Dr. Jane Levesque [0:00 - 30:53]:

The frustration that I see with my male partners is that like, yeah, I've been on a bunch of supplements and didn't really do anything, so I stopped. And usually that's because you didn't get to the root cause. So let's understand how the sperm is made, where testosterone is made, the feedback loop, so then we can get to the root cause. The hypothalamus is in the brain. There is the growth hormone that gets released into the interior pituitary. And then this is where that FSH and LH plays a role. Pregnancy is a natural process. So if it's not happening or if it's not sticking, something is missing. After having a family member go through infertility and experiencing a miscarriage myself, I realized how little support and education women have around infertility. I want to change that. I'm doctor Jane Levesque. I'm a naturopathic doctor and a natural fertility expert. Tune in every Tuesday at 09:00 a.m. for insightful case studies, expert interviews, and practical tips on how you can optimize fertility naturally. If you've been struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women's health issues, or you just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life, this show is for you. All right, you guys, today I want to talk to you about male testosterone levels. A lot of you ladies are asking me about testosterone levels for your male partner. So obviously, feel free to send this podcast to your other half to help him understand the importance of testosterone, not just for sperm production, but honestly for his health and vitality. Because I promise you, if you as a male do not have enough testosterone, not only are you going to struggle with things like libido, motivation, depression, anxiety, but you're also going to have a really hard time putting on muscle. It's going to be a lot easier for you to gain weight and bone strength. And like I said, a lot of mood symptoms, depression, anxiety, that even adhd, that are now associated with those low testosterone levels. So when I look at fertility, I'm never just looking at one aspect of it. Meaning, yes, we want good quality sperm, but good quality sperm is a reflection of your health as a male. And so if you're not making very good sperm, I can almost guarantee you that you as a male have some things going on. Now, don't get me wrong, some males will still make pretty good sperm even though they have some stuff going on, whether it's their cholesterol is elevated, their blood sugar is elevated, or their testosterone is low, but there is the normal range, if you will, and then there's optimal range. And I'm always looking for you to be the best version of yourself because why wouldn't you want to feel as good as you can in order to help you basically not just have a baby in this world, but just do whatever it is that you want to do in this, you know, in this lifetime. And when we have low testosterone, I mean, even as females, you're not going to feel very good. But testosterone is a primary hormone for males, so it's really, really important. And what I want to do is I want to kind of go through the process of making sperm and how testosterone plays a role in that, because we're not just going to talk from a perspective of spermatogenesis. You know, sperm production, obviously, that's important, but we're looking at just the levels of testosterone. So if the testosterone isn't good, then sperm production is going to be compromised. So let me share my screen. If you're watching this on YouTube, then this is just, you know, a really easy graph that I found, and I will take you through a case. The case is not I can't my screen because, you know, his name and everything is all over. But basically, what I want you to understand, and I'm going to walk you through, so if you're not watching this, you're just going to be able to grab this, grasp onto this just as good. The brain is where sperm production starts. And this is true for females. The brain is where ovulation starts. For males, it's the same thing. So before we try to understand why our testosterone is low, we need to understand the root cause, right. And at which point, where in the chain is the male having a hard time producing testosterone versus just throwing some things like, you should be taking more zinc or you should be taking more omega three s in order to support that sperm production. In reality, you don't know if that's the thing that's going to work. It might be something that, you know, you need as a male, but it might not be. And so that's the frustration that I see with my male partners is that like, yeah, I've been on a bunch of supplements and didn't really do anything, so I stopped. And usually that's because you didn't get to the root cause. So let's understand how the sperm is made, where testosterone is made, the feedback loop. So then we can get to the root cause. The hypothalamus is in the brain there is the growth hormone that gets released into the interior pituitary, and then this is where that FSH and LH plays a role. And so FSh and LH are hormones that we can test. FSH will actually directly impact the sertoli cells, which then are in the testes and begin the spermatogenesis, whereas LH is impacting more the Leydig cells, which helps with the testosterone production, and then it impacts the sertoli cells. So the Leydig cells will have a