1 Tbsp Fixes Insulin AND Spikes Testosterone (doctors don't mention this)

This stuff makes hummus look like a flipping joke. One tablespoon every day and we saw a cardiovascular disease risk marker drop 39%. Blood glucose dropped significantly within an hour and it supports testosterone through a pathway that almost all supplements miss entirely. It's tahini. It's the stuff that you drizzle on salads or maybe you spread it on some toast or toss it into a dressing or you dip. It's simple. It actually tastes pretty darn good and it's a food that's been a staple across the Middle East for like ever. And when you see the human trial data on what it does to blood sugar, to blood pressure, to triglycerides from literally one to two tablespoons at breakfast, you're going to wonder why this isn't in your kitchen already. So, here's what we're going to cover. We'll talk about the testosterone mechanism first because if you've seen any of my other videos on like sesame and estrogen, you might already have the context. But if you haven't, this will stand on its own. Then we'll get into blood sugar cuz there are two human studies showing tahini lowers glucose including one in people with type two diabetes already. Then the cardiovascular disease risk and then the blood pressure. So, we're going to talk about four human studies with four different outcomes all from tahini. So, let's start with testosterone for a second. As you age and your body fat

increases, there's an enzyme that's called aromatase that converts more of your testosterone into estradiol. That estradiol then gets broken down into metabolites and some of these metabolites are protective while other ones are proliferative and very problematic. So, the sesame lignans shift which pathway that estrogen goes down. They actually push more towards the protective metabolite and pull away from the proliferative negative estrogen. So, we have two types. We want the good one. And there was a study in the World Journal of Men's Health. It tested this in male rats specifically and it found that sesame supplementation increased their plasma testosterone in a highly dose-dependent manner. So, like the more sesame, the more the testosterone. While their actual Leydig cell counts, which are the cells that produce testosterone, also increased. So, you're like at a core biological level increasing testosterone at a like how the cells that produce it. The mechanism seems to be by reducing estrogen receptor load and ultimately shifting the metabolite ratios, you partially free the testosterone production axis from this whole like estrogen mediated suppression. So, estrogen kind of like sequesters your testosterone. It prevents it from really doing what it should do. So, when you release that, you have more liberation of your natural testosterone. So, although tahini isn't boosting testosterone directly, it is a concentrated form of sesame and it's reducing the drag that estrogen puts on testosterone production. In my opinion, tahini's the ideal format for this because grinding the seed breaks down the hull and that's what limits the lignin release from the intact sesame seeds to begin with. You have to chew sesame really well. And a lot of times like sesame's on a bun or it's mixed into stir-fry and you're just kind of inhaling it, sliding it down your throat hole. You're not actually chewing it, breaking it down, and masticating it. In this case, tahini, it does the mastication for you. It's already pureed and you can just get the benefit. Well, let's get into the human data, okay? Because this is where the metabolic stuff gets super, super fascinating. We'll start with the blood sugar piece

because there's two studies here on the insulin resistance side. First was in European Food Research and Technology and this looked at the effects of tahini on oxidative stress and cardiovascular risk in healthy men. So, in this case, they had 20 men consume 50 g of tahini and they measured blood glucose at multiple time points. Plasma glucose was significantly lower at one, three, and four hours after they had the tahini. They also saw a trend towards higher phenolic content in the blood, which tells us one really important thing. And it's that the antioxidant compounds in tahini were actually being absorbed and circulating. So, this is what's working the magic here. It's the antioxidants. But it gets even better though because there was a study in the Journal of Atherosclerosis Prevention and Treatment that tested tahini specifically in type two diabetics. So, in this case, they took patients with controlled blood sugar that had diabetes cuz they were on stable like medication, but they were not on insulin. And it had them eat either a test meal with two slices of bread with 50 g of tahini or a control meal of bread with good old margarine and cheese. And they matched for overall nutritional content, but in this case, different fatty acid composition and fiber. When subjects had either meal, flow-mediated dilation improved. So, that wasn't unique to tahini. But what they found when it came to blood pressure was that the systolic blood pressure was quite different. After the control meal, systolic blood pressure actually increased four hours post-meal. After the tahini, it didn't. Okay, there was no rise. And the researchers concluded that a meal that has tahini exhibits a cardioprotective effect in type two diabetics that makes it a stronger option for breakfast or as a snack. This is really important cuz when you're diabetic, you're at a higher cardiovascular disease risk. Okay, your risk of a cardiovascular event is much higher. So, when it has this cardioprotective event effect and you don't get the increase in blood pressure after eating, that's huge. You're getting glucose lowering effects and cardiovascular protection in an insulin resistant population from a single food

