Research

Hormonal

Exogenous testosterone administration (200 mg/week) does not alter whole-body energy expenditure, substrate oxidation, or skeletal muscle metabolic gene expression during a severe energy deficit in healthy men.

If you are a healthy man in a calorie deficit and exercising heavily, taking testosterone will not change how your body burns fat or carbs compared to not taking it. It helps preserve muscle mass, but it does not boost your metabolism or fat loss. Focus on your exercise volume and calorie intake for metabolic adaptations.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
These data demonstrate that increased physical activity and not exogenous testosterone administration is the primary determinate of whole-body and skeletal muscle metabolic adaptations during diet- and exercise-induced energy deficit.
Lee M. Margolis et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2022

Why this rating

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with rigorous metabolic measurement (whole-room calorimetry) and muscle biopsies, though limited to young healthy men.

Source

Metabolic Adaptations and Substrate Oxidation are Unaffected by Exogenous Testosterone Administration during Energy Deficit in Men

Lee M. Margolis et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2022

DOI 10.1249/mss.0000000000003089

rct · n=50Cited 4×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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