positive effect on the sertoli cells, and then there's a negative feedback loop. So when you have more than basically 20 million per male sperm, that feedback loop gets turned on, that you need to make more sperm. And so when I see males who are making less than 20 million per mil, I'm right away thinking that loop is probably not working the way that it should, or that loop is exhausted because the body's constantly telling, you know, the body to produce sperm. And so there's something missing. But, you know, it starts in the hypothalamus. Growth hormone is really important. Then we go into the interior pituitary, and then you have your LH and FSH. And the testes is where you make testosterone as males. And even to take it down to a cellular level, it's the mitochondria. So the level of the mitochondria is what will dictate, you know, your ability to make really good quality sperm, obviously, but get those high levels of testosterone up. And mitochondria, just like for females, it helps with estrogen, progesterone and testosterone production. In males, it helps with testosterone. There is some estrogen, progesterone, for the males as well, but it's very, very little. And then, of course, cortisol production, which is our stress hormone, is also dictated by the health of the mitochondria. There's a lot more that the mitochondria does, but on the cellular level, that organelle, if you will, it's the core of the cell that needs to work really well in order for us to make good levels of testosterone and then for that feedback loop to work and to make sense. So when we look at that right away now, I'm thinking, and I'm going to talk to you now about a case. He's never had good testosterone levels and never, it's like it's always been in the 300s. So optimal levels are going to be anywhere between, I would say, 5600 to 900, even 1000. You're going to feel really, really good and he has always had it close to 300 and recently has dipped into the 200s, which, honestly, if you look at it in the ranges, it still shows up as normal or just a little bit on the low side. But 200 for a male, especially since it's been chronic, is no bueno. It's not good. And so then we look, of course, I'm not just going to look at testosterone levels. His free testosterone levels are also not good. So free testosterone is what is available for the body to use. Sometimes times, the total testosterone levels can be good, but the free testosterone is going to be low because you have a lot of sex hormone binding globulin. Essentially, it's a globulin that's binding to the testosterone, so then the male doesn't have any to use. That happens when we have a lot of issues in the gut. I find, or, you know, even like liver and kidneys, that sex hormone binding globulin can get elevated. And so the free testosterone will get bound up, and then the male obviously doesn't get to feel the effects of it. And we're not only testing. So we're testing the free testosterone. The testosterone. We're looking at DHT levels, and then we're looking at sex hormone binding globulin. But now I want to look higher up the chain as well, because testosterone production, now we need DHEA, that's a precursor. And then pregnenolone is the other precursor that we need for. And cholesterol is the first thing. So we want to look at cholesterol. We want to make sure he has good levels of cholesterol. And then we want to look at, is he actually converting to the right next step? So if he's going from cholesterol to pregnenolone to dhea to testosterone, where is the biggest gap? And really what's happening is everything is low. So pregnenolone is on the low side. The Dhea is on the low side. His good cholesterol is on the low side. And so obviously, it makes sense that the testosterone is also on the low side. And then if we go higher up, because now, I just told you that testosterone levels are produced in the. The production starts in the brains, that Fsh and lh, when I look at his number, his fsh is low, and his lh is on the low side. It's within the normal range, but it's low normal versus optimal, and his FSH is actually low. So now what I'm thinking is that it's hypogonadism, meaning that hypothalamus in the pituitary in that production of FSH and LH is really low. And that growth hormone essentially is probably a thing that he never got quite enough of growing up as a teenager. And whether that's. We can go down into the womb and what happened in the womb and if, depending on the health of his mom and, you know, environmental toxic exposure and the nutrients that she had in order to be able to get those hormones to where they needed to be, that's, you know, a whole other episode. But essentially what's happening is he does not have. It's for him, it's at the level of the brain. He does not have enough of the. Any precursor. So this kind of hypogonadism, that's causing the issue of low testosterone. And so the. And, you know, we tested a lot more than just that. He has chronic inflammation. He's not healing from an injury that he had, you know, six months ago. And it's not even really an injury. It's like plantar fasciitis. He was on his feet for too long, and then now his feet are constantly sore, one of them, and it's just not healing. So that's chronic inflammation, poor healing. He has excess weight. He has a lot of brain fog. His libido is pretty good. It's not impacted. But we