Low Testosterone and Vitamin Deficiencies

February 27, 2018 Dan Purser MD

Men, want to know the #1 secret to good sex as we age? Nutrition consiting of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. This covers a lot of ground, but let’s shorten that distance.

I see hundreds of men in my practice every year for Hypogonadism (medically low testosterone) with a serum total testosterone level below 400 ng/dl (very severe) creating severe fatigue. Hard to have sex, or even to consider performing, if you are exhausted!

Assuming you have no trauma (pituitary, heart, testicles, or penis) and you are noticeably exhausted after sex, or too tired to get going, then it probably is your nutritional status. Figuring this out is not as complicated as it sounds.

In our practice, we perform a test called a Spectracell™ Comprehensive Micronutrient Panel that looks at 39 different vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. However, Spectracell goes a step further as it looks inside your cells and gives us intracellular levels. The test is FDA- and HHS-approved and uses its own normative values making it an excellent test to use in research in the office.

Below is a severe case, but you can see the problems:

YOU CANNOT MAKE TESTOSTERONE WITH THESE VITAMIN DEFICIENCIES IN PLACE!

MAJOR DEFICIENCIES

Glutathione Vitamin B12
Vitamin B1 or Thiamin
Vitamin B2 or Riboflavin
Coq10 or UBIQUINOL
Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA)
Vitamin E (α-tocopherol)

BORDERLINE DEFICIENCIES

Chromium
Serine
Glutamine
Vitamin B6
Pantothenate
Biotin
Immunidex® (just a general measurement ion immune vitamins and immunity)

This is also one of those results that I call ‘footprints in the snow’ because the B12 deficiency, thiamin deficiency, riboflavin deficiency and the CoQ10 deficiency are all critical to causing low testosterone or hypogonadism. Also, this would cause low sperm count and loss of libido. Any of these vitamins alone can cause the feeling of exhaustion, especially CoQ10 (ubiquinol).

You have to carefully replace these (though some patients start feeling improvement immediately) as sometimes it can take 90 days to really get intracellular and 180-240 days for a big difference in testosterone levels.

SO BE PATIENT WITH LOW TESTOSTERONE AND VITAMIN DEFICIENCIES!

I like Qunol® (100 mg) at 2-5 a day while you have this deficit.

B12 – use a methylated B12 (methylcobalamin) at 5,000 mcg a day. Sublingual or shots work best.

Thiamin (Vitamin B1) at 100 mg a day works well at two per day for at least 180 days.

Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) at 100 mg twice day for 180 days.

ALA or Alpha Lipoic Acid is a major antioxidant mostly required by glutathione to function. 200-250 mg twice a day is appropriate for this patient for at least six months.

Vitamin E needs to be down too.

I also dealt with all of the borderline deficiencies for at least six months but he had bigger problems (see next section).

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW LED TO MTHFR DIAGNOSIS

This gentleman ended up having MTHFR, which is a genetic illness that causes low energy, depression, fatigue, low testosterone and many other problems.

Check out my bestselling book, The 85% Solution: MTHFR is Overpowering Our Medical System - Chance Are You Have it Too… This book and MTHFR errors can explain a lot if you think or know you have it. Majority of these men and women will have low testosterone levels along with other hormone deficiencies too. However, with proper vitamin replacement therapy many can get almost complete normalcy in their testosterone levels given time and appropriate nutritional status despite these genetic errors.