What is a normal testosterone level?
Could testosterone very dramatically around the world?
And this is important because we may be basing our assumptions of what is “low testosterone” off of numbers that are too “Western-centric.”.
Maybe our reference numbers are wrong.
And maybe we can discover some relationships between testosterone and diet by looking at non-Western tribal men, and see what they eat, and how high their testosterone is.
That’s exactly what today’s newsletter study addresses.
And I’ll give you the punchline right now.
In this chart, you have different groups of men, and you have their testosterone levels.
The reason that there are two bars for each group of men is that they measure a.m. and p.m. salivary testosterone levels.
Morning and evening.
You probably already know this, but a man’s testosterone peaks in the morning.
So they tested each man twice a day– once in the morning and once in the evening.
The results are stunning.
Western men in Boston had a level of about 600. (Which is still kinda lowish according to Western standards.)
And all the other peoples had a level far lower ending with the Aché, a culture whose level was under 200.
Who knew that there was such a staggering difference in testosterone levels amongst different men around the world?
So this brings us to the next question you may be asking…
Why are testosterone levels so much higher in the West?
THE LOW TESTOSTERONE VALUES OBSERVED AMONG NONWESTERN POPULATIONS MAY BE A REFLECTION OF THE SHORTER STATURE OF THESE THIRD WORLD POPULATIONS IN COMPARISON TO URBANIZED MALES.
What they mean is, as they are growing up from boys to men, the men in these tribes were not getting enough to eat.
And they were working very hard, plus they had a lot of parasites and disease.
And that caused them to be shorter and smaller of stature, and also to have lower testosterone.
That’s the theory anyway.
And I’m sure it’s not a very good theory.
Because researchers looked at the height of other populations and found being tall does NOT mean you have higher testosterone.
And being short does not mean you have low testosterone.
So much for that theory.
But a much better theory is discussed in the paper…what do you think of this?
The men in these tribes have to work really hard, and they don’t get enough to eat, so…
…in the face of hard work, low food, and lots of parasites and infection
there’s no point in the body building large muscles, and having high testosterone.
So at a given level of work, nutrition and health, maybe there is an OPTIMAL testosterone rate and it isn’t what we consider “average” in the West.
So if you are sick, don’t eat much and work hard, no wonder your testosterone is low.
The authors of the paper created this diagram to show you what they’re talking about:
I think this makes a lot of sense, and they don’t prove it, but they do demonstrate it.
Testosterone increases when you’re getting plenty of food energy, good nutrition, and not too much physical work.
Put another way… the body pours resources into reproduction when everything else is coming along nicely.
But if things are tough, the body will minimize muscle mass, and it does this by keeping testosterone low.
(These men have NO fertility problems, by the way. They impregnate women just fine even with low T.)
For these tribesmen, their high workload and low nutrition forces them to have small compact muscles, and that can only be accomplished when their testosterone is low.
So do we all need high testosterone?
The answer is no, clearly.
The normal range for testosterone in lab tests is usually considered somewhere around 400 to 1100 or 1200.
And we can see that if we are low in testosterone, it may very well be that our bodies are fighting disease or bad nutrition.
This is my experience with 21,262 men.
So, take the Aché… Here we have men with testosterone levels under 200… so are they healthy?
No, they’re not so healthy.
A study of the similar Tsimane indigenous peoples revealed:
INFECTIONS AND PARASITIC DISEASE. MOST HAVE INTESTINAL HELMINTHS OR PATHOGENIC PROTOZOA; ANEMIA IS HIGHLY PREVALENT, AND PHYSICAL GROWTH IS STUNTED. BECAUSE OF THEIR HISTORY OF INFECTION AND CHRONIC, LOW-GRADE INFLAMMATION…
The human body is extremely adaptable, and when you are working hard to find food, and fighting off infections, it is possible that testosterone is going to be very low in order to minimize muscle mass.
Minimizing muscle mass can help to conserve energy since muscles burn a lot of energy, even at rest.
Remember… testosterone is not the whole story.
Some Western men have testosterone more in the lower range near 400, and they have absolutely wonderful erections and a great sex life.
Others have a testosterone rate of 1000, and they have erectile dysfunction.
When it comes to the human body, what counts is the entire mix especially the mix of testosterone, DHT, estrogen, prolactin, cortisol, and serotonin.
And from these studies, we can see that nutrition and freedom from disease may be MOST key to high testosterone rates.
Citations
TESTOSTERONE LEVELS AMONG ACHE HUNTER-GATHERER MEN A Functional Interpretation of Population Variation among Adult Males
Himhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24203318
Amazonian Tribe Has High CRP But No PAD him
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/707491
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