don't even have a sperm analysis on him yet. But we will now because I am concerned about his sperm analysis, especially trying to conceive. They're both in their early forties. And this is not something that we want to overlook when we are in our forties. For male sperm, DNA fragmentation really increases and the chances of miscarriage increase and even the difficulty of getting pregnant. So we saw quite a bit of inflammation in his body. And when I. We tested his gut, we tested, you know, his urine analysis for organic acids and environmental toxins. He had quite a bit of yeast and fungus and some basically in the gut. The biggest finding was that his gut is like, shut down. He has so much inflammation. And one of the markers that is secretory Iga that we test in the gut, which basically tests for mucosal lining. Integrity of the mucosal lining in the gut. In our immune system, his was at 100, where the norm is anywhere between like 600 to 1500. And I don't. I think I've seen it in the single digits once, but it's not good. You know, that immune system is just shut down. And basically what happens is like, he never really gets sick, but he never really feels good. And when he always feels like he's on the verge of getting something, and then it kind of just lingers and then he feels a little bit better, but he never feels amazing. He's never, like, springing out of bed, you know, no issues with weight, no issues with brain fog. It's quite the opposite. So when I'm looking at this particular case and getting to the root cause, fixing the gut and understanding why the gut is so compromised and why his immune system is so compromised is going to be at the center of my treatment plan. And so if you are a male or you're listening or your male partner, you want to convey this information, you need to understand the root cause, because how we treat testosterone, low testosterone for every individual male, is going to be different. So many males do not get enough testing done because they don't go to the doctor, they go to the emergency room, they're told that they need to suck it up until something is bad is happening, or they're just looking at the sperm analysis and saying, it's fine, it's good enough to get pregnant. And, like, literally, that's what they're being told. They're never actually looking at their health markers because maybe it's good enough, but I don't know about you. I don't want my partner to be good enough. Like, I want them to feel great, right. Because the better he feels, the better he'll be able to support me. And the better our relationship will be, the better you're, like, having a child is super demanding, and I always find that couples are so exhausted when they come to see me. And part of that is because the infertility journey has been so terrible and exhausting. Emotionally, financially, physically. It's like, you're not even pregnant yet and you're already exhausted. Right. Your fertility journey should be your healing journey. That goes true for both the male and the female, and you should be getting better. You should be feeling better every time, because for females, like, we're the first place that the body, that the baby will grow. So if our body is literally deteriorating as we go through treatments, aka iuis and ivfs and just like, all these injections and all these medications, and now we're on the verge of just feeling terrible. You're not even pregnant yet and the body's already depleted. Right. We do not want to be in the place of depletion. And I think. And the same is true for the males. It's just the males are kind of left on the side and told, oh, you're fine. It's good enough. And, you know, because they're in their early forties and, you know, she's a practitioner, so she wanted to get some more coaching for him as well as for herself to help them through this journey. And, you know, I'm glad we did because there's lots of stuff that we found that she wouldn't have been able to convince him to do the testing herself, and it just wouldn't have been very objective. Right. Because there's a lot of emotion involved. But basically, you know, we saw yeast, fungus, we saw a bunch of nutrients that are depleted that are supporting detoxification, like B vitamins, you know, and antioxidants that are low. Vitamin D was really low, which obviously explained his immune system being really shut down in the gut, the leaky gut, the overgrowth of certain bacteria in the guts. So I always break it down into like, proteobacteria versus. Proteobacteria is pathogenic bacteria versus, you know, the good types of bugs, whether it's bacteriodes or for mucides or I. Different phyla, different bacteria kingdoms that are essentially, we know, are good for us versus not. And if he just had the ratios mixed mass and because the immune system is so low now, when I'm looking at the environmental toxic load now, he works at a job that has, like, he works at like, a waste management system. So he is exposed on a regular basis to a pretty high toxic load. And then because he's always tired and doesn't have time to plan, it's, he's going out to eat a. And it's usually he's grabbing junk food. He's not drinking enough water, he's not moving his body enough. And so let's talk about treatment. How do we actually treat? And I'll tell you how I'm going to approach this case. And obviously, I can't tell you how