Do any guys who use Huel have their testosterone levels measured?
I’m a strength trainer and have recently been encorporating Huel into my diet for two of my four meals a day. It’s so convenient and balanced so I was wondering where, potentially, the catch may be. After reading quite a bit about flaxseed and it’s effects on hormones, i’m a little concerned that I might be lowering my testosterone levels. There a ton of information out there that pertains to flaxseed having a deleterious affect on testosterone levels. At 41, I want to keep my testosterone levels as high as possible.
What are people’s thoughts on this? Has anyone noticed any undesirable hormonal effects?
Phytoestrogens are plant-derived compounds similar in structure to the hormone estrogen; they may also have similar effects on the body to that of estrogen if consumed in large enough amounts. However, the proportion to which phytoestrogens affect the body and hormones, especially testosterone, have been highly inflated. If you are looking to gain muscle, this is a slow and difficult task and the most important factors are correct training, adequate nutrition and getting enough rest and sleep; the whole process takes time and effort. Testosterone is the hormone that’s important in the process of muscle gain and some people have concerns as low testosterone levels will make the muscle gain process harder. Some people point to articles which state flaxseed may increase the amount of phytoestrogens causing concerns that this might lower or limit the production of testosterone. However, the fact that flaxseed is broken down by the body into lignans can actually lower the effectiveness of estrogen in the body, with very useful side effects from people suffering from certain forms of cancer:
Flaxseed is sometimes tried for cancer because it is broken down by the body into chemicals called ‘lignans’. Lignans are similar to the estrogen - so similar, in fact, that they compete with estrogen for a part in certain chemical reactions. As a result, natural estrogens seem to become less powerful in the body. Some researchers believe that lignans may be able to slow down the progress of certain breast cancers and other types of cancers that need estrogen to thrive.
So while phytoestrogens may act like natural estrogens, they will only do so in large amounts and their ability to affect testosterone levels are limited at best. Bringing this back to muscle gain, while testosterone will play a part, this will be affected mostly by the exercise you do, cutting out alcohol, getting enough fats, etc, not the minute amounts of phytoestrogens from the flaxseed in Huel.
Huel contains a macro split of 37:30:30:3; i.e. 37% of the energy comes from carbohydrates, 30% from fat, 30% from protein and 3% from fiber; it provides everything you need and is ideal for muscle gain, especially if you struggle to consume enough food for bulking.
I absolutely experience “undesirable hormonal effects” whenever I consume foods high in phytoestrogens — soy milk, tofu, soy yogurt, flaxseeds, etc.
I notice that during the times when my consumption of foods high in phytoestrogens increases, I do tend to get unchararteristically teary-eyed and weepy when my old lady — Chesty Mountrumpian — forces me to watch chick-flicks with her.
My beard doesn’t grow as quickly nor as thick during an increase in high-phytoestrogens foods.
Flaxseed is way down at only the number 8 ingredient in the base powder of my “Schmuel” recipes. I find that for me personally, 8 is a much more manly number than 3 ;¬)
I feel I might have some experience on this one, I was undergoing tests for hypogonadism and at the same time started using huel, so out of the 3 blood tests for testosterone I had one was pre Huel and 2 were post Huel, all came back around the same (9nmol/L).
Yes I get that obviously I’m my situation my testosterone was in the gutter anyway, but the fact is it didn’t get worse. I also have low normal SHBG so again flax doesn’t make any difference in regards to raising it.
Oh and phytoestrogens have a much lower affinity than Estrogen, yes they compete for receptor sites, but which would you rather have sitting there Estrogen or a MUCH weaker phytoestrogen? it’s this very reason it possibly prevents breast cancer.
I would go as far as to say logically Huel is most likely going to be beneficial for hormonal health due to being simple, good nutrient ratio, high in omega 3 and full of mct’s. (also dairy and meat free if you want to factor in all the rubbish we probably ingest from animal based products, but again subjective, I still eat meat for example)
Hope this helps? Got any questions please ask as I’m pretty clued up on the whole Testosterone front, especially when it comes to diet etc
Perhaps there is something to do with the food somehow blocking/inhabiting DHT as that would lower beard growth, not the phytoestrogens. Testosterone on its own without converting to DHT doesn’t do as much in the way of Hair growth compared to DHT.
This is really important to me as a 27 year old male, and the answer will either result in me buying the product or not. Huel have you got any input at all?
What are your thoughts on bioindividuality (a.k.a. “YMMV”)?
Given that one individual’s male hormone processing system functions less than optimally, what are the chances that that same individual’s estrogen processing system might also function less than optimally too?
Is it possible that no amount of dietary supplementation would affect that particular individual’s hormone processing system neither one way nor another?
I do believe ymmv, as we are all different at then end of the day, I mean for example it depends on the other factors at play here, if one guy has an intolerance or something along those lines, I no doubt think would lead to a different result. But from looking at several studies about the whole phytoestrogen situation, I don’t see how it can affect testosterone by any meaningful about. It also seems to be tissue selective either being antagonistic in some and agonistic in others.
I mean to put it into perspective IF It did anything again big IF then it would act more like a serm would, which trust me wouldn’t dent testosterone, in fact serms are sometimes used in secondary hypogonadism to increase LH and FSH to INCREASE testosterone. but again phytoestrogens are much weaker and possibly work I a different fashion, still worth noting though.
If a guys Testosterone production is messed up then yes his Estrogen is probably a mess too, one way or an other, that is because Estrogen is made from testosterone in men through an enzyme called Aromatase, when I had my Estrogen checked it was so low I had an undetectable level of E2 (Estrogen) as I hadn’t got enough testosterone to convert anything. So again I can be my own example through my own blood work.
There are some guys who do just produce too much aromatase but even then I can’t see how huel could cause it to increase, I mean real reasons for having high Estrogen in guys would be by carrying too much body fat or drinking too much alcohol, both of which will actually do something.
So yes if you drank a lot of alcohol, over eat, or have a very low carb diet, then I can see how that would put a dent In ones Testosterone levels. Oh and very low fat diets seem to negatively effect Testosterone.
Its a very interesting debate, I think a site called anabolicmen have covered this sort of thing before
I mean… the only way I can see a relationship between food and getting “teary-eyed and weepy” would be if someone had an accident with the hot sauce ;P.
If food caused such hormonal effects, what kind of effects would we see in people who actually take any kind of hormone-related medication?
