Do Mongolians actually have higher testosterone levels?

What did @enzohealth actually say?

The claim is straightforward: Mongolians have "way higher testosterone than other Asians" because their traditional diet is meat and raw milk with "zero soy." The implication is that soy suppresses testosterone across Asia, and Mongolians escaped that fate by eating what he calls an "anabolic" diet. He wraps it up with a lifestyle prescription: "Maybe it's time for all of us to just live like Mongolians."

That's a clean narrative. It's also built almost entirely on assumptions, not data. Let's go through it.

Does the science back this up?

Not really. The core problem is that no peer-reviewed study has established that Mongolians have significantly higher testosterone levels than other Asian populations. The claim starts on shaky ground before soy even enters the conversation.

On soy, the fear is based on isoflavones, which are phytoestrogens that weakly bind estrogen receptors. But the clinical evidence for meaningful testosterone suppression in healthy men is thin. A 2010 meta-analysis by Hamilton-Reeves et al. in Fertility and Sterility reviewed 15 placebo-controlled studies and found that neither soy protein nor isoflavone consumption significantly altered testosterone or estrogen levels in men. A 2021 systematic review by Reed et al. in Reproductive Toxicology reached a similar conclusion. The doses used in most scare-content about soy far exceed what typical Asian diets deliver.

High protein and saturated fat intake from red meat does have some association with testosterone. A 2021 study by Whittaker and Wu in Nutrition & Metabolism found associations between dietary fat intake and testosterone, but the effect sizes were modest and confounded by body composition and overall caloric intake.

What did they get wrong (or right)?

Wrong: The foundational claim that Mongolians are documented to have higher testosterone than other Asian populations. No study is cited because, to current knowledge, no robust comparative study exists. This is the entire premise of the video, and it appears to be invented or extrapolated from cultural assumptions.

Wrong: That "soy dominates the Asian diet" uniformly. Dietary patterns across East, Southeast, and South Asia vary enormously. Mongolian traditional cuisine does differ significantly, but framing all of Asia as soy-saturated is a caricature.

Partially right: Mongolian traditional diet is genuinely high in animal protein and fat, low in processed foods, and low in soy. That part is accurate. Whether that translates to a measurable hormonal advantage over other populations is a separate question, and one the video doesn't answer with any evidence.

Also worth noting: raw milk carries real food safety risks including Listeria, E. coli, and Salmonella. Presenting it casually as part of a health template glosses over that entirely.

What should you actually know?

Testosterone is influenced by sleep, body fat, physical activity, chronic stress, alcohol intake, and age. Diet plays a role, but it's one variable among many, and no single food group is the master switch most influencers treat it as.

If you're concerned about low testosterone, the conversation belongs with a clinician who can order bloodwork, not a TikTok video built on an unverified premise about a specific ethnic group's hormones. Actual hypogonadism has clinical diagnostic criteria and evidence-based treatment options.

The broader "animal-based" diet framework isn't without merit for some people. But the argument here is dressed up as population-level epidemiology when it's actually just vibes. Healthy skepticism is warranted anytime a content creator's dietary ideology lines up perfectly with their data interpretation.

• Hamilton-Reeves et al., 2010, Fertility and Sterility: soy isoflavones did not alter testosterone in men across 15 studies.
• Reed et al., 2021, Reproductive Toxicology: no clinically meaningful androgen disruption from soy in healthy males.
• Whittaker and Wu, 2021, Nutrition and Metabolism: dietary fat has modest positive associations with testosterone, but effect sizes are small.