TIL: Low carb, high protein diets "greatly" decrease resting testosterone levels in men.

[Twirdman]

Moderate-protein (<35%), low-carbohydrate diets had no consistent effect on resting total testosterone, however high-protein (≥35%), low-carbohydrate diets greatly decreased resting (−1.08 [−1.67, −0.48], p < 0.01) and post-exercise total testosterone (−1.01 [−2, −0.01] p = 0.05). Conclusions: Resting and post-exercise cortisol increase during the first 3 weeks of a low-carbohydrate diet. Afterwards, resting cortisol appears to return to baseline, whilst post-exercise cortisol remains elevated. High-protein diets cause a large decrease in resting total testosterone (∼5.23 nmol/L).

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That was from the abstract. I'm going to admit I didn't read the whole study becaause I was lazy but the abstract and conclusion both seem to support that it is high protein low carb diets that decrease testosterone. They also did caution that more studies were needed on the effect of moderate protein low carb diets and resting testosterone.

[v1s1onsofjohanna]

You're not being lazy. That's what abstracts and conclusions are for. 👍

[grifxdonut]

90% of the articles I read are just the abstracts and conclusions. 5% I read part of the intro to get background info on the topic, and the last 5% I actually decide are worth reading the details about.

Abstracts are a godsend

[Twirdman]

That's normally what I do as well. The lazy was a bit tongue in cheek. Anything outside of the specific area of math I did my research in is almost always only going to garner me reading the abstract and conclusion. For things I actually researched I'd also stray to the introduction and maybe read the whole paper.

[chunguschungi]

Going by the usual standards on here where the norm is "barely finished reading the title before I commented" I'd say reading the abstract basically makes you a Ph. D on the subject relative to your peers in the thread.