Every man on the planet seems to be trying to figure out how to naturally increase their testosterone levels, and to be honest, they should. Testosterone is a wonderful hormone. High NATURAL testosterone levels have been shown to fight depression, heart disease, and help you maintain a strong and healthy libido - among other benefits. What's lost in this quest to increase testosterone is the fact that it all begins in the brain, and when you've done damage to the brain - ie. concussions - that can impact your ability to signal the signals that eventually result in testosterone product (I'll do another article on the brain soon). When you think of testosterone product, you think of your balls, which makes sense, that's where 95% of your testosterone is products. But, the process doesn't start there, it's triggered in your brain when the hypothalamus detects that our body needs more testosterone. It then secretes a hormone called gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which makes its way over to the pituitary gland in the back of your brain. When our pituitary gland detects the gonadotropin-releasing hormone, it produces two other hormones, luteinzing hormone (LH) follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). Of those two hormones, luteinizing hormone has the greatest effect on your testosterone product. Luteinizing hormone (LH) stimulates secretion of sex steroids from the gonads. In your balls, LH binds to receptors on Leydig cells, stimulating synthesis and the secretion of testosterone. Boom, you have your master male hormone. So while we constantly talk about how to boost your testosterone levels, focusing primarily on where it's made, how do we increase that luteinizing hormone so we can produce even more testosterone naturally?

Ashwagandha

Testosterone and Luteinizing hormone were increased in this study, which also looked at the effects if ashwagandha on sperm quality and count on infertile men. The effects on sperm quality and count were positive in the groups given ashwagandha as a supplement. Ashwagandha also lowers cortisol levels in men, which is an enemy of testosterone, one of the alternative reasons why ashwagandha is an effective anabolic supplement. Get your full, daily dose of ashwagandha in Man Greens, click here to learn more.

Ginger

Ginger is great at aiding in digestion, but it also turns out to possibly be effective and increasing testosterone and luteinizing hormone. In this study, ginger was associated with increases in testosterone (17.7%), follicle stimulating hormone (17.6%), luteinizing hormone (43.2%), and sperm motility (47.3%), morphology (18.4%), viability (40.7%), count (16.2%), and ejaculate volume (36.1%) with reductions in lipid peroxidation of the semen (53.7%) associated with increases in glutathione (26.7%) relative to baseline Those are pretty big increases. What wasn't disclosed in the study was the dosage of ginger, which sucks.

Zinc

Zinc is one of the best supplements a man can take. Not only does it boost testosterone and block aromatase (the conversion of testosterone to estrogen in the male body), but it appears to increase LH as well. In this study, the supplementation of zinc daily for six weeks was associated with an increase in testosterone and luteinizing hormone. What's interesting in the study, was that the researchers chose to use zinc sulphate, which isn't the best and most absorbable form of zinc for the human body. Instead, supplement with zinc picolinate, a much more bioavailable form of zinc, found in its full, daily dose of 15mg in Man Boost, click here to learn more.

Nicotine

I'm a cigar guy. In the summer I enjoy one every couple of days, or even at a greater frequency. Rey Lewis has a great video about why a man should smoke cigars (watch it here on the youtube). Obviously, it's a personal thing, but cigars have gotten a bad wrap by being lumped in with cigarettes. The reality is that you don't inhale cigars, and recent studies show that you can smoke up to 1-2 a day with none to minimal health risks. I'm not telling you to smoke cigars, but the nicotine within those cigars is interesting. Not only is nicotine a nootropic that may help fight cognitive decline, but it also appears to increase the production of LH. In this study, researchers found that nicotine consumption (through cigarettes in this case), increased luteinizing hormone. So, yes, cigarettes are horrible for you, but is snus or cigars really that bad? It's a personal choice and a weighing of the risks and the rewards. I will say, however, that you don't smoke cigars to boost your testosterone levels, the effect won't be long-lasting or all that effective, you smoke to enjoy an hour or two of meditation.

D-Aspartic Acid (doesn't work)

Finally, something that has been 'shown' to work, but doesn't. DAA became a hit amongst bodybuilders when two studies found that it increased LH and testosterone. It turns out both of those studies were funded by a DAA manufacturer, DADAVIT®. When studies were conducted that weren't funded by a DAA manufacturer, they found zero increases in testosterone, and even possibly a decrease. This study found that that 28-days of DAA supplementation combined with resistance training did not change total or free-testosterone levels. While this study found that not only did 3-grams of DAA have any influence on T-levels, but by doubling the dose to 6-grams per day showed significantly lower levels of total and free-testosterone.

Conclusion

Luteinizing hormone is a necessary piece to your overall hormonal health. What we didn't cover previous seems obvious. Your LH is triggered by your hypothalamus. Thus, the better your brain health, the better equipped you ought to be to trigger that production. Ideally, that means no damage to the brain - ie. no concussions. However, I don't know of a man who's lived who hasn't at least had his bell rung once or twice. Every man should be dangerous, or learn how to fight, protect himself and his family and so on. So, just keep the concussions to a minimum. Other than that, eat right, get plenty of exercise, get outside often, take vitamin d or spend an hour in the sun every day, and get plenty of SLEEP! As with everything in health, a healthy lifestyle will be the most important factor, that includes your testosterone levels, libido, and so on. Live like you have high testosterone and, unless something's getting in the way, you should be thriving.