---
title: 'These Foods Tank Testosterone and Lower Sperm Count'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=WCdhnYPIi6w'
video_id: 'WCdhnYPIi6w'
date: 2026-08-09
duration_sec: 896
---

# These Foods Tank Testosterone and Lower Sperm Count

> Source: [These Foods Tank Testosterone and Lower Sperm Count](https://youtube.com/watch?v=WCdhnYPIi6w)

## Summary

This video reviews a recent randomized crossover study published in Cell Metabolism that examines the impact of ultra-processed foods on male reproductive and metabolic health. The study found that consuming ultra-processed foods, even with matched calories, leads to lower testosterone, reduced sperm motility, increased body fat, and higher levels of environmental chemicals like phthalates and heavy metals.

### Key Points

- **Study Design** [00:01] — A randomized crossover study compared unprocessed vs. ultra-processed diets over 3-week periods with a 12-week washout.
- **Key Findings on Reproductive Health** [00:29] — Ultra-processed foods led to lower testosterone, reduced sperm motility, and increased body fat, independent of calorie load.
- **Body Composition Changes** [08:08] — Even with isocaloric intake, ultra-processed foods caused more fat gain and less lean mass compared to unprocessed foods.
- **Caloric Metabolism** [11:30] — The study challenges the 'calories in, calories out' model, showing that calories from ultra-processed foods are not metabolized equally.
- **Environmental Chemicals** [12:26] — Blood levels of lead, phthalates, and perfluoroalkyl chemicals increased after just 3 weeks on an ultra-processed diet.

