Essentials: Tools for Hormone Optimization in Males | Dr. Kyle Gillett

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. And now, for my discussion with Doctor. Kyle Gillette. Doctor. Gillette, great to have you back. Great to be back. Thank you. I'd like to begin with a question about what all males ought to do in order to optimize their hormones. What should they be doing? What should they avoid doing if the goal is to have a long arc of healthy hormone optimization throughout the lifespan? There's many things that you should do. An analogy that I often make is when there's a brand new car that comes off the assembly line, you do a full scope of diagnostic workup, hook it up to the computer. And I think we should do the same thing with humans as well. During puberty, you know, obviously you're a functioning human, but I would say there's still development. And I think that the human always develops. I don't think development ever ends, but you want to monitor that progress across a person's lifespan. What do you think are the key things to look for in blood work? I mean, testosterone is always the topic that comes up in the context of male hormone optimization, but, certainly, there are a lot of other hormones that are important as well. Mhmm. And with testosterone, you want to get either testosterone and SHBG or a free testosterone. Could you define SHBG for our listeners, please? It is sex hormone binding globulin. It is the protein that binds up all androgens and estrogen in the body. So the stronger the androgen, the stronger it binds. During puberty, strong androgens, especially DHT, which is the strongest bioidentical androgen, has a huge role, a prominent role in secondary sexual characteristics. And if your SHBG is very high, then your DHT can run higher because it's not metabolized, but there's not quite as much free DHT. So, you want to balance between, a high enough free DHT and a high enough total DHT. So, assuming that there's no major intervention, how often do you recommend that people get their blood work done? Using shared decision making with their physician, usually a good follow-up is about six months. So, on a daily basis, maybe you could just take us through the arc of a day and push out some of the protocols that you use or the things that you like to see your male patients use in order to try and optimize their hormone status. I'll briefly touch on some of the lifestyle pillars to start. Diet and exercise are the first two. In puberty, sleep is particularly important, of course. But with diet and exercise, throughout a lifespan, you want to not exclude things that are helping you. For example, during puberty, if you're consuming …