Statins and your Testosterone
I was looking over some clients' blood work recently and noticed a pattern. Their cholesterol numbers looked great, but everything else was off. When I asked if they were on a statin, the answer was yes. So today I want to break down what statins actually do to your testosterone, and why I think they may cause more cardiovascular damage long-term than they prevent.
I'm not a doctor. I'm not telling you what to do. But you deserve the full picture before you swallow a pill every day for the rest of your life.
What statins actually do
Statins are a class of medications used to lower cholesterol. They're prescribed to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, which are still the number one killer in the first world.
They work by inhibiting an enzyme in the liver called HMG-CoA reductase. This enzyme is central to how your body makes cholesterol. Block the enzyme, you cut cholesterol production, especially LDL, the so-called "bad" cholesterol.
Common ones you've heard of include Lipitor (atorvastatin), Zocor (simvastatin), Crestor (rosuvastatin), and Pravachol (pravastatin).
Around 35 to 40 million Americans are on statins. That's at least 10% of the population, roughly 60% men and 40% women. One or two out of every ten people you walk past are on this stuff.
The side effects nobody loves
Most common side effects include muscle pain, digestive problems, and increased risk of diabetes.
Read that last one again. Statins lower cholesterol to reduce your heart disease risk, but they raise your risk of diabetes, which is itself a major risk factor for heart disease. Counterintuitive, right?
How statins crush your testosterone
Here's the part most doctors won't mention.
Cholesterol is the precursor for every steroid hormone in your body, including testosterone. By cutting cholesterol synthesis, statins reduce the raw material your body uses to make testosterone.
Testosterone is produced primarily in the Leydig cells of the testes. Those cells need cholesterol to do their job. Less cholesterol available, less testosterone produced.
Statins also affect liver function, which plays a role in how testosterone gets metabolized. And they can influence sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). When SHBG goes up, your free testosterone goes down. Free testosterone is what gives you the benefits you actually want, like sex drive, muscle, energy, and cardiovascular function.
The LDL story is incomplete
Here's where it gets interesting. Standard cholesterol panels measure LDL-C, which is the cholesterol content inside LDL particles. Not the number of particles.
The marker you really want is ApoB. Each LDL particle contains one ApoB molecule, so ApoB tells you how many particles are floating around. That's what actually drives plaque.
Someone can have a few large LDL particles and a high LDL-C reading, but a normal ApoB. Another person can have a ton of small dense LDL particles, a normal LDL-C, and a high ApoB. The second person is in real trouble.
Statins reduce the cholesterol content inside the particles more than they reduce particle number. So your LDL-C drops, your doctor smiles, and your ApoB might still be a problem.
Can statins make heart disease worse?
If statins suppress testosterone, and testosterone protects cardiovascular health, then yes, I'd argue statins can make things worse over time.
Look at what testosterone does for your heart.
Muscle strength and exercise capacity. Low testosterone, less physical activity, more cardiovascular risk.
Fat distribution. Low testosterone is linked to increased visceral fat, the dangerous fat around your organs that drives heart disease.
Insulin sensitivity. Low testosterone makes you insulin resistant. Insulin resistance leads to type 2 diabetes, which is a massive heart disease risk factor.
Endothelial function. Testosterone supports the inner lining of your blood vessels. Impaired endothelial function is the foundation of atherosclerosis.
So you take a statin. Cholesterol comes down. But your testosterone tanks, your visceral fat goes up, your insulin sensitivity drops, and your activity level falls because your muscles ache and your energy is gone. Did you really win?
Testosterone as an alternative angle
I'm not telling anyone to swap a statin for testosterone. That's a conversation with a doctor who actually understands hormones. But the data on TRT and cardiovascular markers is worth knowing.
Some studies show TRT can lower total cholesterol and LDL while raising HDL. Testosterone has anti-inflammatory effects, and chronic inflammation drives atherosclerosis.
TRT can improve insulin sensitivity, reduce visceral fat, and increase lean muscle. It supports endothelial function and blood pressure regulation. Plus you get better energy, mood, and physical performance, which means you actually move your body.
