“Nothing Else Boosts Testosterone Like This” Dr. Peter Attia ~ Chris Williamson

We're going to go to the other side of the fence now. There are guys listening who want to naturally improve testosterone production. What are the big movers? What would you suggest?

I mean, it's gonna sound like a real, um, crap answer. I don't think there is a bigger way to naturally increase testosterone than adequate sleep and reduction of cortisol. I, I, I think hypercortisolemia stress probably has the greatest negative impact behaviorally on the endogenous production of testosterone, probably through the pituitary, uh, gonadal axis. And, um, you know, how much can it move the needle? You know, probably to the tune of 300 or 400 nanograms per deciliter. Um, so if you're not sleeping well, um, and you're under a lot of stress, it's, it's very easy to end up hypogonadal. Um, and therefore fixing that, I think, is far more beneficial than sort of the, the litany of supplements out there that may or may not have marginal benefit.

So the-

Now for, now for women there's a different answer, but for men I would say that that's the answer

... the hard-charging dude that's, you know, m- maybe mid-20s, crushing it in the office, going to the gym, maybe partying on the weekend once or twice, bit of alcohol, whatever, whatever. Uh, this becomes kind of a vicious feedback loop, which is precisely why men are looking to things like TRT because of how hard they're potentially pushing themselves during the week.

Yeah, and I think that, y- you know, so, so to that guy, what I would say is, "Why do you want to replace your testosterone?" So let's say he goes and gets checked out and his testosterone is 300 nanograms per deciliter, which, you know, probably puts him at the 10th percentile, uh, for a man his age. So undoubtedly that would qualify as hypogonadism. So the question is, do you want to fix that because you don't like the number? And... Or, or is there a symptom we're trying to fix? And if the symptom is what we're trying to fix, then I would say let's fix that symptom, i.e. poor energy, poor mood-

Libido, mood

... poor libido. Let's fix that symptom by fixing these other things over here. And by the way, along the way, we might also improve your testosterone. But I, um, uh, you know, again, like, uh, I, I guess I don't treat that type of patient, so maybe someone who does is listening to me and saying, "Well, you don't understand," and, you know, "That guy, even though he's only 24, we're never gonna get him out of that spiral if we don't normalize his testosterone." And y- you know, a- again, that, that wouldn't be my approach, but I want to be mindful of talking about something I don't do for a living.

What about women?

Yeah, I think with, with, with women, we have one more trick up our sleeve, which is DHEA. Um, so again, doing all of the normal behavioral stuff, but it's, it's a, it's a little harder to make the connection in women. Um, but, but... And this is something I actually learned kind of recently, because I used to be very dismissive of DHEA because in men it has no effect whatsoever. Um, but DHEA, of course, is what allows for adrenal production of testosterone, and the reason it has no impact on men is if you increase a guy's testosterone