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The more fat you eat, the more testosterone your body produces. More fat, more testosterone. The best source of testosterone boosting fat, Argentinean researchers concluded a year ago after a study on rats, is olive oil. The same researchers have now published the results of another animal study in Lipids,
which shows how olive oil increases the production of testosterone. Olive oil helps the testes to absorb more cholesterol.
The researchers, working at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquimicas de La Plata, did an experiment with male rats. For sixty days, the rats were given feed to which seventy grams of soya oil , olive oil [O], coconut oil [C] or grapeseed oil [G] per kilogram had been added. At the end of the period the researchers measured how much testosterone the animals were producing. The figure below shows that coconut oil and olive oil were the best testosterone boosters.
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The testes of the rats that had had olive oil added to their feed were also heavier. Because the grapeseed oil diet produced the same results as the soya oil diet, we have left that column out of the table below.
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The Argentineans described how this happens a year ago. Olive oil and coconut oil increase the activity of the 3beta-HSD and 17beta-HSD enzymes. These are involved in the manufacture of testosterone. Olive oil and coconut oil also raise the concentration of the body’s own antioxidants in the Leydig cells, which produce testosterone. In the present study, the researchers went a step further. They found a relationship between the diet, the amount of free cholesterol in the Leydig cells and the testosterone level.
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The Leydig cells make testosterone from cholesterol. A diet that is rich in coconut oil or olive oil apparently helps the cells to absorb more cholesterol. The cells are also more able to extract the cholesterol from its ester. The more free cholesterol a Leydig cell has available, and the less estered cholesterol there is in a cell, the higher the rate of testosterone production.
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So natural athletes could optimise their testosterone production by making olive oil their main form of fat. Another nutritional strategy that might help is to eat cranberries. Cranberries increase the uptake of cholesterol by the testes.
Source:
Lipids. 2009 Apr;44(4):345-57.