Compare that to statins, where you get muscle soreness, low energy, and a higher risk of diabetes.
My take
If you're on a statin, at least know what you're signing up for. You're lowering one number on a lab while potentially driving down testosterone, raising diabetes risk, and losing the cardiovascular benefits that come with healthy hormones.
I'd argue the LDL-C number you're chasing isn't even the right marker. Get an ApoB test. Look at your visceral fat, your insulin sensitivity, your testosterone, your inflammation. That's a better picture of your actual heart disease risk.
If you know someone on a statin, send them this. Have the conversation. Then let them make an informed decision instead of just refilling the script.
Full transcript click any paragraph to jump video
Hey everybody, this is Hunter Williams. I hope you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world today. Today's video is gonna be statins and your testosterone. So I was looking over a few different people's blood work recently and I noticed something that they were in really, really good cholesterol range but everything else was off and asked them if they're on the statin. And they said yes. so today I want to kind of talk about what statens do to your testosterone levels and how in long run you actually probably harming yourself more because of what statins do specifically to your testosterone.
There's a lot of other reasons, but today I want to focus on the connection between statin medications and your testosterone and why in the long run you are probably causing yourself more cardiovascular damage from using statines than you're preventing it. So I know that it's not a popular opinion. I'm not doctor. A lot people will probably want criticize me and all that stuff, but today I'm just giving you information. Take with it what you take for it, what will. I am not trying to tell you what to do. But today, I just want to at least show you how statins affect your testosterone levels, and what mechanisms they act on in the body that are going to
eventually suppress your testosterone levels. Obviously, i'm not a doctor or a chemist or anything like that, But I do know that these medications are harmful. And as we're going talk about, there's a lot more people on them than you think. Today is going to be all about statins and what they do to your testosterone levels, which will eventually probably in some way or another affect your cardiovascular health. So before jumping into everything, thank you guys so much for coming to the channel. Lately, there is so many people that have been subscribing and stuff. The biggest compliment or form of flattery you can leave me is to like comments.
share and subscribe. And if you know someone on statins, that would be huge if could send them this video just to make sure that they're doing an informed decision. I'm not telling you what to do, but at least know what you're going to take these medications. We're gonna talk about some alternatives that may be a lot better for people than using statin to lower cholesterol. That's what we're going to be talking about, but if you want to check out my peptide cheat sheet, which there are peptides that definitely will help you with your cholesterol levels much better than statins will, download that. You can click the link down below to get that, then if want come into the private membership community I work in with Jay Campbell,
that's called Fully Optimized Health. The link for that will be down below as well. If you want to check out my courses, the link to that would be below. And if you the discount codes to Limitless Life Neutropics and Amino Asylum, those will down bellow. So again, my heart overflows with gratitude that I have the opportunity and privilege to get to bring these messages to you and work with people on a client basis to kind of help them with their health and optimization. It really is a dream come true for me. Again, thank you guys so much. Really means a lot and I truly, truly mean that. Without further ado, let's hop into the slides and I am going to talk about statins and your testosterone levels.
So what do statins actually do? So before we jump into it, let's just look at an overall view of statin. So statines are a class of medications that are widely used to lower cholesterol levels, because obviously a lot of people struggle with high cholesterol, I'll say. They are primarily prescribed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, which is heart attacks and strokes, and those are also still the number one killer of in the first world today. So, statins work by inhibiting an enzyme in a liver called HMG-CoA reductase.
This enzyme is a key player in body's processes of synthesizing cholesterol and by blocking this enzyme, the statin effectively reduces the production of cholesterol, particularly low-density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDLC, and this is often referred to as our bad cholesterol. There are several types of statins available, including Atorvastatin, which is Lipitor, a very, very famous one, Simvostatin which Zocor, Razuvastatin which Crestor is another very popular one. Pravistatin is Pravatrol, Lovastaten which Mavacor and Fluvestatin less called and Pitavat.
