[Jeff Gerber]

What came to mind while I was watching this video and with respect to testosterone supplementation and the need for it as men age is a topic discussed in this video between Dr. Layman and Dr. Attia: https://youtu.be/BqmG2y4IeY8

I’ll paste the copilot summary of the video (it is very long) on the importance of testosterone to aging and how you can slow the aging process by having sufficient testosterone to support protein use, reuse, and synthesis. Methionine is a special one that is difficult to come by. Easiest to come by with animal sources though if you are vegan you can get it from other places. Potato protein is one that is in high amounts if you are supplementing. Though again, if your testosterone levels are sufficient, your body will hang on to it and reuse it more:

🔑 Why Methionine Matters

• Essential amino acid: Methionine cannot be synthesized by the body and must come from diet.
• Role in protein synthesis: It’s the initiator amino acid in translation—every new protein chain starts with methionine.
• Methyl donor: Through S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), methionine contributes to methylation reactions that regulate gene expression and metabolism.
• Connection to aging: Restriction of methionine in animal models has been linked to longevity, but in humans, adequate methionine is critical for maintaining muscle protein synthesis.

🧬 Methionine and Anabolic Resistance

• Anabolic resistance: Older muscle becomes less responsive to amino acids, especially leucine, which is the primary trigger for mTOR activation.
• Methionine’s role: While leucine is the “switch” for muscle protein synthesis, methionine is required to start the process. Without sufficient methionine, the initiation of protein synthesis stalls.
• Layman’s emphasis: He often stresses that protein quality—meaning the balance of essential amino acids—is as important as total protein quantity. Methionine deficiency can make anabolic resistance worse because even if leucine is present, synthesis cannot proceed efficiently.

📝 Official Terminology Recap

• Anabolic resistance → reduced ability of aging muscle to respond to protein intake.
• Sarcopenia → age-related muscle loss.
• Essential amino acids (EAAs) → leucine, lysine, methionine, and others; their balance determines protein quality and utilization.

⚖️ Practical Implications

• Protein quality matters more with age: Older adults benefit from high-quality proteins (animal sources, whey, soy isolates) that provide adequate methionine and leucine.
• Meal distribution: Layman and Attia emphasize consuming enough protein per meal (≥30 g with ~2.5 g leucine and sufficient methionine) to overcome anabolic resistance.
• Hormonal decline + amino acid imbalance: Together, these explain why aging muscle struggles to reutilize protein efficiently.

📉 Practical Implication

• Children: Can thrive on lower protein per meal because their hormonal milieu keeps them in a growth‑promoting state.
• Older adults: Must deliberately consume higher‑quality protein (rich in leucine, methionine, lysine) and pair it with resistance exercise to overcome anabolic resistance.

📝 Terminology Recap

• Anabolic resistance → reduced muscle response to protein in aging.
• Sarcopenia → muscle loss with age.
• Protein quality → balance of essential amino acids (EAAs), especially leucine and methionine.

[Jeff Gerber]

The flip side of this is “too much growth”.

mTOR is the switch for growth and it is a switch you want to have in the “off” position if you are in need of cleanup (e.g. autophagy). There are supplements like resveratrol or doing things like fasting which are able to put the body into a cleanup mode, and it does this by flipping the mTOR switch to “off”.

If you are dealing with spikeopathy or cancer or something else where you want the body to clean up bad cells, then you don’t want to flip the mTOR switch on and promote growth like leucine does.

However, if you are in a healthy state, then using leucine to enable growth via switching on mTOR is a key trigger.

Underlying all of this is the fact that maintaining a good amount of testosterone will assist all of these processes.

So, the fear people having heard that testosterone supplementation will “cause cancer” or some such comment, isn’t true. What is true is that testosterone is the accelerator in your body and if you have aging fowled spark plugs, you don’t want to step on the gas, you want to fix the spark plugs… THEN hit the accelerator and see how good things get.

Urolithin A is another great supplement for cleaning the car up.

