Saturated vs Unsaturated Fats: Lipid Profiles, Heart Health, and Testosterone Production

Should you eat butter and coconut oil for testosterone, or stay with olive oil? Stay mostly with olive oil. You do need enough fat overall for hormone production, but the research does not show that saturated fat raises testosterone more than unsaturated fat, while it does raise LDL cholesterol and ApoB.

This sits inside our wider guide to carbohydrates, fats and hydration for performance. Here we look at only one question: which kinds of fat should a lifter eat, and why does it matter beyond the mirror?

Does saturated fat increase testosterone?

The “eat more saturated fat for testosterone” idea has a kernel of truth buried under a lot of gym lore. Dietary fat supplies raw material for hormone production, so a very low-fat diet is not a smart move. That is a point about total fat, though, and we cover the floor in our article on the minimum fat threshold for hormone production.

What the studies actually compared matters.

A 2021 meta-analysis of intervention studies found lower total testosterone (standardised mean difference -0.38, 95% CI -0.75 to -0.01), free testosterone and DHT on low-fat diets compared with high-fat diets (Whittaker et al., 2021). The authors said more randomized trials are needed, and the effect looked stronger in men of European and North American background.

A 2025 meta-analysis of 11 randomized trials with 888 participants, using a cut-off of 30% of energy or less for “low fat”, found no significant difference in testosterone or other sex hormones between low-fat and high-fat diets (Soltani et al., 2025). It also flagged the small number of studies and low certainty of evidence.

Why might they disagree? The pooled studies differ in design, population, how low the fat went and how long people followed the diet. Neither paper tested saturated fat head to head against unsaturated fat. So the honest reading is: avoid very low fat, and do not use testosterone as the reason to pick butter.

What saturated fat does to LDL and ApoB

LDL cholesterol is the fraction of cholesterol carried on LDL particles, and ApoB is a protein found on each atherogenic particle, so it tracks particle number. Higher numbers mean more particles that can lodge in artery walls over decades.

In a randomized feeding trial, people ate diets with either high or low saturated fat. Independent of protein source, high compared with low saturated fat increased LDL cholesterol, ApoB and large LDL particles (Bergeron et al., 2019). The same trial found LDL and ApoB were higher with red and white meat than with nonmeat protein, regardless of saturated fat content. That is a feeding study, so it shows what happens to blood markers, not who gets heart disease.

So it is not just butter. Where the protein comes from also moved these markers. Dal, soya and other plant proteins earn their place. Fish and eggs were not tested in this trial.

Butter, ghee and coconut oil

A network meta-analysis of 54 randomized trials compared oils and solid fats. Most oils tested, including olive, rapeseed, sunflower, corn, soybean, palm and coconut (and even beef fat), lowered LDL cholesterol more than butter did (by roughly 0.23 to 0.42 mmol/L), and the authors said the findings support replacing high saturated fat foods with unsaturated oils (Schwingshackl et al., 2018).

Coconut oil has its own meta-analysis. Across 16 trials, it raised LDL cholesterol by 10.47 mg/dL and HDL cholesterol by 4.00 mg/dL compared with nontropical vegetable oils, without clear effects on glucose, inflammation or body fat (Neelakantan et al., 2020). The authors concluded that this should inform choices about coconut oil.

Ghee is mostly saturated fat too, but we did not find a trial in the sources we checked that tested it directly against vegetable oils, so we are not going to guess at a number. Treat it like butter: great flavour, small spoon.

Do saturated fats actually cause heart disease?

This is where the research is not as one-sided as either camp online claims.

A 2020 Cochrane review of 15 randomized trials (about 59,000 participants, trials lasting at least 24 months) found that reducing saturated fat lowered combined cardiovascular events by 21% (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.66 to 0.93), with moderate-quality evidence. But it found little or no effect on all-cause mortality (RR 0.96) or cardiovascular mortality, and replacing with polyunsaturated fat or carbohydrate did not differ significantly, while data on monounsaturated fat or protein as the replacement were very limited (Hooper et al., 2020).

