Over-consuming alcohol can be a serious risk for your health. But till what extent?
Well, alcohol not only brings imbalance in your life but also in your body in the form of imbalanced hormones.
Consumption of alcohol has been linked to both short-term and long-term negative effects on your hormones.
One such hormone which sees a great loss when alcohol crosses the line in your body is Testosterone.
Testosterone is the hormone responsible for giving your sexual characters the modification that it needs.
It plays a major role in shaping up muscles, bones as well as sperm!
Thus it is quite important for your masculinity.
However, Testosterone And Alcohol Tolerance does not go hand in hand!
With over-consumption of alcohol your testosterone levels might drip down causing several problems like:
- Erectile dysfunction
- Infertility
- Poor muscle built
But it’s not just men who face problems related to testosterone, women also secrete small levels of testosterone which is important for their body.
When Alcohol And Testosterone In Females come together, the latter sees a drop leading to poor sex drive and brittle bones.
Thus, maintaining a natural balance of testosterone is as important in females as in males.
But many factors hinder this natural balance and lead to testosterone deficiency which creates havoc in life.
To prevent such imbalance one must avoid factors that cause this hindrance, one such factor is alcohol!
But the question here is how is alcohol linked with testosterone as many people call this link a mere “Alcohol Testosterone Myth”.
Hence to clear the doubts regarding this link here we are with the following blog that takes on the effect of alcohol on T-levels.
Alcohol and Testosterone – How does Alcohol affect your T-levels?
In a male body, testosterone secretion is brought about by three major glands –
- Hypothalamus
- Anterior Pituitary Gland
- Testes
The hypothalamus releases a gonadotropin-releasing hormone that acts on your anterior pituitary to complete the process of testosterone secretion.
The anterior pituitary under the action of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone releases the luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone.
These two hormones act on the testes and stimulate them to release testosterone.
Alcohol mainly interferes with the action of these three glands and thus disrupts the production of testosterone in your body.
However, alcohol when taken for the long term has a different effect on testosterone as compared to the short-term usage of alcohol.
Let us look into these effects closely.
#1. Long term effect of alcohol on testosterone
According to studies, people who drink alcohol almost daily or are heavy drinkers tend to have poor functioning testicular as compared to people who drink moderate alcohol.
By heavy drinkers here we are considering men who drink more than 15 drinks a week and women who drink more than 8 times a week.
Men with such drinking habits usually show:
- Erectile dysfunction
- Poor testosterone levels
- Low libido
These medical conditions usually happen because of the negative effect of chronic alcohol abuse on the Leydig cells which are the cells responsible for testosterone secretion.
Along with this, alcohol also negatively affects the production of Luteinising hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and gonadotropin-releasing hormone.
Apart from this, Alcohol Converts Testosterone To Estrogen which in men might lead to the poor development of your secondary sexual characters.
On the other hand, people who are moderate drinkers don’t show similar effects.
Moderate drinkers here fall under men who drink no more than 2 drinks a day and women who don’t drink more than 1 drink a day.
Next, we talk about the short-term effect of alcohol consumption on testosterone.
#2. Short term effect of alcohol on testosterone
Usually, acute alcohol consumption affects the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland causing minor anomalies.
Here are a few examples of what short consumption of alcohol can cause!
According to prominent research, when you consume alcohol, your testosterone levels drop for at least 30 minutes.
Another study where healthy men were kept under observation for 30 days and were given a pint of whiskey daily was held.
Their testosterone levels were compared to men who were under chronic alcoholism.
According to the study, the testosterone levels of healthy men began dripping by the third day and were almost equal to the T-levels of men with alcoholism.
Thus, you can see that daily consumption of testosterone levels even in a short amount can lead to severe effect on your testosterone levels.
And it’s not just testosterone that is getting affected here, even your sperm levels can go down because of alcohol.
You must be wondering how, well let us answer that for you.
Alcohol and Testosterone – Negative Effects!
Testosterone along with FSH plays a vital role in the synthesis of sperms in your body.
But with the consumption of alcohol your T-levels go down interfering with the healthy secretion of sperms.
But that’s not the end!
Alcohol also interferes with the functioning of Sertoli cells which form the core of the spermatogenesis process.
Because of the imbalance of all these hormones and cells, spermatogenesis can actually stop which leads to low sperm count in your body.
According to studies, 50% of heavy drinkers have shown poor sperm count as compared to 20% of men without alcoholism.
Apart from this, men were also seen to have smaller testicles as compared to men without alcoholism.
With the sperm and testosterone levels already going down, alcohol tends to have more negative effects on your sexual health than you can think.
It hampers the semen volume as well as the semen quality!
There are many studies that provide evidence to this statement as:
A study held in 2017 considering 16,395 healthy men stated that men with heavy alcoholism tend to have poor semen volume and sperm structure. While moderate alcoholism didn’t have any major change.
Apart from this, it has also been noted that men who drink heavily before fertilizing their partners also pose a threat to their future baby as it can cause birth defects.
Thus altogether, drinking can be a destructive package for your sexual health because of its negative effects on testosterone.
