hey what's up guys so last week i posted a video on six foods that can be regularly uh consumed in
order to support your body's natural testosterone production and so in this week's video essentially
what i wanted to do is uh kind of make a video on the flip side of that coin and talk about
some foods that can actually hinder testosterone production so let's go ahead and dive right in
a huge thanks to let's get check for sponsoring this video hey what's up guys my name is zach
and welcome to nutrition library where we take an evidence-based approach to nutrition and
supplementation um if you haven't already do me a huge favor and hit the red subscribe button that's
below this video so you can stay up to date with all of our future content thank you so much now
the first food on our list today is actually not a specific food but is actually more of a specific
eating pattern and that is simply just eating too much now by far one of the greatest risk
factors when it comes to food and testosterone is simply obesity obesity is one of the greatest
risk factors for almost every chronic disease and that also applies to chronically low testosterone
as well now typically speaking outside of some very very specific outlying situations
the single factor by far when it comes to obesity is just simply eating more food
than you're expending and so one of the greatest things that you can do for just overall health
as well as testicular function and testosterone production if you are overweight is just to simply
lose weight now people typically like to make this extremely complicated but it is not at all
you don't have to go keto you don't have to go low carb you don't have to go low fat you don't have
to do intermittent fasting simply all you have to do is eat less food than you're using now the
second food on our list today is also more of an eating pattern than it is a specific food but it
is actually eating too little now this might seem somewhat contradictory to my first point however
um if you'll stick with me i can kind of kind of tease this out a little bit when you initially go
into a hypocaloric state when you are trying to lose weight typically you will experience some
level of improvement in testicular function as well as just overall hormonal status however there
does appear to be two specific situations in which there is a point of diminishing return and that is
one either by you reaching your optimal state of leanness or your optimal body weight um and then
continuing to diet beyond that point and then two is just staying in a hypo caloric state for just
too long now for instance if you are say five pounds overweight it may only take you about two
weeks to lose that kind of weight and so during that time you may again experience some level of
improvement in hormonal status however once you do get to your optimal body weight and then kind of
continue to stay in a hypocaloric state maybe in order to kind of get lean for the beach or
something of that nature you typically will experience a drop in hormonal status after
that point simply because you're putting your body under an undue amount of stress so in this
situation it's just really important to kind of understand what your personal optimal body weight
is and where you feel best and what weight you feel best at and then just be mindful to stick
to that body weight now let's say that you are 50 pounds overweight and you decide to kind of go
on a weight loss journey it may take you over a year to lose that kind of weight and again in this
specific scenario you may experience some level of improvement in hormonal status in the first
several weeks of your weight loss journey however once you do stay in a hypocaloric state for
an extended period of time again it kind of just puts your body in an extremely stressful state and
when your body experiences that type of level of stress it typically will begin to lower the
production of sex hormones and so in this specific situation i do think it is really important to
prioritize taking one or two days off of your diet per week and then even taking an entire
week off every couple of months or so just to give your body a breaking to allow it to kind of
normalize to some degree now the next food on our list today is actually a food and
is our first specific food on our list today and that is plant oils and more specifically
omega-6 polyunsaturated fats from seed oils now the primary reason that you want to avoid seed
oils is because of their extremely high content of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids now to be
fair to omega-6 fats your body actually does need them to some degree in order to stimulate proper
inflammation and immune response in the body however the typical american diet contains far
too many omega-6 fatty acids in comparison to omega-3 fatty acids and now typically you want an
even ratio of omega-3 fats to omega-6 fats however the typical american diet roughly contains usually
20 times the amount of omega-6 when compared to omega-3 and the reason this is a bad thing is
that omega-6 fats are kind of like the primary building block for pro-inflammatory cytokines
in the body whereas the omega-3 fatty acids are the primary building block for anti-inflammatory
cytokines in the body and so typically you want an even ratio of these specific cytokines to kind
of properly balance out immune function and when you habitually consume omega-6 fats in a higher
ratio than omega-3 fats it essentially leads to heightened levels of neural inflammation which
can have a negative impact on the hpg axis and increase prolactin levels and inhibit gonadotropic
releasing hormone and lower luteinizing hormone which all have a negative impact on testosterone
production now the simplest way to improve this ratio is just to simply cut out every single seed
oil in your diet and these would include things like soybean oil canola oil corn oil sunflower oil
as well as pretty much anything that comes from a seed specifically now if you are somewhat bent on
consuming plant oils i would opt for things like olive oil and avocado oil as well as coconut oil
and palm oil however one of the best things that you can do is just to simply prioritize
animal fats which are going to have a much better ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats in
them now the second reason that you want to avoid seed oils is because of how quickly they go ransom
and this is actually a bigger deal than their specific polyunsaturated fat content and that
is because polyunsaturated fats because your body does need them they aren't inherently bad however
the issue with polyunsaturated fats from the seed oils specifically is because of how quickly
they go rancid now the difference here is that a rancid and oxidized polyunsaturated fat doesn't
actually support your body's natural inflammatory response but actually induces inflammation in and
of itself because of the inherent toxicity of that polyunsaturated fat and the reason this is bad for
testosterone production is that these toxic oils once they enter into the body get distributed
somewhat universally throughout the body and they are extremely toxic to testicular function and
pretty much just destroy normal bodily function just in general now the next reason that you
want to avoid seed oils as well as to some degree plant oils is that they just simply don't contain
any cholesterol so when you increase the amount of fat and specifically plant fats into your diet you
are inherently going to have to lower the amount of animal fats that are in your diet and when you
do this you are essentially going to be cutting out your cholesterol sources as well because