A 2026 risk-stratified review of 17 trials (66,337 participants) added a useful nuance. For people at low cardiovascular risk, reducing or modifying saturated fat had little or no benefit over five years. For those at high risk, there was low to moderate certainty for important reductions in events, particularly nonfatal heart attack when saturated fat was replaced with polyunsaturated fat (RR 0.75, CI 0.58 to 0.99) (Steen et al., 2026). The authors noted limited data on monounsaturated replacement and large variation between trials.

What does that mean for a healthy 25-year-old lifter? The five-year trial benefit is small if your baseline risk is low. But those trials ran for years, not decades, and LDL and ApoB exposure builds over a lifetime. If you have a family history, high blood pressure, diabetes, a high LDL on a blood test or you smoke, the swap matters more. That is a conversation for your doctor, who can interpret your lipid panel and, if appropriate, an ApoB.

Which fats should lifters eat instead?

Think in terms of swaps, not bans. The goal is to keep saturated fat modest and let unsaturated fat carry most of your fat intake.

• Monounsaturated: olive oil, groundnut oil, avocado, almonds, peanuts.
• Polyunsaturated: walnuts, flax, chia, sunflower seeds, soya foods, fatty fish.
• Olive oil in particular: a 2022 meta-analysis of prospective studies found about 16% lower cardiovascular risk for each extra 25 g/day of olive oil, along with lower type 2 diabetes risk and all-cause mortality (Martinez-Gonzalez et al., 2022). Those results come almost entirely from observational cohort studies, so they cannot prove olive oil is the cause, but they fit the lipid data above.

Practical Indian-kitchen swaps:

1. Cook sabzi and dal tadka in groundnut, rapeseed or olive oil, and finish with a small spoon of ghee if you like the taste.
2. Keep a handful of peanuts, almonds or walnuts at your desk instead of namkeen or biscuits.
3. Choose fish a couple of times a week if you eat it, and soya chunks or dal on other days.
4. Use toned or low-fat curd and moderate paneer portions when calories are tight.
5. Check labels on packaged snacks, since many are fried in palm oil or contain coconut fat.

For our broader view of fat needs, use the macro calculator to set a sensible total, then split it using the list above. If you eat keto-style, see our article on low-carb and ketogenic diets for lifters, because fat type matters more when fat is a much bigger share of calories. For marine fats specifically, we cover EPA and DHA dosing separately.

A simple weekly plan

Situation	What to do
Healthy, low risk, normal lipids	Keep total fat comfortably above very low levels, make unsaturated the default, enjoy ghee or butter in small amounts
Lipid panel shows high LDL or ApoB	Cut butter, ghee and coconut oil further, add dal, soya, nuts and fish, and discuss testing and treatment with your doctor
Family history of early heart disease	Get a lipid panel early and treat the fat swap as a priority, not a preference
Cutting on a calorie deficit	Fat is calorie dense (about 9 kcal per gram), so measure oil with a spoon and favour nuts and fish for satiety
Keto or very high fat	Build fat from olive oil, nuts, eggs and fish, then recheck bloodwork after a few months

Fibre also affects cholesterol, and our piece on soluble vs insoluble fibre covers how oats, dal and fruit fit in.

When to see a doctor

Nothing here diagnoses you. If you have a known lipid disorder, a family history of early heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, or you are on cholesterol medication, follow your doctor’s advice over any general article. Chest pain, breathlessness on exertion or fainting during training need medical attention, not a diet tweak.

The bottom line on saturated vs unsaturated fats

Fat is not the enemy, and neither is a spoon of ghee. But the data points one way on the question you asked: eat enough total fat for your hormones, keep saturated fat modest for your arteries, and let olive oil, groundnut oil, nuts, seeds and fish do most of the work. That plan does not cost you muscle, and it keeps your LDL and ApoB on your side for the decades you plan to keep lifting.