Smoking is among the worst activities you could possibly take up for your health. It can cause your body to develop terrible, life-altering conditions, such as cancer, lung disease, diabetes, and stroke. Despite this, around one in eight people in the USA continue to puff away. Despite causing erectile dysfunction in men as young as 20 years old, plenty of men are still wondering, “Will quitting smoking increase testosterone?”
As it turns out, the answer isn’t quite what you’d expect, but many of the conditions associated with smoking can be alleviated by ceasing. In this article, we’ll look at how smoking affects testosterone, and why you should quit.
Will Quitting Smoking Increase Testosterone?
Whether you’re in a relationship, or actively searching for one-night stands, you’ve likely experienced some kind of negative impact from your unhealthy little habit. Perhaps your date made a comment about your smoker's breath, you felt oddly exhausted, or your tool just flat out “couldn't rise” to the occasion.
No matter which end of the severity spectrum you’ve found yourself on, smoking has a seriously negative effect on your health. It can also muddle your hormone levels, but does smoking lower testosterone?
Contrary to what you might expect, smoking doesn't lower testosterone, and quitting smoking won't increase your testosterone either. That’s because smoking actually increases your body's levels of free testosterone, by as much as 13%.
Don’t misunderstand. We aren’t recommending that you go out there and start chain-smoking, or even start casual smoking if you haven’t already. The life expectancy of a smoker is 10 years less than that of a non-smoker and is also far more likely to be plagued by serious illness.
If smoking increases testosterone, will cease to smoke decrease the amount of testosterone in your body? Yes actually, but the change is so insignificant that it’s of no cause for concern. The return of your health and sexual function is a far better trade-off, and you’ll gain those extra 10 years back, as long as you haven’t already contracted a terrible condition.
Do Cigars Increase Testosterone?
We’ve looked at cigarettes, but what about cigars? Do cigars increase testosterone?
Like cigarettes, cigars contain the same chemicals that affect your androgens, which make your body produce more testosterone. However, cigars are possibly even worse for you and your health than cigarettes.
The smoke they produce contains higher levels of nitrosamines than those found in cigarette smoke. They also contain more cancer-causing tar and their wrapping is less porous, which makes the burning of cigars more toxic than burning a cigarette.
Your date isn’t likely to be impressed either, as 70% of women expressed feeling repulsed by smokers. The question isn't “do cigars increase testosterone?” It’s whether smoking is keeping you from a more fulfilling romantic life. If finding success in the dating world is important to you, you’d be best off leaving smoking in all forms behind and taking up habits that women actually respect and admire.
So the bottom line is, does smoking cigars increase testosterone? Yes, but it really isn’t worth it. The amount of testosterone you might get from smoking isn’t worth all the nasty side effects.
It doesn’t really seem fair. Why does smoking increase testosterone but also have to come along with so many horrendous side effects? But the truth is that there are plenty of ways to boost your testosterone without picking up this nasty habit. One example is exercise, which can remove excess fat that stores estrogen (basically the opposite of testosterone). Another way to increase testosterone is by getting enough Vitamin D from the sun.
Those two steps more than make up for whatever testosterone you’re missing out on by quitting smoking.
Why does smoking boost testosterone?
Let’s talk science!
Cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine in cigarettes, competitively inhibits androgen breakdown, and thus increases androgens that increase the body's level of free testosterone. It was theorized that men with a higher level of natural testosterone are more likely to become smokers due to the tendency of high-testosterone individuals to take more risks.
By now we’ve answered a few pressing questions. Does smoking boost testosterone, yes. Does smoking cigars boost testosterone? You bet. Does smoking increase testosterone even after quitting? You’ll only lose a little bit.
Even more pressing, however, are questions about just how badly smoking can destroy your body, and why you should quit smoking even if your testosterone slightly decreases.
Smoking will destroy your sex life
Imagine this. You’ve finally met the girl of your dreams off Tinder using some clever texting tricks. She agrees to meet up with you at some fun date you’ve planned, and you see her. She’s looking absolutely stunning, better than the photos! You lean in for a hug, but things quickly go south.
She gags at the overpowering stench of cigarette smoke on your clothes! You apologize and go on to have a wonderful date regardless, things are looking good as you get her home. She’s naked, it’s all going according to plan. Uh oh, smoking has left you unable to get an erection, and that’s the final straw. She’s gone, and it can happen to you too.
Smokers report a lower libido on average and are far more likely to experience erectile dysfunction at an early age than non-smokers. Female smokers are affected too, as those with nicotine dependence are likely to have a lower sex drive. Smoking can make you less appealing to men too, ladies.
