What You Eat Can Affect Sex Hormones
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What You Eat Can Affect Sex Hormones
By Laurie Barclay, MD
FROM THE WEBMD ARCHIVES
May 17, 2001 -- Watching how much and what kind of fat you eat may have an unexpected benefit, according to a report in the May issue of Metabolism. Meals low in fat may actually decrease levels of testosterone, a male sex hormone that may increase risk of prostate cancer.
"This was only a preliminary, short-term study," says researcher Madeleine J. Ball, MD, a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Tasmania in Australia. "It aims to alert other researchers to consider the short-term effects of meals on hormones."
Ball and coauthor Raymundo C. Habito studied 15 healthy men 2-6 hours after eating four different types of meals under similar conditions. All meals contained the same number of calories, but differed in type of protein and in quantity and type of fat.
After low-fat meals of tofu or lean meat, but not after meals high in animal fat, testosterone and another index of male hormone levels dropped. Adding unsaturated vegetable oil to the lean meat meal didn't change the effect on lowering male hormones.
Peter Gann, MD, ScD, an associate professor and program leader in cancer prevention at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chicago, finds the results interesting and even surprising.
"We are accustomed to thinking that the potential effects of diet on sex hormone levels are gradual and long-term," says Gann, who was not involved with the study.
Possible mechanisms that Gann suggests might allow sex hormone levels to change so quickly after meals are insulin levels rising after eating, or shifting of male hormones from one body tissue, such as fat or blood, to another.
While earlier studies did not show major differences in male hormones after eating relative to fasting, Gann says this does not rule out an effect from specific types of meals......
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20010517/what-you-eat-can-affect-sex-hormones