Testosterone Starts with Cholesterol

Here is the basic pathway your body uses to make testosterone:

Cholesterol → Pregnenolone → Androstenedione → Testosterone

That matters because testosterone begins with cholesterol. In fact, every single sex hormone is synthesized from cholesterol. Cholesterol is not just something to fear on a blood test. It is a raw material the body uses to build essential hormones.

This is one reason the conversation around “heart healthy” low-fat, low-cholesterol diets needs more nuance. If the body requires cholesterol to synthesize sex hormones, then aggressively avoiding dietary fat and cholesterol may create problems for hormone production, vitality, and healthy aging.

Testosterone is not produced out of nothing. The body needs the right ingredients. Cholesterol is one of those ingredients.

Research supports this connection. A 1997 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology looked at testosterone and cortisol in relation to dietary nutrients and resistance exercise. The researchers found that men who consumed more saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, and cholesterol had higher testosterone levels than men who followed a lower-fat diet.¹

This does not mean someone should eat unlimited saturated fat or ignore cardiovascular health. It means that dietary fat and cholesterol should not automatically be treated as enemies. The body uses them for important biological functions, including the production of testosterone and other sex hormones.

The larger point is that hormones are built from nutrients. If the diet is missing key raw materials, the body may struggle to produce hormones at optimal levels. A low-fat, low-cholesterol diet may sound healthy on the surface, but if it compromises the body’s ability to make sex hormones, then it may not support vitality as well as people assume.

Cholesterol has been overly simplified in modern health conversations. It is often discussed only in relation to heart disease risk, while its role in hormone production, cell membranes, brain function, and vitamin D synthesis gets less attention.

That narrow view can lead people to avoid foods their body may actually need.

A better approach is to think about quality, context, and balance. The body needs enough dietary fat to support hormone production, cellular health, and metabolic function. This includes saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, and cholesterol from nutrient-dense foods.

Testosterone starts with cholesterol. That does not make cholesterol good in every context, but it does make it necessary.

And necessary nutrients should not be feared. They should be understood.

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Reference

1. Volek, Jeff S., et al. “Testosterone and Cortisol in Relationship to Dietary Nutrients and Resistance Exercise.” Journal of Applied Physiology 82, no. 1, 1997, 49-54. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1997.82.1.49

Vitamin D and Testosterone: Why Sunlight Still Matters

One of the many problems with the Western diet is that it often lacks key micronutrients the body needs to create hormones. One of the most important is vitamin D.

Vitamin D is essential for testosterone production, and this matters because many people are now deficient in vitamin D. A major reason for this is our overavoidance of UV light. Sunlight is one of the primary ways the body produces vitamin D, but many people have been taught to avoid the sun as much as possible.

That avoidance may come with a cost.

Low vitamin D status is likely one factor involved in declining testosterone levels. Testosterone is not only important for male reproductive health. It also plays a role in muscle mass, strength, energy, mood, libido, motivation, and overall vitality.

A study published in 2010 looked at the vitamin D and testosterone levels of more than two thousand men over the course of a full year. The results showed that men with healthy vitamin D levels had more testosterone and lower levels of sex hormone binding globulin, commonly known as SHBG, than men who were vitamin D deficient.¹

SHBG matters because it binds to hormones, including testosterone, making them less available for the body’s cells to use. If SHBG is elevated, free or bioavailable testosterone may be lower, even when total testosterone does not tell the full story.

In simple terms, vitamin D status may influence both how much testosterone the body produces and how much of that testosterone remains available for use.

This is important because hormone health is often discussed as if it only depends on age, genetics, or medication. But hormones are built from and regulated by the body’s environment. Nutrient status matters. Sunlight matters. Lifestyle matters.

The body cannot produce hormones properly when it is missing the raw materials and signals those systems depend on.

Vitamin D is one of those signals.

The point is not to worship the sun or ignore the risks of burning. Too much UV exposure, especially repeated sunburn, can damage the skin. But avoiding sunlight entirely creates its own problems. The body evolved with regular exposure to natural light, and vitamin D production is one of the clearest examples of why that exposure matters.

A healthier approach is not total avoidance. It is intelligent exposure.

Get sunlight in a way that respects your skin type, season, location, and tolerance. Avoid burning. Use shade, clothing, and protection when needed. But do not forget that sunlight is part of human biology, and vitamin D is part of hormonal health.

