of flax seeds were given to 40 male participants for only a month and their testosterone levels drop by around 10 percent and another very small, but also very interesting study.
A woman who had high testosterone levels was also experiencing excessive facial hair growth so to combat that researchers told her to eat 30 grams of flax seeds per day for four months. After doing that, her serum testosterone levels dropped by 70 % and her free testosterone dropped by 18 9 % in another study.
Two tablespoons of flax seeds per day dropped, total testosterone and men by around 15 % and free testosterone by 20 %. However, I need to mention that the participants were also told not to get more than 20 % of their daily energy intake from fat, and a low-fat diet could have contributed to a reduction in testosterone levels as well in either case.
If you want to maximize your testosterone levels, you’re, better off going with other sources of omega-3 fatty acids like salmon, fresh sardines, and walnuts. Let’s, move on to cooking oils that are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids.
These include things like soybean oil, vegetable oil, corn, oil, sunflower, oil, and margarine, just to name a few. Most cooking oils used today are processed so many times they go through either bleaching D, gumming, or deodorizing.
Couple this with the fact that these oils, aren’t that great for high-temperature cooking and you’ll see why they’re, not exactly the best choice for your health. But even if you don’t use them for cooking their high content of specifically omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids hurt the production of testosterone.
This is because most people nowadays already get way too much omega-6 S and way too little omega-3s. Not only does this create inflammation throughout the body and increase your risk of various chronic diseases, but a high omega-6 polyunsaturated fat intake may lower testosterone in a study where researchers looked at how different nutrients influenced hormonal health, they found that the more dietary fat the participants Ate the higher their testosterone was and looking more closely, this was found to be true for their saturated fat intake, as well as their monounsaturated fat intake.
However, the results were the exact opposite for polyunsaturated fats, the more polyunsaturated fat that the participants ate concerning their saturated fat intake, the lower their testosterone levels dropped.
So if you’re looking for a plant-based oil, that’s healthier for your testosterone levels check out olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil, next up is mint. That’s right, while herbs from the mint family like spearmint and peppermint smell great.
They’re, not that great for testosterone, at least that’s. What the rat studies and a very small human study indicate in the rodent study the rats were divided into four groups. The control group received regular drinking water group number two received 20 grams of peppermint tea and group number three received 20 grams of spearmint tea.
Finally, the last group received double so 40 grams of spearmint tea. In the end, the rats that received 20 grams of peppermint tea had a 25 % reduction in the testosterone group number. Three, that received 20 grams of spearmint tea had a sixty-nine percent reduction in testosterone and, finally, the last group that had 40 grams, so double the spearmint tea experienced one hundred twenty-three percent lower testosterone levels.
According to this study, spearmint lower testosterone, significantly more than peppermint, and another rat study, also found that spearmint drastically reduced testosterone in rats. The researchers from this study said that it was likely because spearmint and possibly meant in general causes oxidative stress in the hypothalamus, resulting in reduced testosterone synthesis in the testes.
Unfortunately, there are no large studies on how mint influences male humans. However, research does indicate that spearmint can lower testosterone in women that have elevated androgen levels, which caused them to suffer from excessive facial hair growth.
In one study, 42 women drank spearmint tea two times a day for 30 days and as a result, both free and total testosterone levels dropped significantly. Now, unless you’re, a woman who suffers from elevated testosterone levels or unless you’re, a male rat, we can’t, say for sure that similar effects apply to men until we have further research.
But this data is definitely something to keep in mind. Next, we have alcohol, which will not only lead to a terrible hangover but can also cause a reduction in testosterone levels. Many rodent studies show that alcohol reduces testosterone in a dose-dependent manner, which means the more you take in the more it affects your testosterone when it comes to human studies.
There’s, also a strong link between a heavy alcohol intake and reduced testosterone levels, but luckily there is some good news when it comes to drinking alcohol. Low alcohol intake doesn’t have all that much of an effect on testosterone.
In fact, one of the studies on the alcohol found that drinking about half a gram, alcohol per kilogram of body weight or about a quarter of a gram of alcohol per pound of body weight. This was able to slightly increase testosterone for most people.
This would be about two to three drinks. However, other studies show that even small amounts like two glasses of red wine, can lower testosterone by seven percent, so the real key is to drink in moderation, and when you don’t binge drink.
