The Forgotten Hormone

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this video, we’re going to talk about progesterone in men. Progesterone is a precursor for testosterone and helps maintain healthy testosterone levels. Potential progesterone benefits for men include the following:

•Anti-inflammatory

•Decreases inflammation in the brain

•Increases neurogenesis

•Protects against dementia, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's

•Anti-depressant effects

•Helps increase the production of sperm

•Helps maintain muscle mass

•Supports the immune system

•Prevents the enlargement of the prostate

•Helps reduce the risk of breast tissue in men

Cholesterol is the raw material for all steroid hormones in the body. Statins block cholesterol and can inhibit your ability to make important hormones, leading to hormonal imbalance. Sardines, organ meats, fatty meat, and whole milk cheese are the best sources of cholesterol.

Cholesterol is turned into pregnenolone, a “happy” hormone that helps increase other hormones. Pregnenolone is the precursor to progesterone.

These 3 cofactors allow you to turn cholesterol into pregnenolone.

1. Magnesium

Many people are deficient in magnesium. Increasing magnesium can often solve low testosterone. Avocados, leafy greens, pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate, or magnesium glycinate supplements are good sources of magnesium.

2. Zinc

Zinc can increase testosterone levels. Shellfish, oysters, and red meat are the best sources of zinc.

3. Vitamin B3

Nutritional yeast supplements are the best source of niacin.

Chronic stress, insulin, and endocrine disruptors can interfere with the biochemical pathways that support healthy hormone balance. Alcohol also decreases testosterone.

Inflammation can negatively affect progesterone in men. Vitamin D can indirectly increase progesterone and testosterone by decreasing inflammation. You need at least 10,000 IU per day! If you have low progesterone or low testosterone, you’ll need around 20,000 IU per day.

If you want to boost testosterone, you need to consume quality protein. Grass-fed red meat is the best source. High-intensity interval training and resistance training stimulate the body to make more testosterone. Avoid overtraining!

Transcript

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0:00.0	I want to talk about progesterone, the forgotten hormone in men. We associate progesterone with
0:06.1	women problems, menopause, menstrual cycle. What is progesterone doing men? Today I'm going to talk
0:12.0	about the importance of progesterone of men, especially as it's a precursor for testosterone.
0:17.4	What's interesting about progesterone is it helps maintain normal testosterone levels.
0:22.6	Progesterone also decreases inflammation in the brain. It's an anti-inflammatory. It increases
0:28.4	neurogenesis, which is the creation of new brain cells. Progesterone definitely helps protect
0:33.9	against dementia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's. Progesterone also has antidepressant effects as well.
0:41.5	That's some of the effects that progesterone does on the brain. But when someone's younger,
0:45.8	progesterone helps increase the production of sperm. Progesterone helps also maintain muscle mass.
0:51.7	It's involved in the immune system. Progesterone also helps to maintain the
0:55.4	prostate and to prevent the enlargement of the prostate. In fact, the drug called finasteride
1:01.9	is a synthetic derivative of progesterone. One of the things that that drug, as well as progesterone does,
1:09.0	is it inhibits the enzyme that's involved in the conversion from
1:12.6	testosterone to something called dht which is a more powerful form of testosterone which can then
1:19.4	increase the size of the prostate this drug will inhibit that enzyme to help shrink the prostate
1:25.3	but progesterone does it also in a very natural way without the side
1:29.0	effects. Another thing that progesterone does is it helps reduce the risk of breath tissue in men.
1:36.9	How do we end up with low progesterone and how do we increase the normal amounts of progesterone
1:42.6	so then we can have more testosterone and other related
1:46.4	hormones all of these steroid hormones come from this raw material called cholesterol and this is
1:52.0	why cholesterol is so important especially in hormones a lot of people are on a statin drug
1:57.9	which automatically shuts off your ability to make all of these really important
	...

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