to approach yours, but hopefully it gives you an idea if you're moving in the right direction or not because you want to just get some good testing done before you do anything. I promise you, if the testing feels like it's a big expense, forefront it is. But you're saving yourself so much time and money in the long term. Because I've seen couples after five years of struggling with infertility and spending tens and tens of thousands of dollars, if not 100 thousands of dollars now on their fertility treatments, and they're way worse than when they first started. To me, that's a huge red flag. You should not be getting worse as you're going through a treatment, you should be getting better, especially for women, because we are that first place that the baby will grow. And so if you're getting more and more depleted and more and more inflamed as you're going through the treatment, you literally are just going backwards. And I think there is this deep belief that you are broken and that you are going to need interventions to get pregnant. And maybe you will, for whatever reason, maybe that is the case for you. But I find in, you know, 95% of the cases, it's like you actually just need to give your body time to heal and give it the right nutrients so then it can do the thing that it's designed to do. But you know, our environment is just so toxic now, it's really not. Even though our body is built to do it, our environment is really against us. So we have to become aware of it and build resiliency and protect ourselves and protect the future generation so we can, you know, continue to have healthy babies. So he has a high toxic load. And basically here's what we're going to do for treatment. There's couple, I would say there's like three or four main things, but because it's coming from the brain, we need to look at stress. When I look at stress, I'm not just thinking the stress that he experiences day to day, meaning like, oh, my work is stressful, or I had, I was stuck in traffic and that was annoying. But like, what is his body perceiving as stressful? So when we look at blood sugar regulation, having a really high blood sugar that's dysregulated is super stressful for the body. Having a high toxic load is stressful for the body. Not pooping every day and contributing to that higher toxic load, or not eating enough nutrients for the body to actually function on its regular basis is stressful for the body. So then there is a, you know, if you're not sleeping enough, if you're overstimulating yourself, whether it's screen time or caffeine or whatever, you're overstimulating your system. That is stress on the body. And so for him, he had lots of things that we needed to clean up. Like we're going to focus on getting good quality sleep. The lifestyle things for good. Testosterone, no matter what's going on for you, is like you need to get minimum 7 hours of sleep, but ideally eight. And it needs to be good quality. This is why I like putting, you know, devices like the oura ring on my patients because they think they're sleeping well until they measure and they see that data and they're like, I'm only getting ten minutes of deep sleep. It's like, yeah, that's a huge problem. Do you think your body has time to restore and repair in ten minutes? No, it needs an hour to an hour and a half. And when we're young, we're sleep. We're getting like 2 hours of deep sleep because there's a lot of growth and repair. And the same with REM sleep. Like, you need an hour and a half to 2 hours of REM sleep. And so if you're only getting 20 minutes, guess what? You're going to feel really brain foggy. And it's going to be. And for women, what I find is you feel really irregulated emotionally, especially in the second half of the cycle if you're not getting good quality sleep. So sleep is something that we're really focusing on with him and then really improving his diet. So having three consistent meals, sometimes he's only having two just because he had a big meal in the morning, and then he's not really hungry throughout the day, which is fine. I do a little bit of intermittent fasting in those cases. Intermittent being the most important word in that sentence because we. I see so many couples now that her intermittent fasting is great. And so now they're just down to eating twice a day and they're not getting enough calories and, or they're getting way too much at the wrong times of the day and they're slamming their sit and there's like no regularity there. But you're just skipping breakfast and there's a time that you felt good after with that, and then now you don't feel so good. But because you're gung ho on this intermittent fasting, the idea of introducing breakfast back in is like, oh, why would I do that? So I love intermittent fasting at a right time and right place for the right person. I never just generically will tell you should do some intermittent fasting. Anyways. So we're improving his quality of the food, essentially stopping the going out to eat and eating much better food because one of the things that showed up is he had an insane amount of fat in his stool, which means he's not absorbing that fat. So even if he's eating high quality fats, he's not absorbing it. So that's going to be a gallbladder, bile duct issue liver that we're going to attack with diet but a lot of supplementation and even things like castor oil