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It really works – zinc is a T-booster
Zinc supplements raise testosterone production. Supplements manufacturers have been claiming this for years, but researchers as the Firat University in Turkey confirmed the claim a few years ago after doing animal and human studies. We read the articles and were convinced. Zinc works. But whether it’s healthy to boost your testosterone level by taking zinc? We doubt it.
The researchers published their first results in Neuroendocrinology Letters in 2006. These came from an animal study in which they had given male rats daily injections of 3 mg zinc per kg bodyweight in the small intestine. The course of injections lasted for four weeks. At the end of the period the researchers got the animals to swim for thirty minutes.
A control group of rats also swam, but had not been given extra zinc. Yet another control group did nothing at all. The researchers then measured the rats’ testosterone level immediately after completing the swimming test.
The physical activity led to a decrease of the testosterone level – but not in the animals that had been given extra zinc. The lactic acid level of this group of rats also rose by less than that of the rats that swam but had not been given zinc. The researchers suspect that the body uses large amounts of zinc during physical exercise and that, as a result, other body processes that generate energy or produce hormones are hampered. Zinc is needed in these processes as well.
"Physiological doses of zinc supplementation may produce useful outcomes for performance", the researchers conclude. But rats aren’t humans, so the researchers followed up with an experiment on human subjects: ten male students with an average age of 20 who had a sedentary lifestyle. The results of this study appeared a year after the animal study results. They were published in the same journal, by the way. [Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2007 Oct;28(5):681-5.]
The students were given a daily dose of 3 mg zinc sulphate per kg bodyweight for a period of four weeks. That’s a lot of zinc. If you weigh 80 kg you'd be getting get 240 mg zinc per day. That’s more than ten times the daily amount of zinc recommended by nutritionists.
After four weeks on the supplements, the students had to cycle to exhaustion point on an ergometer, pedalling harder as the test progressed. The researchers also got the students to perform the same test when they had not been stuffed full of zinc. The figure below shows the effect of the zinc supplement on the testosterone level.
The effect on free testosterone is particularly striking. At rest the level was fifty percent higher than normal, and this increased after the exhaustion test. In the control group the free testosterone level went down by about twenty percent after the cycling test.
The zinc supplement had a similar, but less marked, effect on the concentration of thyroxine. Levels of this hormone increased by about ten percent in the students that had taken zinc. The supplement did not prevent the concentrations of T3 and T4 from declining as a result of physical exertion. We know that athletes react differently to supplements and diets than non-athletes do. And the researchers have also done tests with athletes. More about these in the next posting.
Source:
Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2006 Feb-Apr; 27(1-2):267-70.
Zinc megadose gives 40 percent more free testosterone
Zinc supplements enhance testosterone levels. If you give athletes a daily dose of 3 mg zinc per kg bodyweight in the form of zinc gluconate, after four weeks they’ll have 40 percent more free testosterone in their blood. Researchers at the Selcuk University in Turkey discovered this when they did an experiment with 10 male wrestlers.
In the previous posting we wrote about this Turkish zinc research. In those studies, mice and physically inactive students made more testosterone when they were given hefty doses of zinc. In this study, the researchers looked at the effect of zinc on highly-trained wrestlers. The subjects had an average age of 19 and had been training five days a week for at least six years.
The wrestlers did weight training once a week, cross training once a week and wrestling-specific training on the other three days.
Before and after the four-week period of zinc supplementation, the researchers got their test subjects to cycle until they reached the point of exhaustion. Before and after the test, the researchers measured the concentrations of thyroxine and testosterone in the subjects’ blood. Under normal conditions, heavy physical exertion lowers the concentration of these hormones. The figure below shows how the zinc supplements prevented this from happening. The supplements also resulted in a 40 percent increase in the amount of free testosterone before the exhaustion test.
The same effect was also seen on the concentrations of thyroxine and free T3 and T4 in the blood.
Many enzymes use zinc in the processes of hormone production and of generating energy from fats or carbohydrates. Physical exertion requires large amounts of zinc, the researchers believe. Such large amounts that zinc supplements can help athletes to improve their performance. "Physiological doses of zinc supplementation can prove beneficial to performance", they write.
If you weigh 80 kg and you want to use zinc in similar doses to those used by the Turkish wrestlers, you’ll need to take 240 mg a day. Long-term use of such high doses of zinc is not safe. Researchers have reported side-effects from much lower intake levels. According to Chinese researchers, a daily dose of 50 mg zinc leads to higher cholesterol levels in humans within a couple of weeks. [Wei Sheng Yan Jiu. 2004 Nov;33(6):727-31.] The American epidemiologists Walter Willett and Ed Giovannucci discovered that zinc supplements at doses higher than 100 mg per day increased the risk of prostate cancer by a factor of 2.2. [J Natl Cancer Inst. 2003 Jul 2;95(13):1004-7.]
Source:
Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2006 Feb-Apr; 27(1-2):247-52.
