In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explain how to optimize hormones—particularly testosterone, estrogen, and related sex steroids—to enhance fertility and overall well-being. I discuss the sources of testosterone and estrogen and how their levels fluctuate with age in both males and females. I also cover how behaviors such as exercise, cold and heat exposure, light exposure, illness, and breathing patterns affect hormones. Additionally, I examine specific supplements and replacement therapies, highlighting important precautions to consider when adjusting hormone levels. Read the show notes for this episode at hubermanlab.com. Huberman Lab Essentials are short episodes focused on essential science and protocol takeaways from past full-length Huberman Lab episodes. Watch or listen to the full-length episode at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Huberman Lab Essentials; Hormones 00:01:15 Testosterone & Estrogen Sources & Age, Adrenals 00:03:34 Sponsor: Eight Sleep 00:05:05 Competition, Males & Testosterone; Dopamine 00:09:27 Testosterone Decreases, Expectant Fathers, Illness 00:11:30 Sleep Apnea, Testosterone, Estrogen, Cortisol, Tool: Nasal Breathing 00:15:57 Sponsor: AG1 00:17:00 Dopamine, Cortisol, Fertility, Tool: Light Viewing Behavior 00:19:31 Heat, Cold & Hormone Levels 00:21:14 Resistance & Endurance Training, Testosterone, Tool: Exercise Order 00:23:26 Estrogen, Menopause, Hormone Therapy 00:25:07 Sponsor: Function 00:26:54 Vitamins, Opioids, Supplements, Tongkat Ali, Cancer Risk 00:31:26 Luteinizing Hormone, hCG, Fadogia Agrestis, Tool: Blood Tests 00:36:00 Recap & Key Takeaways Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
Before we begin today, just want to acknowledge that if you're watching this on YouTube, yes, I have a bandage on the left side of my face. I was trying to cook something for Costello and I, and I got burned, burned myself. It was a cooking accident. I'm fine. No need to dwell on it. We can move on. But I just wanted to let you know, everybody's going to be okay. He got a great meal.
I got a burn and a great meal. Today, we're going to be talking about hormone optimization, and we're mainly going to be focusing on estrogen and testosterone and their derivatives. Now, estrogen and testosterone and their derivatives are what we call sex steroids. But I just want to emphasize that estrogen and testosterone are present in everybody. It's their ratios that determine their effects.
So today we're going to talk about how specific types of exercise, particular patterns of cold exposure, as well as particular patterns, believe it or not, of breathing can impact sex steroid hormones, both estrogen and testosterone. So one of the first things to understand if you want to optimize your hormones, is where they come from.
There are a lot of different glands in the body that produce hormones. But when we're talking about the sex steroid hormones, estrogen and testosterone, the major sources are ovaries for estrogen and the testes for testosterone, although the adrenals can also make testosterone. Now, there are also some enzymes. Enzymes are things that can change chemical composition.
And the enzymes that we're going to talk about today are the aromatases mainly. The aromatases convert testosterone into estrogen. So in a male, for instance, that has very high testosterone, some of that is going to be converted into estrogen by aromatase. The important thing to know is that prepubescent females make very little estrogen.
And when we talk about estrogen, we mainly talk about estradiol, which is the most active form of estrogen in both males and females. So prepubescent females, very low levels of estrogen. During puberty, levels of estrogen, AKA estradiol, basically skyrocket. And then across the lifespan, Estrogen is going to vary depending on the stage of the menstrual cycle.
But as one heads into menopause, which typically takes place nowadays, somewhere between age 45 and 60, levels of estrogen are going to drop. And then post-menopause levels of estrogen are very low. As well, testosterone will fluctuate across the lifespan. Testosterone is going to be relatively low pre-puberty in males. During puberty, it's going to skyrocket.
And then the current numbers are that it drops off at about a rate of 1% per year. So let's talk about other sources of these hormones. And then it will make clear what, you might want to take in order to optimize these hormones. The other glands and tissues in the body that make these hormones, testosterone and estrogen, as I mentioned briefly, are the adrenals.
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