packs to help support and then some more advanced like coffee enemas. And I do this ultimate liver reset that I learned from one of my mentors, practitioners Sinclair, that talks about, I mean, she's the liver expert, so I've taking some of those things from her to help. Because when I see the high fat and then he had some other bile acid markers that were elevated, it's like you have gallstones. They're not probably super calcified and that's why you don't quote unquote, really feel them. But I can almost guarantee that you have gallstones. With the lab work that we're seeing, and we can absolutely clear gallstones naturally from the body. I've done that many times with my patients and it's incredible, the things that come out of their bodies. So that's the long term goal. But short term, we're really going to focus on making sure that he's sleeping, decreasing that stimulation. So, you know, caffeine, he can have it in the morning, but nothing at nighttime, decreasing the screen time and making sure that he's sleeping the proper seven to 8 hours. Once he gets the good sleep and the nutrition is in place, the biggest things when it comes with nutrition is going to be protein. Protein is so critical for testosterone levels. I recommend minimum 30 grams per meal. But ideally I'd like to see 50 to 75 per meal. Because if they're only, if you're only eating three meals a day, you need to aim for 1 gram of protein per lean pound of body weight. So if he is 100 or like 220 pounds, but ideally he would should be 185 pounds. He should aim for 185 pounds of protein. 85, 185 grams of protein per meal. And if you've never tracked protein, you're going to throw it in my fitness pal and you'll look that, okay, chicken breast. This much chicken breast is about 50 grams of protein. So then you need to, you're not just going to eat chicken breast, but you know, if you learn like an egg is only 7 grams of protein. So if you're having two eggs, that's only 14 grams. For a male, that's very, very little. So we eating enough protein that 50 to 75 grams per meal is going to be really, really critical. Not just for his metabolism and blood sugar regulation, but also to make sure that he has the precursors. If you think about FSH and LH, they're peptide hormones, meaning they're made of amino acids. When we don't have enough amino acids, the body doesn't even have the resource to make the hormone. So we need to make sure we provide the hormone. And obviously eating the rainbow and having antioxidants, lots of leafy green vegetables, your, I mean, high quality fruit and berries and peppers. Anything that's going to be really vibrant and colorful, those nutrients are going to be really, really great. From a supplement perspective, things like zinc is really great, right? Vitamin A, c, e, selenium minerals, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, even coq ten. We can add l carnitine. Things that are going to help support the mitochondrial function and boost up those antioxidants. I generally throw those in a little bit later. First we detox. Okay, so detoxing is going to be a big part. Increasing the function of his liver and his gallbladder to and his colon to help get rid of stuff a little bit quicker because he's exposed on a regular basis. So he has good quality binders that I use from cellcore. Those binders are. They're going to bind anything that comes up. They're going to hold on. And so then we have to make sure he's pooping on a regular basis. He's peeing, and then preferably he is sweating on a regular basis as well. Right now, his work schedule doesn't really allow for a lot of exercise. Plus he's quite tired, if you can imagine, with these low testosterone levels. So what we're going to start with is making sure that he's pooping well, he's got good fuel. And then I will incorporate some detoxification strategies. For example, like sauna two or three times a week. Ideally it would be three to four, but we start with two and three. And then we work our way up. If you're thinking like. But I heard that saunas were bad for sperm production because the testicles are heating. I recorded a whole podcast on that. It is saunas have so many more benefits than the cons that can come with it. He can sit on an ice pack and keep his testicles cool. And he will get an incredible amount of benefit from sitting in the sauna and sweating all the gunk out. And it's also really relaxing for, at first you're in like the sympathetic, but then when you get out, you. Your system can really relax and hit that parasympathetic state. So the pros for me outweigh the cons, you know, 120%. And so we'll start with some detoxing. We'll start like, if he's open to do some coffee enemas and do the ultimate liver reset and see if we can flush some of the gallstones out. Honestly, that's going to take anywhere between three to six months. And as he's starting to feel better, this is where I want to incorporate some heavy lifting for him two or three times a week to really help support that muscle mass and testosterone levels and then some cold plunging. Potentially, the cold plunges. Lots of research for, you know, dopamine, testosterone levels, especially first thing in the morning. I mean, Joe Rogan has probably popularized cold plunging more than anyone else on this planet. And I do recommend that you don't have to have a cold plunge. You could just