Can you raise testosterone naturally? What works, and what’s marketing.

Yes, modestly, when the reason it is low is the way you live. Losing excess weight and sleeping enough move testosterone more than anything you can buy, and most of what is sold as a “testosterone booster” moves it little or not at all. Here is what the evidence supports, in order of strength, and the point at which the right next step is a blood test rather than a bottle.

Why testosterone falls

Testosterone does drift down with age, but slowly. After 40, total testosterone falls about 0.8 to 1.6 percent a year and free testosterone about 1.7 to 2.8 percent (Feldman, Massachusetts Male Aging Study, JCEM 2002). The free fraction falls faster because the protein that binds it, sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), rises with age. On the numbers alone, most men keep normal levels into older age.

True symptomatic deficiency is less common than the advertising suggests. In the European Male Ageing Study it affected about 2 percent of men aged 40 to 79, rising from 0.1 percent of men in their forties to 5.1 percent of men in their seventies (Tajar, JCEM 2012). Much of what gets called age-related low testosterone is better described as functional: something else is suppressing it.

• Excess body fat. Low testosterone and metabolic syndrome feed each other. Low testosterone predicts metabolic syndrome, and metabolic syndrome raises the odds of later low testosterone about 2.5-fold (Rastrelli 2018).
• Short sleep. Covered below, because it is one of the two levers with real evidence.
• Heavy, regular drinking. Across 21 controlled studies and 10,199 men, chronic drinking lowered testosterone. Light drinking did not show the same effect (Santi, Andrology 2023).
• Medications. Long-term opioid use causes low testosterone in 19 to 86 percent of users, depending on the definition, and it can persist after the opioids stop (Coluzzi 2018). Long-term steroids such as prednisone are another potent cause.
• Anabolic steroids. Non-prescribed use shuts down the body’s own production, and recovery after stopping is slow and not guaranteed (scoping review 2023).
• Eating too little for the training. Endurance and weight-class athletes who under-fuel see testosterone fall. It usually recovers with more food and less load (Cupka 2023).
• Being sick. A level drawn during an acute illness can read falsely low.

That list is the reason a low number is the start of a question, not the answer to one.

What measurably raises it

Lose the excess weight. This is the strongest natural lever by a distance. A meta-analysis of 24 studies found diet-based weight loss raised total testosterone by about 2.87 nmol/L (about 83 ng/dL), and bariatric surgery raised it by about 8.73 nmol/L (about 251 ng/dL). The single best predictor of the rise was how much weight was lost (Corona, Eur J Endocrinol 2013).

Sleep seven hours or more. When ten healthy young men were held to five hours a night for one week in a sleep lab, their daytime testosterone fell 10 to 15 percent (Leproult & Van Cauter, JAMA 2011). It was a small study in young men, so the exact figure won’t transfer to everyone. The direction will.

Don’t go very low-fat. In six small crossover studies of 206 men, diets with about 20 percent of calories from fat lowered testosterone by 10 to 15 percent compared with diets around 40 percent fat, though levels stayed within the normal range (Whittaker & Wu 2021).

What about weight-loss medication? Early reports from 2025 and 2026 suggest that men with obesity who lose weight on semaglutide or tirzepatide also see testosterone rise. In one group of 234 men, 77 percent had normal total testosterone after treatment (Healio, ENDO 2025). These are retrospective conference abstracts, not trials, and the drugs are not approved to treat low testosterone. Men already on testosterone therapy who start one should have their levels rechecked.

A note on sleep apnea. Sleep apnea and low testosterone often travel together, so it is natural to assume treating one fixes the other. It doesn’t, on its own. Two meta-analyses found that CPAP did not change total or free testosterone, even after three months (Zhang, PLoS ONE 2014; Cignarelli, Front Endocrinol 2019). Excess weight appears to drive most of the link. Apnea still deserves treatment for the heart and the brain, and weight loss addresses both problems at once. Untreated severe apnea also matters in the other direction: testosterone therapy can worsen it, which is why it has to be dealt with before therapy starts.

What doesn’t

Most of the supplement aisle fails the only test that matters: placebo-controlled trials that measure testosterone. A 2024 review of 52 such studies covering 27 ingredients found most did not raise total testosterone (Morgado 2024). When researchers examined 50 “T-booster” products sold online, 90 percent claimed to raise testosterone, but only 24.8 percent of their ingredients had any supporting data, and 13 of the 50 exceeded federal upper limits for zinc, magnesium or niacin (Clemesha, World J Mens Health 2020).

Ingredient	What the trials show
Tongkat aliSome evidence	Five small trials (286 men) showed a rise, mostly in men who started low. Most used one branded extract and were of low or unclear quality.
Ashwagandha, fenugreekSome evidence	Small trials, mostly in men under 40, with varied extracts and doses.
Vitamin DNo effect	No clear rise in meta-analyses, including a 12-week trial in men who started with low testosterone and low vitamin D.
Zinc, magnesiumNo effect unless deficient	Grouped with the ingredients that mostly failed in controlled trials.
Tribulus, D-aspartic acid, macaNo effect	Mostly fail to raise total testosterone in placebo-controlled trials.
Boron, L-arginine, seleniumNo effect	Conflicting data and no reliable rise.

“Some evidence” here means small, short trials, often linked to the companies selling the extract. None of them treat true low testosterone.

A word on ashwagandha. Liver injury from it is rare, but it can be serious. A case series from Iceland and the US Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network described five cases with severe jaundice and itching (Björnsson, Liver Int 2020), and published reports include liver failure requiring transplant, thyroid overactivity and adrenal effects (JEHS review 2024). People with liver, thyroid or autoimmune disease should avoid it. If you take it, tell your physician.

Four myths, checked.

