Andrew Huberman Talks About Testosterone Science

The hormone augmentation thing is always a little bit of a complicated discussion, but there's so much that's happening there right now that's really interesting. Like what? Well, for instance, sort of back to the topic of supplements, I always say, look, their behaviors are the fundamental layer. You have to do the right things for anything, for sleep, for learning, for sports performance, but then there's nutrition, supplementation, prescription drugs, and then off-label stuff, right? And so we always think of it when you hear hormones in sports, you always think just the raw conversation about anabolic, all the band stuff. We can talk about that stuff and how it works. Years ago, I used to work on androgens, testosterone and its derivatives and how it impacts brain development and body function, fear, and also mental states. But there's a category of supplements that are very interesting that for most people who aren't exploring testosterone augmentation for sport work very well to increase testosterone by about a hundred to 200 points, not a tripling or anything like that. And the main ones are two substances. One is called Tongat Ali. Oh yeah, that stuff's real, huh? Oh yeah, because what happens is the testosterone molecule, it's basically carried in a cargo. So it can be in its free form, unbound form, free testosterone, and everyone says, oh, I want more free testosterone. You want more, but these what are called sex hormone binding globulins. So there's something called sex hormone binding globulin. And albumin, they carry the testosterone molecule to the different tissues of the body. So you don't want all your testosterone free. You want some of it bound up so that it can be delivered to the different tissues, including your brain. But if you have too much sex hormone binding globulin, the testosterone can't really do its things, okay? So Tongat Ali, about 400 milligrams per day, has the effect of raising free testosterone and overall testosterone by about a hundred to 200 points. And so we're not talking about full TRT or blasting or now that I'm always amused. On YouTube, they now call it sports TRT. That's when you get above 200 milligrams per week. Sports? This is basically, you know, you've got TRT, which is typically about 200 milligrams per week. And when you say 200 milligrams, when you're looking at a syringe, what is that? So that's a- Is that a thousand milligrams? So the typical dose of testosterone replacement therapy is 200 milligrams given once every week to two weeks. But when you look at a full syringe, what is that? So for one CC, one mil, that's 200 milligrams typically of cipienate, which is sold on the same- One CC, a full CC is only two- One CC is not gonna be that much. Yeah, so it depends if you have a little narrow syringe. Okay. Right. Right, but if you have a syringe that goes up to 10, what is that? That's 10 CCs, that's a lot. That's 10 CCs. Yeah, that's a thousand milligrams. That makes sense. Right. So it would be two on that and that's 200 milligrams. That's right. So, well, okay, so Jesus is going down this path- I thought you were saying like two full syringes. Yeah, I mean, I actually think that a lot of people who think they need TRT, when I hear about guys in their 20s and 30s, look, I'm in my mid 40s and I can tell you that you can get and maintain very healthy testosterone levels without TRT if you do the right things, the behaviors, the nutrition, all the other stuff early on. Sometimes people are of hypogonadal syndromes and things like that. There's a lot of issues with guys with head injuries. And with head injuries. And absolutely, and it'd be an interesting conversation to talk about the role of testosterone in neural repair. That's very interesting. But when you look at TRT, I mean, the way that the clinics and the doctors typically do it is to give 200 milligrams and then send people out for two weeks and then they come back because they can charge them to come back repeatedly. It's clear that without any TRT, the testes normally make anywhere from seven to 15 milligrams of testosterone per day. So taking this massive dose and then waiting two weeks is absolutely foolish. It doesn't, it's amazing to me that the medical profession does this because it doesn't match anything about the normal patterns of endocrinology. It's just not how the body works. The way it's been described to me to do it is to do it with an insulin syringe and to do a tiny amount every three days. Right. That's correct. So 0.2 milligrams, you know, 0.2 mil. So maybe, you know, it's 20 to 60 milligrams every few days, every third day or so. That much more closely matches the normal pattern of release and avoids these estrogenic crashes. A lot of problems that are layered onto estrogen are actually problems with prolactin, which is a molecule that's involved in milk, glute down and lactating women, but it actually shuts down the sexual desire and aggression. You know, when, this is interesting about prolactin. So this happens in brooding birds and it happens in humans. They've done this, a study published in the journal Nature, which is our kind of apex journal, showed that when the husbands of pregnant women, because of something, maybe a pheromone, maybe some odor of the pregnant woman, actually increases the man's prolactin when they're