Are you concerned about how your marijuana use is influencing your T levels? Long and short of it: It’s challenging. Due to the limited and inconsistent studies, the verdict is still out. However, this is what we do know: Healthy men without clinically low T who had used marijuana at some point in the previous five years were the focus of a 2018 study published in Andrology.
Researchers discovered that healthy men who had smoked during the previous 30 days had higher serum testosterone levels than those who hadn’t used alcohol in a while. Similar findings from a different study—that marijuana usage was linked to modest increases in testosterone—were reported in the International Journal of Urology in 2020.
You no longer have to start the habit if you don’t currently use cannabis. It is important to note that even the levels that weren’t elevated were clinically healthy, according to Jonathon Lisano, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate at the University of Colorado Boulder who investigates how cannabis affects one’s health and physical activity.
It’s reassuring to know that cannabis is probably not hurting your stats if you occasionally drink, though. But, it’s interesting to note that there was a cutoff for usage in the Andrology study: healthy men who smoked just 1 to 3 times per month had the greatest T levels compared to those who smoked close to daily (25-30 times per month) as well as those who smoked very infrequently.
Additional research, conducted so far exclusively on animals, also points to the likelihood that daily cannabis use has no beneficial impact on T levels. The 2022 study on monkeys found that persistent, daily THC exposure decreased testicular growth and blood testosterone levels.
The findings were reported in Fertility and Sterility (free T). According to Lisano, these findings are intriguing but not entirely applicable to humans. Be cautious of the method in which you are taking your doses if you have concerns regarding sexual function and fertility when using cannabis.
The Men’s Clinic at UCLA’s Rajiv Jayadevan, MD, assistant clinical professor of urology and expert on male infertility, states that in his professional view, “Smoking something frequently can’t be healthy for something like sperm production given the carcinogens and chemicals that come from smoke.”
Cannabis didn’t appear to have any significant effects, according to other research, including a study Lisano co-authored in 2019 that was published in The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. When compared to active men who did not consume cannabis, active men who used it on a weekly basis for at least six months had similar levels of testosterone in their blood.