do a cold shower. You will still do the trick for three to five minutes a day. Things like hunting, things like martial arts. So fighting those things are going to really help to boost testosterone levels. My husband, when he comes back from hunting, he comes back a little bit taller, a little bit perkier, because he's just been out in the woods killing things. And I think that's like, you can just see the levels of testosterone in him. And so we want to support that, you know, production, that natural production. The men need to go out and play and do those manly things, if you will, that they enjoyed the doing. And everybody is going to be a little bit different in terms of what they enjoy doing. And then I pour on some nutrients, right? So this is where we can go. Higher dose zinc, higher dose antioxidants, even glutathione, like I said, ubiquinol, l carnitine, to really help support that sperm production. But the order of treatment is important. And the overall thing is we got to get that stress down, the stress down on the system and whether that stress is environmental toxins. There's not enough hydration, there's not enough nutrients because you're not eating enough throughout the day. It, all of them are going to play a big role. And because he has so many things that we can work on, and he's already been really great. We're incorporating protein as the first thing and making sure, like, he's just not going out to eat. Or if he is, we're making better choices. And it's, you know, 20% of his diet instead of 80% of his diet. And then, you know, the 20 is he's getting a good meal. And then, you know, getting him on some supplements to really help that detox process to start. And then, like I said, some detoxification, like the sauna, coffee, animals, castor oil packs, and then we can pour some nutrients on it. So I'll share the case along with you as he goes. This is honestly where I've been looking into things like peptides to help stimulate that growth hormone production. And usually what that because our brain dictates and growth hormone dictates so many processes in the body, we see the benefit in your ability to manage insulin and the blood sugar, your ability to put on muscle mass, your ability to sleep and heal and decrease inflammation. So. Well, that's some of the things that I've been researching and excited to try with my patients and myself. You'll hear me talking about it a lot more here and on my stories through Instagram. Because it's the latest research, it's not the thing that's going to, you know, there is no magic bullet, but when there's been a lot of damage on the body for a long period of time and now I'm looking, you know, at a 43 year old trying to get pregnant, I think they're both 43. 42. We have to do a lot of things and we have to do it well and we have to, you know, the body's only going to heal as quickly as we can. As it can. But we want to make sure that we provide all the necessary tools for it to quick to heal as quickly as possible. So I'm excited to share that with you guys. I think that. I hope that was helpful. Please share this with your male partner. Like I said, I want the optimal levels for your male partner for his testosterone levels. And I promise you he wants that too. No, I've never met a male who does not want better testosterone levels. Because at the end of the day, they know when they have testosterone, they feel good. They feel good in their body, they feel good in their mind. They're able to focus, they're able to be present, to be productive, to be the provider, the protector. Whatever the role that they're playing, it's like they can really step into that when they have good testosterone levels. So I wish that for every male out there, because like I said, the same with females. When we have balance hormones, we are very different people. And so we want that. If you want to experience life to its fullest and you want to be able to make a healthy baby, it's like we just need those levels, those hormones balanced. But I don't want you to think that if I take zinc, that's enough to balance my increase, my testosterone level. For this case that I share with you, you, zinc would be a drop in the ocean. We're going to add zinc, but not right now because we got to do some other stuff first. So I want you to make sure you understand that order. And if you're looking for a practitioner to work with, please fill out the application down below for maximize your fertility and or share it with a friend who you think you might find it helpful. Or talk to your doctor about it if you think that they're missing something. Because like I said, let's get to the root cause, let's get those testosterone levels up, and let's feel good in our body. All right, you guys, until next time, thank you so much for listening. To read the full show notes of this episode, including summary, timestamps, guest quotes, and any resources that were mentioned on the episode. Visit drjanelevesque.com podcast and if you're getting value from these episodes, I'd love it if you took two minutes to share it with a friend. Rate and leave me a review@ratethispodcast.com. dr. Jane the reviews will help with the discoverability of the show, and who knows, I might share your review on my next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in, and let's make your fertility journey, your healing journey.