If testosterone, energy, strength, and vitality matter, then vitamin D status should not be ignored.

Sometimes supporting hormones begins with the basics: better food, better sleep, strength training, and enough sunlight for the body to make what it needs.

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Reference

1. Wehr, E., et al. “Association of Vitamin D Status with Serum Androgen Levels in Men.” Clinical Endocrinology 73, no. 2, August 2010, 243-248. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03777.x

Exercise Is One of the Simplest Ways to Support Your Hormones

Exercise is one of the simplest ways to support healthy hormone production. It is also one of the most powerful health-promoting tools available because it affects far more than strength, endurance, or body composition.

One of the key hormonal benefits of exercise is its effect on testosterone and human growth hormone, or HGH. Both men and women experience a sharp increase in testosterone and HGH after strength training sessions.¹ These hormones play important roles in muscle growth, recovery, tissue repair, metabolism, energy, and overall vitality.

Strength training is especially important because it creates a meaningful physical demand on the body. When the body is challenged with resistance, it responds by activating systems involved in adaptation and repair. Hormones like testosterone and HGH are part of that adaptive response.

This is one reason strength training should not be seen only as a way to build muscle. It is a signal to the body. It tells the body that strength, repair, and resilience are needed.

High-intensity interval training, or HIIT, may be even more effective at increasing testosterone and HGH levels in both men and women.² HIIT involves pushing yourself close to your edge with intense exercise, followed by a brief rest period. That repeated cycle of high effort and recovery creates a strong metabolic and hormonal stimulus.

HIIT is also useful because it can be done in less time than many traditional workouts. For people who are short on time, this makes it a practical option. You do not always need a long workout to create a meaningful training effect. Sometimes the intensity and structure of the workout matter more than the duration.

The key is that the effort has to be real. HIIT is not just moving quickly or sweating through random circuits. It requires a level of intensity that challenges the body enough to create adaptation. The work periods should feel demanding, and the rest periods should allow enough recovery to repeat that effort with quality.

Strength training and HIIT both work because they apply stress in a way the body can respond to. That is what good exercise does. It creates a controlled challenge, then gives the body a reason to adapt.

From a hormonal perspective, exercise is not just about burning calories. It is about creating the internal conditions that support growth, repair, and resilience. Testosterone and HGH are part of that process, which is why training can influence how the body looks, feels, and performs.

This applies to both men and women. Hormones are often discussed as if testosterone only matters for men and growth hormone only matters for athletes, but both hormones play important roles in health for everyone. The goal is not to chase extreme hormone levels. The goal is to support the body’s natural ability to produce and respond to the hormones involved in repair, metabolism, and performance.

If you want to support your hormones through exercise, strength training should be a foundation. HIIT can be added as a time-efficient way to create a strong hormonal and metabolic response.

The larger point is simple: exercise is not just movement. It is information. The body reads the demands placed on it and responds accordingly.

When you lift heavy weights or push through high-intensity intervals, you are giving the body a reason to become stronger, more resilient, and more hormonally active.

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References

1. Kraemer, William J., et al. “Endogenous Anabolic Hormonal and Growth Factor Responses to Heavy Resistance Exercises in Males and Females.” International Journal of Sports Medicine 12, no. 2, May 1991, 228-235. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2007-1024673

2. Wahl, Patrick. “Hormonal and Metabolic Responses to High Intensity Interval Training.” Journal of Sports Medicine & Doping Studies 3

More sleep can double your testosterone

More sleep can double your testosterone level

Older men can sometimes double their testosterone levels by getting more sleep, according to a human study that Plamen Penev of the University of Chicago published in Sleep.

Not enough sleep
Nearly all of us probably get too little sleep, mainly because we are seduced every day by the technology around us. It enables us to generate light at night, provides us with 24-hour entertainment and information through electronic media, and makes it possible for us to have contact with each other whenever we want. Every evening, when our body tells us that it's time to sleep, we can also do a thousand other things instead.

Sleep & hormones
Too little sleep messes up our hormone balance. It makes our body less sensitive to insulin for example. Dutch researchers recently showed that after just one night of four hours' sleep, young men's insulin sensitivity went down by twenty percent [J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2010 Jun;95(6):2963-8.] and that of diabetics by a quarter. [Diabetes Care. 2010 Jul;33(7):1573-7.]