Where you’re, having like 10 tequila shots in a night, the dose is what makes the poison here so do your best to limit your alcohol intake, let’s, move on to licorice sure licorice might taste amazing and can have benefits In certain situations like reducing heartburn, speeding up the repair of the damaged stomach lining, as well as some anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties, but the problem is that it also has one huge downside: it may lower tea levels.
This is because licorice contains glycyrrhizic acid, which is the compound that gives licorice its unique sweet taste now, even though it tastes great researchers found that exposing isolated rat gonnit cells to a modest amount of glycyrrhizic acid, significantly block testosterone production.
The reason for this was because it significantly inhibited the activity of 17 beta HSD, which is an enzyme essential for testosterone production. Unfortunately, these negative effects of glycyrrhizic acid don’t seem only limited to rats in a separate study.
Researchers tested how glycyrrhizic acid influences human beings in this study, a group of men was given seven grams of licorice in the form of candy tablets and they contained about half a gram of glycyrrhizic acid.
Surprisingly, after just four days, the average testosterone levels dropped from 21 to fifteen point nine in animals per liter. The good news for all of you, twizzler fans, is that, even though Hershey’s labels it as a licorice candy, the original red variety contains very little licorice, but there obviously are other reasons to limit your intake of Twizzlers, like them being high in Corn syrups sugar and artificial flavors.
Next, we come to soy products. While this is still a debated topic, soy may have negative effects on male hormonal health in general. One reason for this is because soy contains a high amount of phytoestrogen in isoflavones, which can activate estrogen receptors and down, regulate androgen receptors.
For those of you that don’t know. Androgen receptors are the ones that male hormones like testosterone and DHT bind to for them to be able to affect so without being able to bind to the androgen receptors.
Testosterone can’t do its job. On top of that, soy can disrupt the uptake of iodine in the thyroid and it can impede the production of thyroid hormones. This is a big problem because poor thyroid function is linked to impaired hormonal health and lower testosterone levels.
Couple that with the type of fat that’s, found in soybeans, which is mostly omega-6, polyunsaturated fatty acids. And you can see how soy can potentially lower testosterone. More than half of the fat and soybeans are made up of these polyunsaturated fatty acids.
And, like I already mentioned before, when this type of fat is consumed in excess, it increases inflammation and hurts your testosterone levels. However, with all that said, not all research shows that these effects on paper are transfer over to human beings.
For example, a meta-analysis published in the Journal of fertility and sterility suggested that soy does not lower testosterone, but many individual studies do find a negative effect. So if you want to be on the safe side, you may want to limit your intake of soy-based products like soy, protein powder, tofu, and soy milk.
Finally, last but not least, is a type of fat that most people already know is bad for your health, and it also happens to be bad for your testosterone levels. I’m talking about trans fats. Now, trans fats originally came about in 1901, while a German chemist was looking for a way to make cheap oils liquid at room temperature through a process known as hydrogenation.
Of course, these really excited manufacturers, but researchers ran into some issues that they did ‘ T expect one of the main ones is that this processing led to the formation of trans fatty acids, which could have severe adverse effects not only on testosterone production but on overall health as well.
One reason for this is because trans fats trigger systemic inflammation and that’s, definitely not good, because there’s, a direct link between increased inflammation and reduce testosterone levels, as well as several chronic diseases.
Aside from that transfer also score high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, which is linked to lower testosterone and sperm counts in both rodents and humans, so it’s, definitely best to avoid products that contain trans fats.
Fortunately, the FDA has banned trans fats in June 2018, but even though they can no longer be produced going forward, some food in circulation still contains trans fats, which in some cases can be sold until 2021.
Also, interestingly enough, some unprocessed foods contain trans fats, such as milk, cheese, beef, lamb, chicken, and pork. However, the good news is that data indicates that these natural trans fats are less harmful than the artificial ones that about wraps it up, guys.
I really hope that you enjoyed this video and that you learned something new about testosterone and the negative effects that certain foods can have on your testosterone levels. If you have enjoyed it – and you’d, like to see more content like this, make sure that you subscribe to the channel and hit that bell icon.
Also, if you’d like to take the next step, and you’re, looking for a simplified approach to burning fat and building muscle, that’s streamlined and comes with a full workout plan, a video exercise, library, a customizable Diet plan a recipe book and an accountability coach to help guide you through the whole process, visit my website, where you can get all of this for free just by putting your best foot forward and sticking to the plan to find out how my clients are losing 20 pounds or 5 % of their body fat and only 6 weeks and to learn how to pack on pound after pound of muscle in the shortest amount of time possible.