Pitavastatin, which is Livolo. So each has slightly different properties and potencies, but for more or less, these are the more popular ones that are prescribed to Americans and people all over the world. What do they do? They are supposed to reduce cardiovascular risk by lowering LDL levels. This is going to help, in theory, reduce the buildup of cholesterol plaques in the arteries, Which causes atherosclerosis, and this decreases the risk of blockages. They can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Some statins also modestly raise HDL cholesterol, which is the good cholesterol and lower triglycerides.
Statins also have what are known as pleiotropic effects, which include improving endothelial function, stabilizing atherosclerotic plaque, reducing inflammation, and potentially lowering the risk of thrombosis. Statens are often prescribed for patients with high cholesterol, particularly those with a history of cardiovascular diseases or those at high risk for such events, including individuals with diabetes, hypertension, or a family history heart disease. So, so far so good, right? They sound like really, really good things that are going to help keep us well.
Here's where the side effects come in. So while statins are generally well tolerated, they can have side affects in some individuals. Most common side-effects include muscle pain, increased risk of diabetes, and digestive problems. It's funny enough that diabetes is like your number one risk after a heart disease, technically lowering your cholesterol, but then you're increasing your risk of the thing that is the number one risk, of heart disease. Seems counterintuitive, does it not? They also cause digestive problems. In rare cases, they can cause more serious muscle damage or liver problems Patients taking statins typically undergo regular blood tests to monitor their
liver function and cholesterol levels, ensuring the effectiveness of the drug and identifying any potential adverse effects. Then we have lifestyle considerations. So alongside statin therapy, healthcare providers usually recommend lifestyle changes such as a heart healthy diet, regular exercise, and stopping smoking to maximize cardiovascular health. Now, how many Americans are on statens? About 35 to 40 million. So that is at least 10% of the population, probably closer to like 12 or 13% percent of population.
And of that, it's thought to be about 60% men and 40% women, obviously, because men probably suffer from heart disease at much relatively higher incidences than women do, or atleast they tend to suffer form the side effects of heart diseases more. So this is not something that just a few people are on. We're talking somewhere between 10 to 15% of the population. So like one to two in 10 people walking around are using these medications. And that might not sound like a big deal, but we're going to talk about why it's so important.
So here's the dark side of statins in your testosterone levels. So let's look at cholesterol and steroid hormone synthesis. Cholesterol is a key precursor in the synthesis of steroidal hormones, including testosterone. Statins work by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, which we talked about, and plays a central role in body's production of cholesterol. By reducing the overall cholesterol synthesis, statin may indirectly affect the availability of the cholesterol for, you guessed it, testosterone synthesis We also have the impact on the lytic cells.
So testosterone is primarily produced in the testes latic cells, so these cells require cholesterol to synthesize testosterone. By reducing the body's cholesterol production, statins might limit the cholesterol available to the latex cells in testis, potentially impact during testosterone synthesis. Not good. Now let's look at liver function. So the liver plays a key role in regulating hormone levels, including testosterone. Now statins alter liver functions to some extent by changing how it processes lipids. This alteration might indirectly influence metabolism of testosterone, although this is a less direct mechanism compared to the impact on cholesterol synthesis.
We also have hormone-binding globulin levels. So statins might influence the level of sex hormone binding globilin, which is a protein that binds to sex hormones, including testosterone in the bloodstream. Changes in SHBG levels can affect the amount of free active testosterone available in a body. Let me just stop right there for a second and kind of look at that. Statins influence SHPG. So if we increase SHBG, we're going to reduce free testosterone in the body. Free testosterone is what we typically think of as the, it will confer the benefits of everything we think from testosterone like sex drive,
like muscle mass, improved cardiovascular function and all those things. So we don't want to increase the amount of SH BG typically in body and that's what statins do. So, does cholesterol really improve in statins? So let's look at this. Let's break this down. Statins primarily work by inhibiting the enzyme that we talked about, HMG-CoA reductase. So this enzyme is crucial for the synthesis of cholesterol. Now, by prohibiting it, statin effectively reduce the overall production of the cholesterol in the body.
