How Does Alcohol Affect Testosterone Levels?

During my vacation 2017 I decided to do a little experimenting to find out how alcohol affects testosterone levels. I took blood tests and wrote everything down and yes, I also had to do a lot of drinking…

…you know, in the name of science, so please enjoy the article.

(In the end of this article you’ll find a link to an article where I exactly describe how I managed to naturally increase my testosterone without steroids by 400%, using many tools and tricks I ,by trial and error, have come up with.)

How Does Alcohol Affect Testosterone Levels (August 7. 2017)

The purpose of my experiment was to find out how much, if any at all, drinking alcohol affects my testosterone levels. Being the test subject here I had to be the unhealthy one and do the drinking myself…you know, in the name of science 😉

I did, of course use blood testing to measure the results.

Why Measure Testosterone in the first place?

Let’s get one thing out of the way right from the start. Why measure testosterone levels in the first place? Well, Here’s the deal:

Certainy genetics play a big role as well but generally our T-levels are a good indicator of how healthy we are and they are, to a great degree, a reflection of how good we take care of ourselves.

Not to forget, having high levels of testosterone is associated with:

• More motivation
• Sharper memory
• More vitality
• Healthier heart
• High energy levels
• Easier to burn fat and build muscles

All good things, I think everyone would agree!

Junk food, sugar, lack of sleep, too much stress, being very depressed, not exercising at all OR exercising TOO much, I think you get the picture, theese are all unhealthy factors that drives our testosterone levels down. There is one badboy left however…

…that’s right! The one that this experiment is all about: Alcohol.

How does alcohol affect testosterone levels
Details of the experiment:

For the most accurate results I tried to keep my execise and diet pretty much the same during the experiment as well as keeping my sleep and other factors the same. This was not entirely easy but I did the best I could.

To get a good baseline I took a lood test several times. They all came back pretty similar so the numbers should reflect a pretty good testsosterone baseline.

My testosterone levels before the experiment started:

34,0 nmol/l or 980ng/dl – for those countries that use the nanogram units.

The amount of alcohol I drank:

I drank one 75cl (13,5% abv) bottle of wine, or the equivalent amount of alcohol in another for of beverage, every day, for 7 days straight.

Beer or wine were my bewerages of choice and I must say I did not feel well at all after keeing it up for one week straight.

After the week was over I was curious what had happen to my testosterone levels and if the way I felt was any indicator then my t-levels should have plummeted quite a bit. So I went back to the lab for the final blood tests.

How does Alcohol Affect Testosterone Levels
The Surprising Results:

It took some time to get the results from “NordLab” but I finally got the paper with the results in my mail box.

Now then, let’s jump straight to the results!

My Total testosterone before the experiment started:  980 ng/dL    (34 nmol/L)

My total testosterone after one week of drinking alcohol: 945 ng/dL   (32,8 nmol/L)

That’s only a  3,52% reduction of my testosterone levels. I was quite surprised by the tiny drop, because I  was not feeling well at all after the 7-day drinking, and I really was expecting to see something like a 20-30%. reduction for sure.

As I mentioned in in the beginning of the post however there are many factors and circumstances that affects our hormones, so one explanation, for the seemingly small drop, could perhaps be…

…Vacation?

 

What do I mean vacation?

Well, part of the baseline levels was taken during my last workweek. I was perhaps a bit more stressed then compared to when the drinking part of the experiment took place, which was during my summer vacation.

Stress is something that drives down testosterone levels as well. In other words, perhaps my baseline levels, without work and stress, would lie somewhere over 1000ng/dL and that’s getting scarily high…which I don’t mind, to be honest 😉

Besides the vacation everything else was kept the same: diet, training and so on…

How does alcohol affect testosterone levels
Conclusion:

Alcohol lowers testosterone levels, albeit perhaps not as much as I had thought, and does a lot of harm in other ways as well. However I want to point out that I am not here to advocate against drinking it. Nor am I here to speak for it.

That issue is something everyone has to think about for themselves and make their own decision about. That’s not the point of my experiments. The point of my experiments is simply to find out how I respond to them and learn from them.

Furthermore: we are all different and what one idividual experiences does not have to match how others would respond.

It was an interesting experiment and I’m glad I went through it.

Recap 

The average levels for my age group would be about 600 ng/dL.

My Testosterone levels before the experiment =  980 ng/dL     (34 nmol/L)

And after the experiment= 945 ng/dL    (32,8 nmol/L)

If you are someone who stumpled upon this post and wonder why I have such high levels of testosterone and if I have done anything to naturally increase my testosterone witout steroids then answer is yes I have…

…If you are interesten then you can click here  and read the article where I describe exactly how I 4x my testosterone levels using different tricks and tools.

If you would like to conduct your own experiment or if you are curious about your own testosterone levels an hate going to the doctor with needles and blood samples…

…there are “saliva testosterone test kits” as well. No need for needles there and if you are interested,
click here to check the price on Amazon for a medium expensive saliva test kit.

Thanks for reading the blog post “How does alcohol affect testosterone levels”

-Bob Castle-