all of your dietary cholesterol comes from animal fats now the reason this is detrimental is that
cholesterol is the primary building block for sex hormones in the body and so there is an argument
to be made that decreasing cholesterol doesn't have any impact on blood levels of cholesterol
which is to some degree somewhat true however what most people don't realize is that your body
when you don't get enough cholesterol through your diet your liver will actually begin to create
cholesterol and this is somewhat of a stressful process for the liver and so by getting more
dietary cholesterol through food sources you can theoretically kind of take some of that stress
off of the liver and allow it to more efficiently produce sex hormones now again i do think it is
worth noting here that polyunsaturated fats aren't inherently bad however we typically do consume
them in far above quantities than we need to and again because they go rancid so quickly they just
aren't stable and it's difficult to get healthy polyunsaturated fats unless they are coming from
specifically animal sources which are inherently more stable because of their saturated fat content
as well now the next food on our list today is again more of a class of foods and that is grains
now i'm sure a lot of you guys have heard this story repeated over and over again and so what i
want to specifically do in this video is dive into the specifics of some extremely popular grains
and kind of outline why they're so detrimental to not just testosterone but also just overall
androgen status as well and now unfortunately the first one on our list today is the ever beloved
and loved bodybuilding grain oats now the reason oats are on our list today is because of
a little known fiber that they contain in super high quantities known as beta glucan now the
reason beta glucan lowers testosterone levels is because it actually inhibits your liver's
ability to create cholesterol and again cholesterol being the primary building block
for testosterone in the body when you inhibit its production in the body you're going to naturally
decrease the level of subsequent sex hormones as well now this study in particular showed that a
patented beta glucan extract quote effectively suppressed the serum levels of testosterone
and dht and down regulated aromatase estradiol and the expression of the androgen receptor as
well and there's actually some studies in rats as well that also noted just overall testicular
atrophy from beta glucan supplementation as well and now this may not be a practical relevance for
occasional oat use however it is worth noting that oats have a butt ton of beta-glucan in them and so
i definitely wouldn't make oats a primary daily staple in my diet now the next beloved grain on
our list today is wheat and that is because of the well-known protein that we contains known as
gluten now gluten is particularly harmful for those that have celiac disease however
even in those that don't have celiac disease and are maybe gluten intolerant or may just have some
level of sensitivity to gluten gluten typically will cause a fairly potent inflammatory response
and a specifically a neural inflammatory response which has the tendency to do one primary thing
which is to increase prolactin and again kind of start this whole cascade of events that happens to
um eventually suppress testosterone levels and the second thing to note here is that gluten
also seems to just have an overall anti-androgenic effect in the body and also seems to inhibit the
conversion of testosterone into its more potent androgen form known as dht and in this study in
particular they found that the most striking endocrine findings in untreated celiacs were
increased plasma testosterone free testosterone index reduced dihydrotestosterone testosterone's
potent peripheral metabolite and raised serum luteinizing hormone a pattern of abnormalities
indicative of androgen resistance now i do think this is extremely interesting because this study
did show that gluten increased all typically all the markers that you want increased however it
does look like the increases in testosterone are essentially coming from a backlog and a prevention
of testosterone being converted into dht and so again dht being the more potent androgen
you really don't want this to happen and it essentially looks like gluten is preventing this
conversion from happening and essentially what the researchers in this paper were saying is that
it's causing kind of overall androgen resistance now this may not have practical significance to
those that aren't gluten sensitive however it is something to keep in mind now the last grain
on our list is the ever beloved bodybuilding favorite brown rice and the reason rice is on
our list today is like gluten it has also been shown to inhibit the enzyme 5 alpha reductase
which also again will prevent the conversion of testosterone into dht now the interesting thing
here is that it has been shown uh to actually be comparable to some of the reference drugs that are
medically used to inhibit five alpha reductase for the purpose of benign prostate hyperplasia now
it's also worth noting here that it appears that the ability of rice to inhibit 5-alpha reductase
is actually specific to the bran of the rice and so there may not be as much of a potential of a
white rice to do this and so if you are going to consume rice i would opt for things like white
rice however i do think it is safe to say that brown rice should somewhat be avoided and at the
very least shouldn't be a staple in the diet now on top of all of this most every single
grain has also been shown to be extremely high in things like phytic acid and lectins as well
as some other gluten-like proteins that are also found in some gluten-free grains and so all in all
grains do appear to be extremely inflammatory and unnecessarily inflammatory especially for
individuals that are regularly exercising and are already putting their bodies through an
inflammatory process like exercise and they also seem to inhibit the absorption of several minerals
that seem to be extremely critical for proper testosterone production and so overall grains
just really don't have much going for them outside of the fact that they are a somewhat convenient
source of carbohydrates to help with glycogen re-synthesis after a workout now if you're
looking for natural ways to increase testosterone levels one of the first steps is going to be
actually getting a complete hormone profile done everyone's hormones are at a completely
different place and so there just really isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to optimizing your
hormone profile some guys have low testosterone coupled with high prolactin and low estrogen while
others have normal testosterone levels but have high estrogen and low free testosterone and so
the approach that is effective for one guy may actually be detrimental to another and so if you
haven't had your hormone profile checked yet i would highly recommend looking into my friends
over at let's get checked they have one of the most comprehensive tests on the market and
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for 30 off of your test but other than that guys if you're looking for more proven
supplements that can be used to safely increase testosterone levels make sure to check out
the free guide that i have on my website as well as the links to my favorite ashwagandha supplement
however i do think that is it for today's video so if you guys have any questions
feel free to leave a comment down below and i will see you guys next time thanks so much