Men, Testosterone and the Vegetarian Diet
by James
Men, Testosterone and the Vegetarian DietHello Mark,Can you tell me what is wrong with a vegetarian diet?
It is my diet of choice because I don't like to eat meat, but I don't want it to mess with my
hormones.Please give me your take on this.
Thank you
Men, Testosterone and the Vegetarian Diet
Hello James,
First off, humans didn't fight their way to the top of the food chain to settle for lettuce, sprouts and tofu.
Science has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that man evolved eating meat.
And trust me, many anthropologists have tried very hard to prove otherwise.
And never once have any of these scientists found proof of a primitive society that was truly vegetarian.
Even in the tropics, where large game is virtually non existent, wild living humans somehow manage to get 30 percent of their calories in the form of meat.
If you've ever seen video of a Yagua tribesman on a hunt for wild monkey, you'll understand just how important meat is to a man.
The Yagua are the primitive people you've probably seen on television, who hunt with a blowgun and darts dipped in poison deep in the Amazon Rain forest.
These hunts usually involve all the able bodied men in the tribe, can go on for days, and are quite often unsuccessful.
When a large monkey is finally taken, the whole village celebrates, as the meat is carefully divided between the entire group.
When monkeys are nowhere to be found, turtles, fish, birds, and snakes find their way onto the dinner table.
In other words, these people go to EXTREME measures to seek out meat in a rain forest loaded with fruits, vegetables, tubers, and other vegetarian foods.
That should tell you something right there.
Men, Testosterone and the Vegetarian Diet
But lets talk about hormones for a moment...
In 1989, researchers looked at levels of
sex hormone binding globulin, among vegetarian and non vegetarian men between 25-35 years of age.
SHBG is an agent that
locks up your testosterone, and makes it unavailable for use by the body, so the less you have, the better.
The researchers found that the vegetarians had much higher levels of sex hormone-binding globulin, and a lower free androgen index (ratio of testosterone to SHBG).
The researchers concluded...Our data suggest that in a vegetarian group, less testosterone is available for androgenic actionA study completed in 1985 looked at a large cross section of omnivores and vegetarians, and discovered that the meat eaters had 36 percent more testosterone in the blood than non meat eating subjects.
And finally...A Dutch study published in 1992 found that male endurance athletes who switched from a meat based
diet to 100 percent vegetarian foods experienced a whopping 35 percent decrease in circulating testosterone levels.
Men, Testosterone and the Vegetarian Diet
I feel like I've had this conversation a million times, and here's what always seems to come up right about this point in the discussion...
OK Mark, paleo type foods may be good for hormones, but I don't want to die of cancer or heart disease.And my answer? You won't!
Follow the link below to discover why...
Animal Fat, Heart Disease, and Male Sex Hormones
Men Testosterone and the Vegetarian
Diet to Boost Low Testosterone Levels-HomeReferences: http://www.ajcn.org/content/42/1/127.abstract
Longcope C, Feldman HA, McKinlay JB, Araujo AB. "Diet and sex hormone-binding globulin." J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2000 Jan;85(1):293-6. PMID: 10634401
Wang C, Catlin DH, Starcevic B, Heber D, Ambler C, Berman N, Lucas G, Leung A, Schramm K, Lee PW, Hull L, Swerdloff RS. "Low Fat High Fiber Diet Decreased Serum and Urine Androgens in Men." J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2005 Mar 1. PMID: 15741266
Belanger A, Locong A, Noel C, Cusan L, Dupont A, Prevost J, Caron S, Sevigny J. "Influence of diet on plasma steroids and sex hormone-binding globulin levels in adult men." J Steroid Biochem. 1989 Jun;32(6):829-33. PMID: 2526906.
