Paleo-fertility Question I Haven't Been Able To Answer

[sarena kopciel]

Awesome news Steve!! Best of luck to you and the missu s....

[Steve Liberati]

Thanks Sarena. Speaking of babies, you have a beautiful one there in your avatar!

[sarena kopciel]

Thanks Steve, she was 29 days there and they flew back to Jerusalem with her 2 days ago. I am sad.....but it's time for them to start their lives as a family independently now. The whole experience with the homebirth was awesome!!

Oh and btw, I also experienced infertility when I was first trying. It took me 4 years of trying til I had my first (which included a miscarriage during that time too). Its frustrating when you want something so badly and it doesnt happen easily. I do acupuncture to be helpful for me though!

[Greg Davis]

Steve, thanks for sharing. Excuse my ignorance, but does low sperm count directly correlate with low testosterone or are they independent?

[Garrett Smith]

Steve,
Thanks for sharing. I believe that is another example of too much metcon being counterproductive and detrimental to one of the most obvious markers of health in men--fertility.

I would guess that the amino supplement was of little help, as I'm sure you eat enough protein in general. Changing from briefs to boxers could have been helpful, maybe not.

Long metcons also really raise body temperature, particularly in a crucial area when done wearing briefs, which can be destructive to sperm (like hot tubs). The shift from more metcon to more strength training likely helped in many ways.

As Sarena has said, acupuncture can be very helpful for infertility and a heck of a lot cheaper than conventional fertility treatments. I had some friends who dropped $50K on fertility treatments, when the simple problem was that the woman was in massive adrenal fatigue (but what do I know?). At one point, she had been drinking a pot of coffee a day (or more) and even keeping a cold cup of coffee by her bedside to drink in the middle of the night--she could drink it and fall right asleep! She never fixed that issue, hence the doctors couldn't figure out why her body would "attack" the fertilized eggs they tried to implant--the simple fact was her body knew that carrying a baby was a risky proposition at best. I believe the baby was born preterm at 2 or 3 pounds.

What worked for Cori and I was trying as much as we could days 10-16 of her cycle. I also changed from briefs to boxers during that period. First month of that, boom, good to go. I haven't done a whole lot of metcon in my training for a while. So, two black boxes potentially showing the effects of metcon on fertility.

Chronic high-intensity GPP may be lowering testosterone and burning out the adrenals, hence the high cholesterol (the body's best effort to raise hormone levels) that is being seen in many folks who are following programs like these.

[John Alston]

For us males not into making babies right now, Greg's question is more relevant. Isn't it just heat that hurts the spermatogenesis at the heart of the boxers/briefs issue?

I remember when the word on boxers vs briefs seemed to pass around high school. Dudes talking about boxers, high sperm counts, etc. The studies never mentioned anything about T.
I wondered why they were so interesed in upping the sperm count. Last thing I wanted in high school was to put a bun in my girl's oven.

[Garrett Smith]

John,
I do believe the sperm connection to boxers/briefs is simply one of temperature, like hot-tubs.

[Craig Loizides]

I thought this was an interesting article testosterone, running, and gender of offspring.

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0076.htm

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Craig Loizides

I thought this was an interesting article testosterone, running, and gender of offspring.

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0076.htm

If distance running lowers testosterone levels perhaps it could be used as a means of reducing the risk of prostate cancer in those with a family history of the conditition.

[Robb Wolf]

Greg-
That is pretty much the lights out thought: Insulin resistance will increase in summer/fall, this will decrease sex hormone binding globulin, making more androgen's available...increasing fertility. I think it's easy to overdo this otherwise transitional state!

Originally Posted by Greg Davis

Here's a fertility question I've had posed to me that I'm a bit stuck on:

something along lines of:
"As our fertility mechanisms must be based around being more fertile when more resources are available, it must be that as insulin sensitivity increases, one becomes less fertile. For a female this would mean less likely to get pregnant if insulin sensitivity is high. For a male, does this mean testosterone goes lower?"

Wouldn't relatively higher insulin resistance in the fall raise testosterone in males as a signal to "get it on" and have spring babies? A bit inspired by stuff in Lights Out here..

What I'm getting at here is I'm not sure how to logically defend having high insulin sensitivity year-round when thinking about hormones and our evolutionary past.