Smoking also causes halitosis, or bad breath, which naturally makes you a less appealing contender when it comes to choosing a partner for makeout sessions. It can be managed, but why go through so much hassle to simply not smell horrible?
Can my dating and sex life recover from smoking?
Quitting smoking can increase the hardness and frequency of your erections, that's a pretty great reason to quit all in itself, wouldn't you agree?
This is because the cessation of smoking allows for better blood circulation, due to less restriction within blood vessels. This makes physical activity a lot easier too, as your body has to work less to transport oxygen to each cell.
Physical activity is a fantastic way to get outside, stay healthy, and meet women. It also gets women, and men in the mood–another great reason to keep your organs smoke-free and fit for exercise. Speaking of smoke-free organs, simply look at an image of the incredible discoloration that smoke causes to the organs of smokers. If anything is bound to scare you out of the habit, that could be it.
In one interesting study at Bristol University, scientists looked at 500 pairs of twins where one smoked and the other didn’t. Two-thirds of individuals consistently found the non-smoking twin to be more attractive than the twin that smoked.
So while quitting smoking decreases testosterone, it doesn't matter as throwing away your pack of cigarettes appears to gain you a few beauty points anyway!
Smoking causes cancers. Plural.
Smoking can cause cancer in practically every part of your body. The mouth and throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, voicebox (larynx), trachea, bronchus, kidney and renal pelvis, urinary bladder, cervix, and more are all fair game to this horrendous disease.
Smoking also makes cancer far more likely than you probably could have imagined. A typical smoker is about 15 to 30 times more at risk of developing cancer than a non-smoker. About 40% of all people will get cancer at some point in their lifetime, generally after 70 years of age. With such a high risk already in place, why would you significantly increase the odds?
Cancer makes everything in life difficult, dating definitely being greatly affected. As a young man or woman, it’s better to simply put down the cigarette and enjoy a healthy youth while it’s still around to experience.
Are e-cigarettes ok?
Does smoking lower testosterone when it comes to e-cigarettes? Do they have the same effects as cigars and cigarettes?
E-cigarettes are certainly less harmful, and they won’t lower your testosterone, but they’re still dangerous. Many smokers turn to e-cigarettes in an attempt to wean themselves off of cigarettes or cigars, and it works. Smokers who use e-cigarettes, as well as utilize face-to-face support, are twice as likely to succeed in quitting entirely than individuals who use nicotine patches or gum.
They’re best used as a means of slowly moving away from smoking entirely, as opposed to being used to try and increase your testosterone, or as a fun social activity. But there has been an outbreak of lung injuries and deaths associated with e-cigarettes or “vaping,” especially in the youth who may incorrectly think they’re harmless.
E-cigarettes do not contain tar and carbon monoxide, which makes them a far safer alternative, but harmful chemicals can be found in the vapors they produce.
How can I increase my testosterone without smoking?
When you asked, “will quitting smoking increase testosterone?” You likely weren't expecting the answer to be no. After all, we’ve been rightfully taught about the dangers of smoking, and it just seems logical to assume that testosterone would likely be negatively affected as well.
You wanted motivation to quit, not a new fear of stopping! Don’t worry, ceasing to smoke cigarettes and cigars can actually have a positive effect on your testosterone indirectly. You’ll be able to partake in more testosterone-boosting activities than ever before, with greater ease.
Sport is perhaps the greatest activity for increasing testosterone besides literally injecting yourself with the hormone, which we don’t recommend. Physical activity, especially weight training, is demanding and promotes muscle building, as well as testosterone production. As muscle requires testosterone to maintain, your body creates more of it to help you sustain it.
Having a muscular physique also makes you much more attractive to women, as it acts as an indicator of health and fitness. This will make achieving another testosterone-producing activity all the more simple.
Having infrequent sex can greatly lower your testosterone production, but having sex often has the opposite effect. Sex makes men feel powerful and dominant, and tells the brain to boost testosterone. This increases your libido so you can have more sex, it’s like a fantastic feedback loop.
Another crucial step for increasing your testosterone is ensuring you have a healthy and balanced diet. The foods you eat can increase, and decrease your body's testosterone levels. Men who eat more saturated fats and refined carbohydrates have less testosterone on average than those who eat less of these foods.
There are a wide array of activities you can take up to naturally increase testosterone production. You’ll find yourself attracting women and getting dates far easier than ever before.
The Summary
Smoking may increase your testosterone, but it also significantly decreases your health and general quality of life. By quitting, you’ll experience a massive array of benefits and live a longer, happier life. You’ll be able to keep your testosterone levels perfectly high through other means such as diet and sport, and after dropping smoking, you’ll likely get way more sex from these great apps. After all, what better way to put yourself out into the dating world that by quitting a bad habit?
