Low testosterone can cause men to gain weight, feel tired, and experience decreased libido. As time goes on, this problem is becoming more and more common. Is that because of the decreased emphasis on manliness in our culture today? Or maybe, because men really are becoming soy boys. There are numerous drivers for low testosterone, but they may not be what you think. This article discusses what its drivers are and how to fix low testosterone.
Dysglycemia
If you’ve read any of my other articles, it won’t come as a surprise that blood sugar dysregulation (dysglycemia) can be a driver of low testosterone. Dysglycemia can cause anything from low T in men, high T in women, sleep troubles, and even suppression of the thyroid. If you’d like to get acquainted with the ins and outs of blood sugar, I recommend reading my article on it here. To keep things simple, dysglycemia is a term used for blood sugar dysregulation where you experience a seemingly never-ending pendulum of insulin secretion followed by stress hormone release. This is the body’s attempt to keep your blood sugar within a normal range.
Over time, these blood sugar highs and lows cause exhaustion of precursors to sex hormones (testosterone, progesterone, estrogen) due to the funneling of these resources to produce the blood sugar raising stress hormone: cortisol. We call this the cortisol shunt. Cortisol steals these resources and leaves minimal amounts for the production of testosterone.
Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance tends to be a more widely known issues as it related to blood sugar. Consistently high blood sugar levels can cause cells to become resistant to insulin. In response to this, the body produces more insulin to have the same effect. When there is more circulation of insulin, testosterone is more easily converted to estrogens via an enzyme called aromatase. An increased amount of body fat can also lead to an upregulation of this conversion from testosterone to estrogen.
Strategies to Improve Your Testosterone
There can be underlying issues leading to decreased testosterone that I didn’t mention in this article. I always recommend thorough examination and consultation with a professional. In the meantime, there are strategies that you can employ to improve your health and as a result, improve your testosterone. These include:
- Regulate your blood sugar. Click the link in the blood sugar section for a more in-depth description, but in short, eat 3 meals a day with no snacking and avoid processed carbs and sugars.
- If you have excess body fat and your blood sugar runs high, intermittent fasting can help improve insulin resistance. I would recommend a 16-hour fasting and 8-hour eating window.
- Avoid soy products. Soy contains various phytoestrogens which are readily converted to usable estrogen in your body.
- Make sure you’re eating a diet rich in animal fats and protein to ensure that you provide your body with the proper building blocks for hormone production.