However, this can be controlled when one controls their testosterone deficiency at the time and stops drinking or at least minimizes it.
But many of you might raise questions on when to know if you are suffering from a T-deficiency or not!
The best way to identify testosterone deficiency is by observing its signs and symptoms.
To help you with that here we have a section dealing with testosterone deficiency.
Testosterone Deficiency – When to visit a doctor?
Symptoms of low testosterone are so common that you might even ignore them.
But remember that ignoring it can give rise to a serious problem.
Thus go through the following section carefully which show the common signs of testosterone deficiency:
- Poor libido
- Fatigue
- Depression
- Erectile dysfunction
- Infertility
- Loss of body hair or facial hair
- Poor muscle mass
- Development of breasts
- Poor bone mass
- Hot flashes
- Poor concentration
In case your body is giving all such signals, it is time that you contact your doctor and get your testosterone checked.
However, there is nothing much to worry about as testosterone can be brought back to normal by various methods like testosterone therapy.
But that doesn’t give you a permit to drink as drinking while treatment can also have a negative impact.
Let us see how.
Alcohol and its effect on Testosterone Replacement Theory
People with a habit of heavy alcoholism often show poor testosterone and tend to take testosterone replacement theory.
However, if you continue your habit of drinking even during the therapy, the treatment might lose effectiveness and you will be left with only the negatives of alcoholism.
Most of the doctors recommend limiting or quitting alcohol during such therapies.
So, Will Quitting Alcohol Increase Testosterone?
Yes, it definitely can increase your T-levels as studies claim that quitting alcohol can reverse the damage caused to your brain and testes to some extent.
But how much time it would take is a debatable matter!
How long will it take to increase testosterone after quitting alcohol?
Alcohol And Testosterone Reddit often find an argument on the duration required to reverse the testosterone levels after quitting alcohol.
However, the fact states that the time your body takes to replenish the lost testosterone mainly depends on how much and how long you have been with alcoholism.
According to a study, the damage caused by alcohol on the male reproductive system could only be reversed after 10 weeks of quitting alcohol. However, this study was conducted on mice and couldn’t be the same for humans.
We need more studies to establish a stable fact on the time one needs to reverse the damage caused by alcohol.
If you adopt a healthy lifestyle post quitting alcohol it might boost the time taken for a full recovery!
Conclusion | Does Whiskey Lower Testosterone?
An important question going around the internet has caught the eyes of heavy as well as moderate drinkers as testosterone just can’t are put at risk!
Testosterone is the male hormone regulating your sexual characters as well as your sex life.
But the recent claims have left everyone astonished!
Here is our take on what role does alcohol has in regulating testosterone levels.
The above blog focuses on how testosterone can be lowered because of over-drinking.
Read above and find out whether you are at risk of handling drinking consequences!
FAQs
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Does Alcohol Increase Testosterone In Males?
Usually, it has been seen that alcohol poses threat to testosterone levels when overconsumed.
But reports also suggest that a low dosage of alcohol actually stimulates the production of testosterone in plasma and brain of both males and women.
The surge in testosterone levels post-drinking a moderate amount of alcohol is actually the reason behind the aggressive nature of most men!
However, this is temporary and the testosterone is brought back to normal after 30 minutes of drinking.
Thus it is not ideal testosterone boosting therapy so don’t plan to go for it.
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Does Alcohol Destroy Testosterone?
Alcohol usually interferes with the glands causing a drip in testosterone levels as well as other structures like sperm related to it.
However, it is also seen that overconsumption of alcohol leads to conversion of testosterone into estrogen which causes a surge in the level of stress hormone or cortisol.
This surge and conversion of T levels into estrogen leads to the destruction of the male hormone.
Thus alcohol can actually destroy your testosterone and lead to quite a low concentration of this hormone in your body.
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Can one take Alcohol And Testosterone Injections together?
Testosterone injections are basically anabolic steroids used by athletes or bodybuilders to enhance their performance and muscle mass!
When you mix alcohol and such injections, you are actually inviting lots of liver toxicity in your body.
Apart from this some of the common health problems that you might see after mixing both are:
- Dehydration
- Depression
- Chest pain
- Gastrointestinal tract issues
- Allergic reactions
- High blood pressure
Altogether, mixing them is not a great idea, and don’t go for it even if someone suggests you do so!
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Does Alcohol Increase Testosterone In Females?
Moderate drinking is a healthy habit as it often leads to an increase in testosterone levels in both men and women.
However, in cases of women what’s more important is the surge in estrogen levels post-drinking which might be a positive result in women post-menopause.
However, heavy drinking might create havoc in the reproductive health of women.
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Does wine consumption increase testosterone levels?
Yes, it does! It blocks the excretion of testosterone from your body because of its compound quercetin.
This compound binds with the UGT2B17 enzyme which is usually responsible for attaching to Testosterone and excreting it.
Thus with a glass of wine going inside your body, the excretion of testosterone level is paused.
However, it does not boost any natural secretion of testosterone.
Thus, instead of going for wine try going for other alternatives to boost testosterone.
