Re: licorice root and reduced testosterone levels in men!

My understanding is that it can reduce testosterone--in both genders. Basically your adrenals make three things--cortisol, aldosterone and DHEA. Testosterone is made from DHEA. Even though your adrenals make these three substances, only one of them--cortisol--determines the production rate of all three. You see, when your cortisol reaches the level that you need there's a feedback loop that slows down production of all three. Licorice inhibits the breakdown of cortisol and allows what you produce to hang around longer making your levels go up. This triggers the feedback loop and slows down production of aldosterone and DHEA and thus it can potentially also lower production of testosterone. Whether this is good or bad really depends upon how much testosterone you are producing in the first place and how much you lower your production of it. I have PCOS so I have too much of both DHEA and testosterone but too little cortisol so licorice is very helpful for normalizing my levels. For you it might make it too low. Theoretically even if it does make it too low, you could take DHEA supplements and boost your testosterone levels back up.