pregnant, puts body weight on the guy, starts laying down body fat, presumably to prepare the father for the long sleepless nights ahead, because humans have always co-parented. Wow. My mostly co-parented. We all know women do far more, but it's true. Who's out there who get fat? Don't feel bad. Yeah, so the dad bod is in part due to an increase in prolactin. And testosterone and prolactin are kind of working in opposite fashion. So it's a very interesting thing, but the way you describe it is correct. Now for people that aren't getting prescribed TRT, but want the increase in testosterone, there are these plant compounds like Tonga Ali, and another one which is very interesting. It's a Nigerian shrub called Fidogia agrestis, and it mimics luteinizing hormone, which is the hormone that comes out of the hypothalamus that stimulates the testes if you got those, and the ovaries if you've got those, to make more testosterone or estrogen. And so those two herbal supplements together can give a significant boost in free and active testosterone. So you said Tonga Ali can give you 100 to 200. Yeah, about that. But what does the other one give you? Fidogia is usually taken at about 600 milligrams, and that can, the most dramatic effect I've ever seen was somebody who had his testosterone down in the low twos, or I think it was like low twos, and he got it up to the 700 range, but that's an outlier, right? Most people are gonna see about a 300 to 400 point increase. And that's what the two of them synergistically were? Fidogia will actually make the testes grow. It's a noticeable difference. Everybody wants that. Well, the reason I know about this stuff, people are probably thinking like, Huberman's running gear out of the back of his cars, and that's not what this is about, is that I do a certain amount of work with military, and I do a certain amount of work with professional athletes who cannot take androgen compounds out of a syringe because they'll lose their job. Or they've been doing that and they wanna come off, although, and I'm not gonna out the organization, but there is one major professional sports organization where let's just say if somebody gets injured, they have permission to take up to 200 milligrams a week of testosterone. Soccer. No. No? Shit. No, but good guess. You almost got me there, because I almost countered with the actual thing that it is. Hockey? No, although those guys have the head injuries. So actually, the head injury thing is a serious problem obviously. So testosterone has the effects we're all aware of, like deepening the voice, facial hair, muscle growth, recovery, et cetera, mostly because testosterone increases protein synthesis. You look at a young male in puberty, it's a protein synthesis machine. They eat the A-D and they just grow and grow and grow, and they're putting on muscles and they're lean. So most often they're lean, but in any case, testosterone has some very interesting effects on the brain. The major mental effect of testosterone is it makes effort feel good. Oh, that makes sense. And the reason it does it is that the amygdala, this fear center in the brain, this anxiety center in the brain has androgen receptors. It has testosterone receptors. And so the way this works in animals and in humans as well is that for most species, the males of that species never get a chance to mate. Right, so if you think about, I'll probably pick an example where you'll know the exception because I know you know a lot about natural animals and animals that are hunted. But if you think about animals with antlers like rams, there's been a lot of research, believe it or not, on rams. It'd be fun. I'd love to work on rams. You know, rams have enormous balls. And they have to fight for the right to mate. Yes. And the fighting is a choice, right? And the decision to walk away is a choice usually. They usually don't kill each other, although I know some of the injuries can lead to death. So testosterone, these surges in testosterone that happen seasonally in certain species like rams or even these little hamsters, the males will rip each other's testicles off in order to fight for the right to mate. So males of a given species have to actually overcome the fear of pain and punishment. And the surge in testosterone is what causes the shift to the willingness to engage in battle. And so when humans are taking low doses or reasonable doses of testosterone or they're increasing their testosterone or they're going through puberty, effort and leaning into pain and challenge actually has the effect of making the body feel soothed and good. It's a drive, just like sex is a drive or drinking water when you're thirsty is a drive. This stuff is all anchored deep within the hypothalamus. This isn't a cognitive thing. That makes sense why young men in particular are really driven to hard exercise and sports that are very difficult that require extreme effort, completely makes sense. And why when people are testosterone depleted, they feel depressed. And when people have a surge of testosterone, they feel relief and anxiety provided it's in the appropriate range. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips easily seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. On Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background by using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.