• Soy lowers testosterone in men. It doesn’t. A meta-analysis of soy protein and isoflavones found no effect on total or free testosterone at any dose or duration (Reed, Reprod Toxicol 2021).
• Intermittent fasting raises it. Not supported. In lean, active young men, intermittent fasting lowered testosterone (Cienfuegos, Nutrients 2022).
• Tight underwear lowers it. It affects sperm, not testosterone. In 656 men at a fertility center, boxer wearers had 25 percent higher sperm concentration and no difference in testosterone (Minguez-Alarcon, Hum Reprod 2018).
• Plastics are lowering everyone’s levels. The human evidence is weak and inconsistent. Reducing exposure is reasonable, but nobody should promise it will raise testosterone (Woodward, JCEM 2020).

Training and diet: what the evidence actually shows

Lifting doesn’t raise your baseline, and that’s fine. In randomized trials of four weeks or more, aerobic or resistance training did not meaningfully change resting testosterone in healthy men (PEDro record). It does something more useful: it builds and protects the muscle and bone that low testosterone erodes, and it drives the fat loss that does raise it. For the case for lifting at any age, see It’s not too late to get stronger.

Aerobic exercise helps men carrying extra weight. In seven small studies of men with obesity or type 2 diabetes, aerobic training produced a moderate rise in testosterone (Sports Medicine – Open 2024).

The best diet is the one that takes the weight off. Comparisons of ketogenic, Mediterranean and fasting approaches in men with obesity point the same way: the benefit tracks with the weight lost, not the label on the diet. Within that, keep fat intake adequate and avoid eating far below what you burn.

Watch for under-fueling. Lean men training hard on too little food are the exception to “lose weight first.” Low energy availability lowers testosterone, bone density and resting metabolic rate, and the fix is more fuel and a lighter training load, not hormones (Hackney, Front Endocrinol 2020).

When natural isn’t enough

If symptoms persist after the weight, sleep and drinking are dealt with, the next step is testing, and the order matters: diagnosis first, treatment second.

Which symptoms point to testosterone. Many of the symptoms blamed on low testosterone have other causes. In the European Male Ageing Study, only sexual symptoms (fewer morning erections, low sex drive, erectile dysfunction) tracked with testosterone levels. Fatigue, low mood, poor concentration and weight gain are real, but on their own they do not point to testosterone, and poor sleep, depression, thyroid disease and anemia produce the same list.

Who should be tested. The American Urological Association advises testing men with symptoms such as low sex drive, erectile dysfunction, fatigue or loss of muscle or bone. It also advises testing, even without symptoms, men with unexplained anemia, bone loss, diabetes, long-term opioid or steroid use, infertility, pituitary problems, or past chemotherapy or testicular radiation (AUA 2024).

How testing should work.

1. Total testosterone drawn early in the morning, then repeated on a separate day, ideally at the same lab. Both below 300 ng/dL, with symptoms, supports the diagnosis. One low result is not enough.
2. Free testosterone and SHBG when the total is borderline or weight is a factor, since excess weight lowers SHBG and with it the total.
3. LH and FSH to find the cause: high points to the testes, low or normal to the pituitary. Prolactin when LH is low or normal.
4. Glucose and HbA1c, because the metabolic link runs both ways, and PSA in men over 40 before any therapy.
5. Not during an acute illness.

Children first. Testosterone therapy in any form suppresses sperm production, often to zero within months, and recovery after stopping is variable (Urology Times 2025). If more children are possible, that conversation comes before anything is prescribed.

Where safety stands. The large TRAVERSE trial found no increase in heart attacks or strokes in men treated for confirmed low testosterone. In February 2025 the FDA removed the cardiovascular language from the boxed warning on testosterone products and added a class-wide warning that testosterone can raise blood pressure (FDA 2025). In June 2026 it asked manufacturers to remove the limitation on use for age-related low testosterone; that is a request, not yet a finished label change (HHS, June 18, 2026). Blood pressure, red cell count and the prostate still need watching, and the AUA counts lifestyle counseling as part of treatment, not a substitute for it.

A note for women

The “raise your testosterone” advice written for men does not transfer. Many women with polycystic ovary syndrome need androgens lowered, not raised, and diet and exercise programs may help (Cochrane 2019). The Endocrine Society advises against diagnosing “androgen deficiency” in healthy women, because no symptom has been shown to track with testosterone levels. Fatigue, low mood, brain fog and weight gain are often marketed as “low T in women,” and the evidence does not support testosterone for them.

The one evidence-based use is low sexual desire causing distress after menopause, with a moderate benefit at doses that keep levels in the normal female range, and a blood level does not make that diagnosis (Global Consensus Position Statement 2019). When testosterone is measured in a woman, it should be by LC-MS/MS, because standard assays are inaccurate at low levels (ADLM). No trials support testosterone-booster supplements for women.

Where that leaves you

Start with what actually moves the number. Lose the weight that is suppressing it, protect seven or more hours of sleep, keep fat in your diet, drink less, and have someone review your medication list. Spend the supplement money on food and a training plan instead.

If the symptoms that brought you here are still there afterward, especially the sexual ones, the next step is two early-morning blood draws and a physician who looks for the cause before treating the number. Sometimes the answer is testosterone. Often it is thyroid, iron, sleep or metabolic health, and finding that is worth more than a prescription that was never going to work.

You can read how we approach testosterone therapy, see what a baseline panel includes, or read our longer piece on why testosterone matters for men’s health. If weight is the driver, the Athlos Transformation Program is built around losing fat while keeping muscle.

Written by Athlos Health, Torrance, California, and medically reviewed by Christopher Traughber, M.D. This article is general education and is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment recommendation. Testosterone is a Schedule III controlled substance and is prescribed only after individual evaluation by a physician, with the full risk discussion in consultation and in writing. Every figure above is linked to its source below.