It really works – zinc is a T-booster
Zinc megadose gives 40 percent more free testosterone
Zinc supplements raise testosterone production. Supplements manufacturers have been claiming this for years, but researchers as the Firat University in Turkey confirmed the claim a few years ago after doing animal and human studies. We read the articles and were convinced. Zinc works. But whether it’s healthy to boost your testosterone level by taking zinc? We doubt it.
The researchers published their first results in Neuroendocrinology Letters in 2006. These came from an animal study in which they had given male rats daily injections of 3 mg zinc per kg bodyweight in the small intestine. The course of injections lasted for four weeks. At the end of the period the researchers got the animals to swim for thirty minutes.
A control group of rats also swam, but had not been given extra zinc. Yet another control group did nothing at all. The researchers then measured the rats’ testosterone level immediately after completing the swimming test.
The physical activity led to a decrease of the testosterone level – but not in the animals that had been given extra zinc. The lactic acid level of this group of rats also rose by less than that of the rats that swam but had not been given zinc. The researchers suspect that the body uses large amounts of zinc during physical exercise and that, as a result, other body processes that generate energy or produce hormones are hampered. Zinc is needed in these processes as well.
"Physiological doses of zinc supplementation may produce useful outcomes for performance", the researchers conclude. But rats aren’t humans, so the researchers followed up with an experiment on human subjects: ten male students with an average age of 20 who had a sedentary lifestyle. The results of this study appeared a year after the animal study results. They were published in the same journal, by the way. [Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2007 Oct;28(5):681-5.]
The students were given a daily dose of 3 mg zinc sulphate per kg bodyweight for a period of four weeks. That’s a lot of zinc. If you weigh 80 kg you'd be getting get 240 mg zinc per day. That’s more than ten times the daily amount of zinc recommended by nutritionists.
After four weeks on the supplements, the students had to cycle to exhaustion point on an ergometer, pedalling harder as the test progressed. The researchers also got the students to perform the same test when they had not been stuffed full of zinc. The figure below shows the effect of the zinc supplement on the testosterone level.
The effect on free testosterone is particularly striking. At rest the level was fifty percent higher than normal, and this increased after the exhaustion test. In the control group the free testosterone level went down by about twenty percent after the cycling test.
The zinc supplement had a similar, but less marked, effect on the concentration of thyroxine. Levels of this hormone increased by about ten percent in the students that had taken zinc. The supplement did not prevent the concentrations of T3 and T4 from declining as a result of physical exertion. We know that athletes react differently to supplements and diets than non-athletes do. And the researchers have also done tests with athletes. More about these in the next posting.
Source:
Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2006 Feb-Apr; 27(1-2):267-70.
Zinc megadose gives 40 percent more free testosterone
Zinc supplements enhance testosterone levels. If you give athletes a daily dose of 3 mg zinc per kg bodyweight in the form of zinc gluconate, after four weeks they’ll have 40 percent more free testosterone in their blood. Researchers at the Selcuk University in Turkey discovered this when they did an experiment with 10 male wrestlers.
In the previous posting we wrote about this Turkish zinc research. In those studies, mice and physically inactive students made more testosterone when they were given hefty doses of zinc. In this study, the researchers looked at the effect of zinc on highly-trained wrestlers. The subjects had an average age of 19 and had been training five days a week for at least six years.
The wrestlers did weight training once a week, cross training once a week and wrestling-specific training on the other three days.
Before and after the four-week period of zinc supplementation, the researchers got their test subjects to cycle until they reached the point of exhaustion. Before and after the test, the researchers measured the concentrations of thyroxine and testosterone in the subjects’ blood. Under normal conditions, heavy physical exertion lowers the concentration of these hormones. The figure below shows how the zinc supplements prevented this from happening. The supplements also resulted in a 40 percent increase in the amount of free testosterone before the exhaustion test.
The same effect was also seen on the concentrations of thyroxine and free T3 and T4 in the blood.
Many enzymes use zinc in the processes of hormone production and of generating energy from fats or carbohydrates. Physical exertion requires large amounts of zinc, the researchers believe. Such large amounts that zinc supplements can help athletes to improve their performance. "Physiological doses of zinc supplementation can prove beneficial to performance", they write.
If you weigh 80 kg and you want to use zinc in similar doses to those used by the Turkish wrestlers, you’ll need to take 240 mg a day. Long-term use of such high doses of zinc is not safe. Researchers have reported side-effects from much lower intake levels. According to Chinese researchers, a daily dose of 50 mg zinc leads to higher cholesterol levels in humans within a couple of weeks. [Wei Sheng Yan Jiu. 2004 Nov;33(6):727-31.] The American epidemiologists Walter Willett and Ed Giovannucci discovered that zinc supplements at doses higher than 100 mg per day increased the risk of prostate cancer by a factor of 2.2. [J Natl Cancer Inst. 2003 Jul 2;95(13):1004-7.]
Source:
Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2006 Feb-Apr; 27(1-2):247-52.
It really works – zinc is a T-booster
Zinc megadose gives 40 percent more free testosterone
!!!!!