How to Lower SHBG Levels to Boost T

Unleash Your Natural Testosterone

Some of your natural testosterone is bound up in your body, maybe a lot, unable to be used. Here’s how to free it up.


When you get your testosterone blood test back, one of the numbers is for total T. And you probably feel pretty good seeing a high number. But having high total testosterone is like having a thousand bucks in your pocket and feeling rich when most of it’s just Monopoly money.

Total testosterone levels have almost no value in helping us evaluate how much male hormone someone has. What matters is “free” and “bioavailable” testosterone. Those things are determined by how much testosterone is bound up by SHBG (sex hormone binding globulin) and serum albumin. These proteins roam around your circulatory system, kidnapping lone testosterone molecules and chemically restraining them.

Of the two, SHBG is much more problematic. SHBG can really be kind of dickish about holding your T levels hostage, so much so that Dr. Abraham Morgentaler calls it the “joker in the deck” when evaluating a patient’s T levels.

You could have high total testosterone because of your genetic predisposition, supplements, or because you’re getting replacement therapy. However, you might still be experiencing low testosterone symptoms because of that joker, SHBG.

That’s why you need to know how to make SHBG-lowering adaptations to your diet or lifestyle or, alternately, what chemical SWAT teams you can send in to rescue testosterone and set it free.

How Much T Does SHBG Bind Up?

When you’re a kid, levels of SHBG are pretty low, but when you hit puberty, they decrease further so there’s plenty of free testosterone available to grow your muscles and assorted manly parts.

These levels stay pretty much the same – at least they’re supposed to – until old age when SHBG levels increase and tie up even more of the aging body’s rapidly depleting testosterone levels.

But even young men in their prime have a lot of testosterone tied up and not available to do the things testosterone is supposed to do. SHBG typically binds up anywhere from 40 to 70% of a young man’s testosterone, but you could have higher-than-normal amounts of SHBG.

That means that while you might have a total testosterone blood level of 1000 ng/dl, your free testosterone might be a measly 15 ng/dl, which most doctors still consider to be in the normal range. However, a level that low puts men at a high risk of every age-related disease and makes it hard to put on muscle. Even sexual energy is sapped.

As a reference point, here are some age-matched “normal” free testosterone ranges:

  • 20-25 years old: 5.25 to 20.7 ng/dl
  • 30-35 years old: 4.85 to 19.0 ng/dl
  • 50-55 years old: 4.06 to 15.6 ng/dl

In my experience, though, men should try to maintain levels anywhere from a minimum of 20 ng/dl up to around 30, regardless of age. Part of the way we can do that is to lower SHBG.

To do that, you might have to increase test levels (naturally or through replacement therapy) to overwhelm your supply of SHBG. Or, work to keep SHBG levels on the low side of normal physiological levels, which is between 10 and 57 nanomoles of SHBG per liter of blood.

Are My SHBG Levels Too High?

The symptoms of overly high SHBG are almost the same as the symptoms of low testosterone:

  • Lack of energy
  • Depression
  • General lack of joy
  • Low or reduced sex drive
  • Small testicles
  • Inability to put on muscle or lose fat
  • Sperm with no mojo
  • Male breasts
  • Lack of body hair

High SHBG has far more serious health implications, though. It’s also linked to prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s.

What Causes High SHBG Levels?

There are at least a couple of gene mutations that cause increased amounts of SHBG, which usually manifest themselves in the form of low sperm count or lousy sperm in general, but those are things you wouldn’t normally be able to discern unless you were specifically chasing the causes of your infertility.

Other, more likely things known to increase SHBG levels include:

  • Alcohol: Drinking affects SHBG levels big-time, so much so that one study proposed that rapid rises in SHBG levels be regarded as a marker for alcoholism.
  • Exercise: Weight training increases SHBG, but only temporarily. Training a lot without proper rest or nutrition (overtraining), though, causes a perpetual and probably detrimental rise in the binding protein.
  • Various other hormonal imbalances: High thyroid and high estrogen can cause high SHBG levels, as can low growth hormone levels.
  • Advancing Age: The older you get, the more SHBG you have to contend with.
  • Smoking, stress, malnutrition, and excess fructose intake.

What Can I Do to Lower SHBG Levels?

Plenty of things will reduce levels of SHBG. You could, for instance, just have a high-carb meal. Insulin blocks SHBG.

Similarly, you could rub one out, as orgasms dull SHBG levels, but this remedy and the previous one are just temporary.

For longer-lasting results, ones that might lead to actual changes in how you feel or how easily you put on muscle or lose fat, you need to adopt permanent lifestyle changes or start taking various supplements.

Most of you are already following a high-protein diet, so that’s a big first step. You also need to make sure you’re doing all the things you’re supposed to do to build a healthy body in general, like getting enough sleep, eating the right foods, and not getting so stressed out.

Assuming you’re already doing all that, there are various supplements shown in studies to reduce SHBG:

Making specific dosage recommendations is hard because SHBG levels and causes are highly individual and multifactorial. Following the general label instructions on the fish oil and eurycoma is a viable approach, though. As far as the ZMA, vitamin D, boron, and calcium, it depends largely on whether you’re deficient in any of them or not.

Obviously, if you’re deficient, you need to at least get up to RDA-snuff by following the label recommendations. If you’re not deficient in them, consider taking an extra capsule or tablet of each of the vitamins or minerals for their specific, “drug-like” effect of combating high SHBG.

Remember, SHBG is the Joker

I’ve ignored inordinately low SHBG levels, which can cause its own problems, most of which are ones you’d typically associate with very high testosterone levels: increased muscle size, acne, baldness, increased aggression, and possibly even gynecomastia.

Reasons for low SHBG include a high testosterone level itself, high GH levels, fatty liver disease, perpetually high blood sugar levels, inflammation, and genetic mutations.

But telling someone they need to increase SBGH levels is a tough sell because most people want to decrease levels and free up all the testosterone they can, regardless of their physiological state. Still, low SHBG levels can lead to certain diseases like high blood pressure and heart disease.

You could raise levels to physiological norms, though, by eating more almonds and walnuts, cruciferous vegetables, coffee, and olive oil, in addition to doing more aerobic exercise, all of which is kind of a punch in the gut because they’re things you’re supposed to do anyhow if you want to be healthy.

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References

References

  1. Chaoyang Li et al. Association of Testosterone and Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin With Metabolic Syndrome and Insulin Resistance in Men. Diabetes Care. 2010 Jul;33(7):1618-24. PubMed.
  2. Iturriaga H et al. Effects of abstinence on sex hormone profile in alcoholic patients without liver failure. J Endocrinol Invest. 1995 Sep;18(8):638-44.
  3. Morgentaler A. Testosterone for Life: Recharge Your Vitality, Sex Drive, Muscle Mass, and Overall Health. McGraw Hill, November 17, 2008.
  4. Selby C. Sex hormone binding globulin: origin, function and clinical significance. Ann Clin Biochem. 1990 Nov;27 ( Pt 6):532-41. PubMed.
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