[Jeff Gerber]

I’ll post one more comment in favor of @vegandan and his point of view:

Vegan Men: More Testosterone But Less Cancer

Just a few days of walking and eating healthy plant foods can lower the level of the cancer-promoting growth hormone IGF-1 enough to reverse cancer cell growth in a Petri dish. This is detailed in my last three blog posts Cancer-Proofing Your Body, Treating an Enlarged Prostate With Diet, and How do Plant-Based Diets Fight Cancer?

We know decreasing animal product consumption decreases our IGF-1 levels, but how low do we have to go? How plant-based does our diet need to get? In my 2-min. video How Plant-Based to Lower IGF-1? the IGF-1 levels are compared between men and women eating conventional, vegetarian, and vegan diets.

Vegan men tended to have significantly higher testosterone levels than both vegetarians and meateaters (see graph here), which can be a risk factor for prostate cancer, the reason plant-based diets appear to reverse the progression of prostate cancer may be due to how low their IGF-1 drops (see Cancer Reversal Through Diet?).

Boosting cancer defenses within just days of eating healthy is a remarkable finding. For those interested in the whole story, I started out introducing Nathan Pritikin and the elegant series of experiments that became part of his legacy.

Researchers were able to demonstrate the mechanism by which a plant-based diet and exercise could suppress the growth of breast and prostate cancer cells and protect against prostate enlargement (more on prostate problems in Some Prostates are Larger Than Others and Prostate Versus Plants).

I also asked and answered Is It the Diet, the Exercise, or Both?

Finally, for those interested in whether lower levels of growth hormones in vegans might interfere with the accumulation of muscle mass, see my 3-min. video Plant-Based Bodybuilding.

–Michael Greger, M.D.

nutritionfacts.org

Vegan Men: More Testosterone But Less Cancer | NutritionFacts.org

Just a few days of walking and eating healthy plant foods can lower the level of the cancer-promoting growth hormone IGF-1 enough to reverse cancer cell

[IMA-GregT]

https://www.nature.com/articles/6691152.pdf

I’m wondering if this was the study. Tried to find it because I was very interested in the higher testosterone in Vegans. And total testosterone – absolutely.

The summary of the paper says the following: Summary Mean serum insulin-like growth factor-I was 9% lower in 233 vegan men than in 226 meat-eaters and 237 vegetarians (P = 0.002).
Vegans had higher testosterone levels than vegetarians and meat-eaters, but this was offset by higher sex hormone binding globulin, and
there were no differences between diet groups in free testosterone, androstanediol glucuronide or luteinizing hormone.

@vegandan I need to go over your posts and just learn a little more. I know so little about being vegan. In fact, saying “so little” is an exaggeration.

[vegandan]

@IMA-GregT The vegan community welcomes anyone interested in the vegan lifestyle. To be clear, veganism is more than a diet; which is what a lot of people think about vegans. Veganism is based on three basic focal points; animal rights, health, and the environment. There is a plethora of resources available about the vegan lifestyle which explains the world view of what it means to be a vegan. It is important to note that there are many degrees of following a vegan path and the journey can take many forms. There is no absolute one way of being vegan. Everyone takes their own path and has different comfort levels with the lifestyle.

I officially became vegan at the age of 41 in 1990. Although I had bits and pieces of veganism since an early age, it never did click together until I read a book that changed my life in 1989; Diet for a New America. I was an animal lover since childhood having spent many days at the age of 9 wondering by myself through the San Diego Zoo. Back then a 9 year old wondering a public space was not a big deal. I became a concerned environmental advocate when I was in high school and thought about becoming a Park Ranger as a career. Over the years I developed a concern for health issues as I got older and ate less and less meat. In my 30s I was pretty much down to fish and poultry for animal protein. Then I had one of those light bulb moments when a vegetarian friend at work asked me a simple question. If you love animals so much, why are you still eating them? Good question. So with that, the John Robbins book, and some further research, I began my journey and haven’t looked back.

[IMA-GregT]

❤ I’m interested, so I can understand better. Will go do some reading. There are so many different paths. Thanks very much for this note.

[IMA-GregT]

Just add Men’s Sexual Health into the mix. Another great guide.