There are various claims about saturated fat circulating on the internet and in the online fitness community. A common claim is that saturated fat is important for your testerone levels, and a diet low in saturated fat is bad for your testosterone levels. I have seen "evidence-based" fitness guys like Menno Henselmans claim this (e.g. https://mennohenselmans.com/cholesterol-anabolic/) and he cites some references in support, for instance this one: https://academic.oup.com/biomedgeron...11/1260/759439
"A number of studies (2–5) have shown that reducing saturated fat in the diet, and/or replacing saturated fat with what are considered more healthy fats (polyunsaturated and/or monounsaturated fats), results in significant decline in the circulating testosterone concentration."
But a study from 1997 by Volek et al. shows that monounsaturated fat has similar effects on testosterone as saturated fat (graph attached below).
This seems to contradict the above claim.
The Volek et al. study results, combined with what we know about the health benefits of polyunsaturated fat over saturated fat, seem to imply that the diet that would be preferable if you care about both "optimal" bodybuilding results and your general health would include a high dietary fat intake, but make sure to get a lot of monounsaturated fat while keeping saturated fat limited.
But the sample size in this study was very small (12 men), and I am personally not aware of other studies of the relationship between fat sources and testosterone. How much do we really know about this topic?
"A number of studies (2–5) have shown that reducing saturated fat in the diet, and/or replacing saturated fat with what are considered more healthy fats (polyunsaturated and/or monounsaturated fats), results in significant decline in the circulating testosterone concentration."
But a study from 1997 by Volek et al. shows that monounsaturated fat has similar effects on testosterone as saturated fat (graph attached below).
This seems to contradict the above claim.
The Volek et al. study results, combined with what we know about the health benefits of polyunsaturated fat over saturated fat, seem to imply that the diet that would be preferable if you care about both "optimal" bodybuilding results and your general health would include a high dietary fat intake, but make sure to get a lot of monounsaturated fat while keeping saturated fat limited.
But the sample size in this study was very small (12 men), and I am personally not aware of other studies of the relationship between fat sources and testosterone. How much do we really know about this topic?
from Bodybuilding.com Forums - Nutrition https://ift.tt/2Tzyhvn
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