This reduction primarily affects the total cholesterol content in bloodstream, including cholesterol with LDL particles known as LDLC. Now, since statins reduce the liver's production of cholesterol, they lead to a significant decrease in LDL. Makes sense, right? So LDl is a measure of the amount of Cholesterol contained within all the LD l particles. When the Liver produces less cholesterol the cholesterol content in the particle decreases, which is reflected as lower LDLC levels and blood tests. So all of this is like, okay, like that makes sense.
Right? You take it decreases cholesterol and now LD L gets lowered, Right. Let's look at this. So there's this thing called apob, apolipoprotein B. Each LDL particle contains one molecule of apoby. Apoby is a structural protein that is essential for the formation and stability of LDl particles. While statins do reduce the overall number of LDO particles and thus APOB molecules, the effect on APO-B levels might not be proportional to the reduction in LDLC levels.
This is because statins mainly influence the cholesterol content within these particles, not necessarily the number of particles themselves. So when we have that, we're going to have individual response to extent to which statin reduce LDL-C and APo-b can vary between individuals. Some people might experience a significant drop in LDLC and Apo- B levels, while others might see a more pronounced effect on LDLC with a less dramatic reduction in ApoB. So this is going to be widely influenced from a variety of things, genetic factors, the specific stat in the dosage, and different metabolisms.
So I'm gonna try to explain this like as simple as possible, because I know this is getting kind of high level, but traditional cholesterol markers like LDLC measure the cholesterol content within LDL particles. Not the number. So it's the content, not the numbers. Someone might have a high LDRC due to a few large LDl particles, which would result in a high LDLC reading on a blood test, but potentially a normal APO-B level. Conversely, a person could have a higher number of small LDL particles leading to a High APo-b level, which is more dangerous,
But a Normal low or low LDlc level So we want to look at APob when we're looking at bad cholesterol, not LD lc. So the whole idea that like LD L is a total measure and a good indicator of our cholesterol health is actually like an incomplete part of the picture. Then we have HDL functionality versus quantity. So a high HD... cholesterol, which is considered a good one which we want that number to be high, is generally seen as protective. However, the functionality of HDL particles which isn't measured by standard lipid test is also important.
So it's possible to have a high HDl but reduced production of function of these particles, Which could mask underlying risk not reflected in APO-B levels. Not only are we looking at like we wanna know the APo-b, but it not gonna give us a full function or a whole picture of like what's going on with the HD-L. So again, LDL could be kind of misleading because we want to look at ApoB, which is going to be much more indicative of our cholesterol health. So, can statins actually make heart disease worse?
So if we think of statins as lowering our cholesterol, is that going to impair testosterone production to actually make heart disease worse? Well, let's look at it. So cholesterol is a crucial precursor for all steroid hormones, including testosterone. Statins reduce cholesterol synthesis in the liver by inhibiting the enzyme that we're talking about, HMG-CLA reductase. If statin therapy significantly reduces cholesterol levels, it could impact the substrate availability for synthesizing testosterone,
So let's look at testosterone's role in cardiovascular health. So testosterone has several roles that potentially influence cardiovascular help. It affects muscle strength, fat distribution, insulin sensitivity, and endothelial function. Lower testosterone levels have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Although we're still exploring this. Look no further than the correlation between low testosterone and heart disease, it's a very strong correlation. So testosterone plays a role in maintaining muscle strength and exercise capacity, so lower levels will lead to reduced physical activity,
which is a risk factor for heart disease. Then we've got fat distribution. So, testosterone influences fat distributed in the body. Low testosterone levels are associated with increased visceral fat, which we know is going to give you cardiovascular disease. So while it's hard to say if cholesterol is directly gonna cause heart attacks, there's a strong correlation there, we do know that being fat will cause a heart disease, well, if you have optimized testosterone levels, what are your chances of being a fat? A lot less, I will say.
which leads me to insulin sensitivity. So testosterone affects insulin's sensitivity, reduced insulin, sensitivity can lead to type two diabetes, which again, back to the beginning, another risk factor for heart disease. Taking stat and we're going to increase our risk for type 2 diabetes. Why would we not look to testosterone levels, Which can decrease our risks of type-2 diabetes which is going help us stave off or protect ourselves from heart diseases. Then endothelial function. Well, don't statins help with endoethelio function? Maybe, but we do know that testosterone has effects on the endithelium, the inner lining of blood vessels.
