Does magnesium glycinate raise testosterone in men who train?

The anatomy of the one trial, feature by feature, because it is the whole case for the claim

Does magnesium glycinate raise testosterone in men who train rests on one trial, and dissecting it feature by feature is the honest answer, the careful-claims flag on this page holding the register's line that no supplement may claim to raise a hormone while the dissection runs. The trial: thirty men, half tae kwon do athletes training regularly and half sedentary, were given magnesium at 10mg per kilogram of body weight daily, around 800mg for an eighty-kilogram man, for four weeks, and had total and free testosterone measured at rest and after a bout of exhaustive exercise before and after the supplementation, with the report finding higher testosterone after the four weeks, most markedly after the exhaustive bout and most in the athletes who trained. That is the whole case, and its anatomy limits it at every joint. Size: thirty men in four groups is seven or eight per group, a sample in which chance and a single outlier move a mean. Blinding and control: the design was not a blinded placebo-controlled trial, the comparison groups being untreated rather than placebo-matched, so expectation and the act of being studied are uncontrolled. Status: the men's magnesium status was not measured before or after, so whether the athletes, losing magnesium in sweat with a dose above the guidance level, were marginal and repleted rather than replete and boosted cannot be known, and the deficiency pattern, repletion restoring a shortfall's suppressed testosterone, is the likeliest reading of a result concentrated in the exercising group. Dose: 10mg per kilogram is around twice the guidance level, a dose most readers would meet the laxative effect at and none should take for a hormone. Replication: in the fifteen years since, no independent blinded trial has repeated the finding, the silence that surrounds ZMA surrounding this study too.

The other two files, the honest reading, and the question filed

Two other files sit beside the trial and neither rescues the claim. The association: a large study of older men found magnesium status associated with total and free testosterone and with the anabolic hormones generally, an observational finding in a population whose magnesium and testosterone both fall with age, illness and poor diet, so that the association is real and the direction of cause is not established, the testosterone page's three columns. The null: the independent replication of the ZMA formula gave 450mg of magnesium and 30mg of zinc daily to trained men through eight weeks of resistance training, the population the question names, and found no change in total or free testosterone, other hormones, strength or composition, the cleanest test of adding magnesium to men who train and were not short. The honest reading across the three: a genuine magnesium shortfall in a man who trains, from sweat losses on a light diet, plausibly suppresses testosterone as part of the endocrine disturbance of deficiency and repletion plausibly restores it toward his own normal, which the small trial's exercising athletes on a high dose may have shown, while a replete man who trains has nothing to restore and the trained-men trial shows nothing, and no reading gets a man above his own physiology, which is what raise means and what the register forbids, zinc's maintenance sentence being the only lawful testosterone claim and magnesium holding none. The glycinate salt is irrelevant to all of it, changing absorption and tolerance and not what the ion does, and the men-who-train list of what actually raises testosterone, sleep, body fat, training and treated deficiency, remains the honest route. The question filed: magnesium glycinate does not raise testosterone in men who train on the anatomy of the one trial that suggests it, small, unblinded, uncontrolled for status and unreplicated, with an association that cannot show direction and a null in trained men beside it, the worked example being magnesium for its own sentences with no hormone word, £19.99 for 90 days at 22p, and a testosterone worry going to a GP's morning blood test.

The verdict, one small trial and a physiology that will not go above normal

Does magnesium glycinate raise testosterone in men who train: no, the case resting on one trial of thirty men given magnesium at about twice the guidance level for four weeks without blinding, placebo matching, status measurement or replication, whose result concentrated in exercising athletes reads most plausibly as repletion of a marginal status, with an association in older men that cannot show direction and a null in trained men on a magnesium formula beside it, so that a genuine shortfall's suppressed testosterone may be restored toward a man's own normal and nothing raises it above, the register holding no testosterone claim for magnesium and the salt being irrelevant. Magnesium for its own sentences: Futuro Labs Magnesium Glycinate, bisglycinate, 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, £19.99 for 90 days at 22p a day, no hormone word on it.

What to check on the label

Questions people also ask

Does magnesium glycinate raise testosterone?

Not above a man's own normal on any evidence: the one trial suggesting a rise was small, unblinded, uncontrolled for status and unreplicated, and the honest reading is repletion of a marginal status in exercising men on a high dose, with no testosterone claim for magnesium on the register.

What did the magnesium and testosterone study in athletes actually show?

Thirty men, half athletes, took magnesium at 10mg per kilogram for four weeks and showed higher total and free testosterone, most after exhaustive exercise, in a design without blinding, placebo matching or status measurement that no independent trial has repeated in fifteen years.

Does magnesium affect testosterone in men who lift?

The independent trial in trained men, using a formula with 450mg of magnesium and 30mg of zinc through eight weeks of resistance training, found no change in total or free testosterone, other hormones, strength or composition, the cleanest test of adding magnesium to lifters who were not short.

Why does low magnesium associate with low testosterone in older men?

Because both fall with age, illness and poor diet, so a large observational study found them associated without establishing which causes which, and a genuine deficiency plausibly disturbs the endocrine picture in a way repletion restores toward normal.

What actually raises testosterone in men who train?

Sleep restored after restriction, losing body fat in men with obesity, consistent resistance training and treating a genuine zinc or vitamin D deficiency, each restoring or supporting a man's own normal, with diagnosed hypogonadism treated by an endocrinologist after a morning blood test.

Sources

1. Cinar V, et al. Effects of magnesium supplementation on testosterone levels of athletes and sedentary subjects at rest and after exhaustion. Biological Trace Element Research 2011;140(1):18-23: four weeks of magnesium at 10mg per kilogram in thirty men reported higher total and free testosterone, especially after exhaustive exercise, in a small unblinded study without status measurement, not replicated. PubMed record
2. Maggio M, et al. Magnesium and anabolic hormones in older men. International Journal of Andrology 2011: an observational association between serum magnesium and testosterone and IGF-1 in older men, not a trial of supplementation. PubMed record
3. Wilborn CD, et al. Effects of zinc magnesium aspartate (ZMA) supplementation on training adaptations and markers of anabolism and catabolism. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2004;1(2):12-20. PubMed record
4. The lifestyle and testosterone literature: sleep restriction lowers testosterone in healthy young men within a week, weight loss raises it in men with obesity, resistance training raises it acutely and supports it chronically, and treating a genuine deficiency of zinc or vitamin D restores it, while no supplement raises it above a man's own normal. PubMed record

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