#250 Icing Testicles for Testosterone, Why High Serotonin Is Bad, and More - Lucas Aoun from Ergogenic Health

Lucas Aoun (0:00)

I thought, hmm, there's definitely something to this, because I was obviously waking up with better morning wood, and noticing more energy, and things like that. So, yeah, man, then I sort of did blood work before and after 12 weeks, and I managed to get my testosterone all the way up to 988

Siim Land (0:16)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. I'm your host, Siim Land, and today our guest is Lucas Aoun from Australia. Lucas has studied exercise science and naturopathy, and is into many different biohacks. He runs his website at ergogenic.health where he discusses his experiments and shares the latest studies on health, steep hormone optimization and longevity. This episode is brought to you by Kaatsu Training. Kaatsu Bands incorporate blood flow moderation training that trick the body into thinking that it's lifting heavier weights than it actually is. When traditional weightlifting requires you to reach 70 to 80% of your one repetition maximum to stimulate muscle hypertrophy, then Kaatsu Bands achieve that effect only at 20 to 30%.

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Lucas, welcome to the show.

Lucas Aoun (1:25)

Siim, thanks for having me, man.

Siim Land (1:27)

Yeah, I'm glad to talk with you. It's interesting because one of the things that you're known online is this experiment that you did with icing your testicles. So I think it was a good icebreaker between you and the audience to maybe explain why did you do it and how does it work and what were the kind of results.

Lucas Aoun (1:46)

Yeah, man, so I actually stumbled across the practice, like scrolling through some bodybuilding forums a long time ago and I've read some people logging their experience, like applying an ice pack to their testes and I was like, hmm, I sort of looked into the research and I came across some studies sort of demonstrating beneficial effects on fertility and so there was like one particular study that demonstrated that ice in the testes for like 8 to 12 weeks improves a variety of sperm parameters and obviously being the biohacker I am, similar to you, Siim, I ended up sort of just trialing it myself and I grabbed an ice pack and started applying it regularly every single night and I thought, hmm, there's definitely something coming to this because I was obviously waking up with better morning wood and noticing more energy and things like that. So yeah, man, then I sort of did blood work before and after 12 weeks and I managed to get my testosterone all the way up to 988 nanograms per death later. So yeah.

Siim Land (2:54)

Yeah, that's pretty crazy and the testosterone level is also quite high. We can talk about it a bit later of how you did it.

But you know, what's the potential mechanisms of this cold improving, I don't know, like sperm?

Lucas Aoun (3:07)

Yeah, so the research sort of looked at how anytime the testes are 2 degrees too warm, so anytime they're outside, you know, increased by 2 degrees outside of core body temperature, that actually, it actually arrests spermatogenesis. So it actually impairs fertility.

So the practice is based around, you know, we're cooling the testes, but we're also one of the mechanisms that hasn't been fully explored is the vasoconstriction that occurs, just like when we have a cold shower or jump into an ice bath, we get severe vasoconstriction. I think the same sort of will apply with the testes. We're getting major vasoconstriction up against the actual gonads, and then that's followed by like a rebound sort of vasodilatory response, which makes sense, sort of just bringing more oxygen nutrients to the testes to help with their function.

Siim Land (4:06)

Right. So you wouldn't want to basically have something hot on your lap, sitting like a laptop or something, that would also inhibit this spermatogenesis.

Lucas Aoun (4:17)

Exactly. Yeah. And that's one of the leading causes of infertility is just generally like, you know, being exposed to EMFs and just heat in general is having a deleterious effect on sperm parameters. You know, definitely one of the leading culprits behind infertility for sure.

Siim Land (4:36)

I also, you know, got a lot of questions about like the sauna. So would that also have like this negative effect?