In the latter case, lack of sleep is clinically relevant, so doctors could advise diabetics who react insufficiently to their medicines to get more sleep. "Sleep duration might become another therapeutic target to improve glucoregulation in type 1 diabetes", the Dutch researchers say.

Sleep & testosterone
Testosterone is also affected by amount of sleep. That's not so strange, as our bodies make much more testosterone when they're asleep than when they're awake. [J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2005 Aug;90(8):4530-5.] The figure below is from the study mentioned here. It shows how much testosterone is present in the blood of 22-32 year-old men while asleep and during the rest of the day.

The better men sleep, the higher their testosterone level rises while they are asleep. [J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2001 Mar;86(3):1134-9.]

In the average male over forty, the testosterone level goes down by 1-2 percent per year, but researchers occasionally come across men in their eighties with a testosterone level you'd expect in a young man. Add to that the fact that many older men – but not all men – sleep less and less deeply as they get older, then you automatically think of the idea that Plamen Penev wanted to test in his study: does the testosterone level decrease in older men because they sleep less?

Penev based his theory on, among other things, research done by Eve Van Cauter, a sleep researcher at the University of Chicago who has celebrity status in the field of endocrinology. Van Cauter discovered early in the 21st century that men in their forties make less testosterone while sleeping than men in their twenties.[J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Jul;88(7):3160-6.]

Study
Penev measured the amount of testosterone 12 slim, healthy, non-smoking men aged between 64 and 74 had in their blood in the morning. He also got the men to wear a small gadget around their wrist, which enabled him to see how many hours per night the men slept. That varied from 4.5 to 7.5 per 24 hours. The longer the men slept, the figures below show, the more testosterone there was circulating in their blood.

The men that slept the least had a testosterone level of 200-300 ng/dl. That's a normal amount for men of this age, but it's on the low side. The men in the study who slept the most had a testosterone level that was twice as high: 500-700 ng/dl. That's a level you'd expect in healthy young men.

Conclusion
"These findings suggest that complaints of poor or insufficient sleep in otherwise healthy older men can be associated with a more pronounced age-related androgen decline", writes Penev. "Eliciting such sleep complaints in the physician's office may facilitate the judicious interpretation of lower testosterone levels in the older male patient."

Before men consider doing testosterone therapy, they might first measure the amount of sleep they get. And 'measuring' is different from 'guessing' or 'estimating'. Most people overestimate the number of hours that they sleep. This was also the case in Penev's study. The men thought that they slept seven and a quarter hours per day on average, but Penev's recordings showed that they only slept six hours a day.

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Reference: Sleep. 2007 Apr;30(4):427-32.

Nelson Vergel on Testosterone

Men's Health Lecture by Nelson Vergel from Program for Wellness Restoration

Hormones and Chronic Stress

Underlying Causes of Adrenal/Hormone Problems

Unhealthy lifestyle habits (poor diet, inadequate exercise, insufficient sleep, lack of relaxation, and internalizing emotional stress) are sources of chronic stress that may be underlying causes of adrenal fatigue and hormone imbalance. Other common sources of chronic stress include: food sensitivities, heavy metals, environmental toxins, radiation exposure, and regular use of prescription drugs. Chronic stress slowly erodes health and compromises longevity.

Under chronic stress, the adrenal glands increase their output of cortisol—often referred to as the “stress hormone.” The principal hormones produced by the adrenal glands—cortisol, DHEA, aldosterone, testosterone, estrogens, and progesterone—share a common precursor, the master hormone pregnenolone. When under stress, the adrenal glands are hyperstimulated and pregnenolone is diverted (stolen) from other pathways to produce cortisol.

Pregnenolone Steal

This increase in the production of cortisol (and the resulting diversion ofpregnenolone) causes fatigue and the general aches and pains associated with chronic stress. However, with time, pregnenolone steal has a much broader damaging effect on health. It exacerbates any developing or existing health problems because pregnenolone is not being adequately converted to other essential hormones. Refer to the following chart to see the dynamic of pregnenolone steal:

What stresses have become chronic, causing the body to divert pregnenolone to provide for the production of cortisol? The sooner you identify and deal with the offenders, the sooner you restore your patients’ health. Consider the following sources as a logical starting point:

• Lifestyle: Diet, Sleep, Exercise, Mental
• Environmental: Pathogen infections, chemicals, heavy metals, food sensitivities, mold, radiation.