![\"News](\"https:\/\/media.healthday.com\/Images\/icimages\/67073.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
WEDNESDAY, July 15, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Images of burly cavemen bringing home meat may have men thinking that steaks and burgers are key to masculinity.<\/p>\n
It’s just not true: New research shows that testosterone levels in men who eat vegetable-heavy diets are similar to those in men who wolf down meat.<\/p>\n
“We found that a plant-based diet<\/a> was associated with normal testosterone levels, levels that are the same as occur in men who eat a traditional diet<\/a> that includes more meat,” said study co-author Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, director of reproductive urology at the University of Miami Health System.<\/p>\n “The old idea that men needed to consume a traditional diet<\/a> with plenty of meat to have a healthy testosterone level was based on pure conjecture, not based on evidence,” he said in a university news release.<\/p>\n Ramasamy and his colleagues analyzed federal survey data from 191 men, ages 18 to 75. That data included both blood testosterone levels and details of each man’s diet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Unlike most previous studies, the researchers said they distinguished between healthy and unhealthy plant-based diets.<\/p>\n “You can eat a lot of soda, chips and juice, which are plant foods but aren’t healthy foods,” said study co-author Manish Kuchakulla, a medical student at Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.<\/p>\n Testosterone levels below 300 nanograms per deciliter were considered a deficiency, as per American Urological Association guidelines.<\/p>\n According to the findings, the participants’ diets ended up having little effect on testosterone levels.<\/p>\n “Whether a man ate a traditional diet with lots of animal foods, a healthy plant-based diet, or a less healthy plant-based diet simply did not matter. We found no differences,” Kuchakulla said in the release.<\/p>\n Plant-based diets reduce the risks of many health problems, including high blood pressure<\/a>, heart disease<\/a>, heart attack<\/a>, stroke<\/a>, and many cancers<\/a>, the researchers noted.<\/p>\n Research has also found that plant-based diets carry a much smaller carbon footprint compared to diets with meat, helping to reduce global warming.<\/p>\n The findings were published recently in the World Journal of Urology<\/i>.<\/p>\n — Robert Preidt<\/p>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
Copyright \u00a9 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/quiz\/low-testosterone\/low-testosterone-s1.jpg\"\/)