Impaired endotheal function is a key factor in the development of atherosclerosis. So let's look at statins, testosterone and heart disease. If statin lowers testosterone significantly, they could, and I would argue do, exacerbate heart diseases through the mechanisms influenced by testosterone. So when we reduce physical activity, we have unfavorable fat distribution, We decrease our insulin sensitivity and impair endothelial function. This is going to increase cardiovascular risk. so if statines do all of those things, Wouldn't you think if we improve cholesterol, but all of that other stuff goes out the window,
that that's going to increase our risk of heart disease? I would argue yes. So, is testosterone an alternative solution to statins? Testosterone does influence lipid metallism. Some studies have shown that TRT can decrease total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels, which is what statin are supposed to do, while increasing HDL Cholesterol. Also, reduction in inflammation. Chronic inflammation is a risk factor for atherosclerosis or heart disease. Testosterone has been reserved to have anti-inflammatory effects, which might benefit cardiovascular health.
Then we have insulin sensitivity. Low testosterone levels are associated with insulin resistance. low testosterone means your chance of insulin resistant goes through the roof. This is the risk factors for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, Which are conditions that increase the risks of cardiovascular disease TRT could potentially improve insulin sensitivities, thereby reducing these risks. We've also got body composition. You know, everyone wants to talk about cholesterol. Well, how much body fat are we looking at? Is anybody talking about that? testosterone plays a role in regulating muscle mass and fat distribution.
testosterone replacement can lead to increased lean muscle and decreased fat mass, particularly decreased in visceral fat, which is the dangerous fat which has a link to increase cardiovascular risk. Then we have improved endothelial function. Testosterone has beneficial effects on the endithelium, which is the lining of the blood vessels which plays a role in vascular health and blood pressure regulation. So not only are we getting better cholesterol, but we're getting blood blood-pressure. Then, we psychological and physical wellbeing. Improved energy levels, physical performance, and mood have been obviously associated with testosterone impairment replacement.
These changes can lead to increased physical activity, a better overall lifestyle, indirectly benefiting heart health. Contrast that with statins. What are we getting from those? We're getting muscle soreness, reduced energy, all those things that are going to keep us from being healthy because we're not going have the energy to even go exercise or be active, which is more important to the prevention of heart disease. So that is the full shakedown on statin and testosterone. I feel like that's a pretty good case for not taking statines. And again, I'm not your doctor. Not here to tell you what to do. If you're taking status, at least be aware of this.
You know, they're so prevalent. Everyone knows someone in their family that's probably taking them. So if you think this would be helpful to them, let them know and let him know to get off of them ASAP. You now, that is my opinion, to off them asap because of how dangerous they are. But that, you know the full shakedown on everything that I could put together on statins and testosterone. Hopefully it was helpful. I know I got a little aggressive, but when I talk about this stuff, it's just mind blowing to me like how many people can be brainwashed by stuff that could just easily be So access if you were just to open your mind a little bit.
So again, if found this video helpful, like, comment, subscribe, share it with someone else. Share it someone that you probably know in your life that has statins and just say, hey, did you know about this with statin and testosterone? Because I think this is very important to get information out there. I appreciate you guys much love sign up for the peptide cheat sheet if you want to join the email newsletter and get access to how to use peptides at least as much as can be condensed down into one sheet and All the other links will be down in the description below and that was always feel free to reach out to me if You have questions appreciate, you, guys, much, love and i will talk to you next time peace