swap. I want to get into the cardiovascular disease stuff next because this is where it gets really fascinating. We'll talk more about how to use it specifically. I also want to show you how to shop for tahini really quick. So, with tahini, you need to look at the label. This is so important because tahini should really just be hulled and mashed pureed sesame seeds maybe, just maybe with a little olive oil in it. There are so many brands out there that have sunflower oil added, that have canola oil added. That is defeating the purpose. Sesame oil is actually a good fatty acid profile because of the sesamin and sesamolin. This makes it unique because it can actually protect itself from oxidation. So, a lot of sesame seed oils and things like that are pretty good to cook in because they're stable, especially if they've been toasted. So, you can use sesame oil and get a good benefit as well, but tahini should just be sesame and maybe sesame oil to smooth it out, maybe olive oil. I put a link for Thrive

Market down below because Thrive Market is they're an online grocery store, but there's a 30% off discount link for your entire grocery order through Thrive Market, but I know for a fact they have a few different brands of tahini and they're brands that are really clean. I don't have any affiliation with any tahini brands at all, but Thrive Market, I know as a store, has good tahini because they don't let a lot of garbage under their shelves. Not to mention that's a 30% off link. So, like you do all your grocery shopping, use that link, get 30% off, and also get a free $60 gift. The cool benefit is it's basically like going to a store because you're going to get stuff in a day or two. Like they ship so fast. They have multiple distribution centers and they keep really clean ingredients. So, the tahini that you'd be getting from there or whatever else is you want to get. If you're a hummus person, that's fine. Then they have good hummus, too. So, anyway, is down below. It's in the top line of the description for Thrive Market. You have to hear this on the cardiovascular stuff. This is super important. There was an RCT that was in the Archives of Iranian Medicine. Took 41 people with diabetes and put them into two groups. One group replaced part

of their breakfast with 28 g of tahini, which is about two tablespoons, for six weeks. And the control group just had their normal breakfast. After six weeks, the tahini group showed a huge decrease in serum triglycerides. They dropped 15. 3 mg per deciliter. But the more important finding here was that the atherogenic index of plasma, which is a composite marker for cardiovascular disease, that dropped 39% from literally just tahini with breakfast. They also saw decreases in their total cholesterol. They HDL and a slight increase in their HDL. So, for a dietary intervention that is this simple, that tastes good, a 39% reduction in an atherogenic risk marker is no joke. And it kind of frustrates me that we still focus on all kinds of other things and we don't tout the benefits of real food. Like food has power. It's not just calories. There's a blood pressure

effect, too, because there's a study in the Journal of Human Hypertension. 20 people and in this case, they had them do 50 g of tahini after a 12-hour fast. They measured their blood pressure and their endothelial function at the beginning, but also four hours later. Diastolic blood pressure dropped significantly. Their pulse rate dropped significantly and their flow-mediated dilation, which is how well your arteries expand in response to blood flow, improved. And this was the first study to report that tahini consumption can lower blood pressure and improve our endothelial function. And this was in healthy people, too. So, it takes a lot more to make a healthy person respond to this. 50 g is a good amount. That's about three tablespoons. So, this is a heftier amount and you can just have it straight up. So, to give you a quick

recap, just to kind of paraphrase everything, tahini's giving you these sesame lignans that are in a bioavailable form. Okay, this is driving up testosterone by reducing the bad estrogens. It lowers postprandial glucose, has cardioprotective effects in diabetics. It reduces triglycerides. It cuts cardiovascular disease risk by 39% and it lowers blood pressure and improves endothelial function. The practicality of it is really straightforward. Two to three

tablespoons of tahini seemingly taken earlier in the day. That seems to be better, but I don't think it matters too much. I think you generally do want to have it with breakfast because it might have an appetite suppression effect throughout the day, but I could see huge benefits to having in the evening, too. Like with dressings or just like eating it straight along with some meat or some protein. So, make sure it's pure ground sesame with no added oils unless it's sesame oil or maybe some olive oil. And remember that the lignans in sesame require gut bacteria to convert into their active form. So, your microbiome health matters. So, veggies when you want soluble fiber, fermented foods, kefir. Okay, because if your gut diversity is compromised, you get less return from the same amount of tahini. And if you want to hit the estrogen metabolite ratio from the other direction, you can actually pair it with cruciferous vegetables. So, like cauliflower, baked cauliflower drizzled with tahini. This is getting you a different estrogen modulation effect.

And there's another food that a lot of people overlook for insulin resistance and that's molasses. I did a video on molasses and its effect on insulin resistance cuz that pairs pretty well. So, you might get something out of that video. So, that link is right here to watch that video. Highly recommend you watch that one next and as always, I'll see you tomorrow.