## Transcript

foods impact male fertility and lower testosterone. This is a new randomized interesting and important to share because many people think like, look, the reason why we can't have a child or that we have to go through IVF is
because it's my wife's fault, like her hormones are messed up or whatever. Um, but we have this new crossover study comparing unprocessed to ultra-processed testosterone, lower sperm motility, lower hormone levels, increase body fat
changes. So, I just wanted to share this with you because, you know, for all of levels first and foremost, but especially if we're trying to conceive and expand our families and have children, we should really care
about the foods that we eat because those impact sperm quality, sperm motility, and ultimately also our hormones as well. So, here's a graphical abstract of the study that was published last week in the journal Cell Metabolism
Clinical and Translational Report. The title was effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health. As you can see from the graphical abstract here, they had two parts of the studies. They
had an unprocessed food arm of the study. Each feeding period was 3 weeks and there was a crossover period where they would have isocaloric amounts of, you know, unprocessed or or whole real food and then processed food and then
they had a period of the study where they would eat in excess, so have a calorie surplus of, similarly like I mentioned before, ultra-processed foods or unprocessed foods. And essentially what was noted here, as you can see with
to dive into the nuances momentarily, when the calories were either adequate or in excess, there was an increase in body fat, a reduction, which we would obviously expect, in HDL cholesterol, an
that's a little bit questionable, we're going to get to that in a moment, an increase in phthalates as well as reductions in testosterone and contrast, comparing, you know, the ultra-processed
[snorts] excess feeding arm of the study, there were favorable changes in testosterone, body fat mass, and lean body mass, and so forth. So, in brief, the
investigators say, this randomized controlled nutrition intervention conducted in males of reproductive age shows that compared with an unprocessed diet, consumption of ultra-processed foods impairs metabolic and reproductive
health. Effects of ultra-processed foods were independent of calorie load, providing evidence that the ultra-processed nature of food is detrimental to health. Now, this is sort of like calling the kettle black. Like,
foods are unhealthy. So, you might be thinking like, why do I want to keep watching? Because I want to share with you the nuances and the specifics as to exactly what ultra-processed foods do in the body. Now, why do we do that?
Because about 65% of people have overweight They're overweight or obese and actually that number might be closer to 73%. I saw a recent study. It was a headline, not a review of a study, finding that about seven in 10 Americans
can now be categorized as obese, not just overweight, obese. Like, this is crazy stuff based upon a new definition of anthropometrics in adults. So, that's interesting, but also about six in 10 calories that people consume in North
America comes from, you guessed it, ultra-processed foods. So, most of us are consuming junk food at some level, whether it's potato chips or cookies or crackers or confection items or sugary beverages. And so, we need to know what
these foods are doing because I think there is a lot of folks that are still stuck in the calories in, calories out, if it fits my macros camp and they're eating processed crap and they think, well, I'm in a deficit, so I'm okay.
going to share with you that research momentarily. But folks, I the content. If you are, hit that like button. Be sure to share this video with a friend, just tag a friend or send a
text message to a friend. And also, I want to thank this video's sponsor, the folks over at joovv.com, the makers of an amazing at-home near-infrared and health. I've been using the Joovv red light therapy since 2018.
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and use the code HIH at checkout to save. So, getting back to the study, let's look at the overview of the study. This is the graphical overview of the materials and methods of the study. So, there was 43 male participants.
were randomized to have the adequate calories, whether they're coming from processed foods or unprocessed foods, and then those there was a crossover It was a two-by-two crossover study where the folks had
were There was a 12-week washout period after the 3-week intervention to that have then processed foods and vice versa. As you can see over the course of this particular study. So, what what I think
is important when we're looking at this study design is there was enough washout period to not have a residual metabolic effect on the other intervention, and I think this is something that should be done more in human nutrition studies
because there seems to be a carryover effect, especially when we're doing a low-carb intervention versus a non-low-carb intervention, and we talked about that earlier. Nick Norwitz has covered that as well. You
can see here the macronutrient composition, the calories, and so forth intervention period were nearly identical. You know, so 34.7% fat versus 34.4% fat, right, you know, moderate protein,
higher in carbs. And so, what were the effects when these diets were looked at body composition body mass and then of course changes in fat mass and body weight in general, and
cholesterol and HDL and all that. All that. So, as you can see here, as you might expect, the green boxes will illustrate here the unprocessed foods and the yellow boxes are going to
represent the changes seen in the intervention arm of the ultra-processed foods. And as you can see here, of course, we might expect Again, calories are pretty similar here in adequate calories, but still people who This I
would love for Layne Norton to try to like explain here. There was a difference, you know, between-group differences when people ate isocaloric amounts of unprocessed foods versus isocaloric amounts of unprocessed junk
food. You can see changes in body weight and you can also see changes in fat mass in both adequate calories versus excess calories. That's what I really want to focus here. I think this is part C, changes in fat mass. I think this is
really interesting. Similarly, what you see here is a trend Similarly, what you see here is a trend towards declining lean mass even in excess calories when you're comparing whole foods versus processed foods. And
so, we know that there tends to be a catabolic effect in an insulin-resistant bit counterintuitive because we know insulin is an anabolic hormone. So, if you're having supraphysiologic levels of insulin because you're eating
would be that you could actually put on more muscle and maybe spare loss of lean muscle mass, but that's not what is seen here. There was a trend towards here. There was a trend towards decreasing lean mass and increasing fat
interesting, although this wasn't statistically significant, but you can see the trends here. I think that's pretty fascinating as well. Now, of course, we're going to see changes in cholesterol. So, that's pretty obvious.
You see reductions in HDL, so we know that high-density lipoprotein, so-called good cholesterol, although that's There's a lot of nuances there. There was a reduction in the ratio of LDL to HDL,
particularly interesting is we don't see the parsed-out LDL. I would love to see what happens to LDL because as I mentioned, we tend to see this actually go down in the early stages of insulin resistance, and we know that C-peptide
and other markers actually did increase as well as insulin. You know, when we look at the so-called panel here characterized as pancreatic function, you see a demonstrable increase in insulin when we compare, you
know, the unprocessed versus processed food groups. Mental health was actually was just a 3-week study, right? In different arms of the study, but there tended to be a trend towards aspects of
mental health changes, of course. And so we know this. I mean, eating a you know, a bunch of processed food is not good for for your brain, for your mood, and and so on. You see an increase, of course, in
leptin and another adipocytokine known as GDF15 as GDF15 was reduced. Ghrelin tended to change I think is interesting when it comes to male health, you know, that's how we
this. There was [snorts] a marked decline in sperm motility and sperm decline in sperm motility and sperm morphology and actually changes in sperm volume was reduced as well as a reduction in
follicle-stimulating hormone. And [snorts] there was some statistical significant changes in in testosterone. And so we see the the reduction in testosterone, which I think is interesting. So yeah, this is this is
not good. So basically, you know, the the main takeaway here is if you're trying to conceive a healthy child, right? Then you want to go on a whole, you know, a real foods diet and not eat ultra-processed food and junk food. And
what the investigators found here is that you know, the the folks that ate the unprocessed foods actually didn't gain as much body weight even when the calories were the same, which I think is is really interesting.
So what does that really mean? Well, our study provides evidence that calories from unprocessed or ultra-processed foods are not equally stored or metabolized even when controlled for macronutrient load. And this is a direct
quote from the paper here in the discussion section of the paper, which I is interesting and it it really flies in the face face of the conventional dogma when it comes to calories in calories out. And so the investigators also found
and identified a pro-inflammatory signature in response to the the processed food diet. There were changes in C-reactive protein and interleukins, In this particular study, the participants were generally lean. So
weight loss wasn't, you know, a big, you know, factor here. Now, moving on to the environmental chemicals, the pollutants, the perfluoroalkyl chemicals, metals. Again, this is just in 3 weeks of eating
an ultra-processed food diet compared to 3 weeks of eating isocaloric amounts of unprocessed food. Look at figure four when we look at heavy metals like like lead, those all increased as well as
phthalates and the perfluoroalkyl chemicals that you might find flame and beyond. So there there were significant increases in and these were looked at in the serum as well as the blood as well as the semen, which I
think is actually quite interesting. So most of these changes occurred in the blood, particularly the heavy metals. So we know this to be the case with with persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, phthalates, residual
and beyond. So that's just another reason independent of the, you know, aspect of the palatability or the potential glycemic index of ultra-processed food, the packaging and beyond. So you can see here
heavy metals were were noted and were increased in the blood in comparison to the group that was um you know, the baseline group that was eating unprocessed food. So that's just another thing to consider. So I think,
that ultra-processed foods are just not your testosterone, lower sperm motility, change the, of course, the ratio between LDL and and HDL, increase body fat mass, decrease
non-significant, but there were certainly outliers. Some people tend to mass when they eat processed food versus not as can be illustrated by some of these figures. And also, you know, changes in leptin,
And also, you know, changes in leptin, changes in various adipocytokines that is like this stuff is just not safe and and we shouldn't be consuming this and we absolutely should not be letting our children eat these foods because they
Also, you know, there's more questions calories out model and the so-called thermogenesis and, you know, what does this mean for, you know, metabolism and and so on. So
Yeah, I think, you know, we just should be eating healthy, unprocessed, whole, real foods. Particularly men who are trying to conceive and expand their family. So what are your thoughts? Hopefully you
enjoyed this review of this recently published study and I'll let you know below. If you enjoyed this video, please hit that like button. Be sure to share this with a friend and we'll catch you on a future one down the road.