Gut Health and Libido: The Hidden Link Most Men Ignore

Rick Miller
Jun 16
4 min read

Let’s get straight to it.

If you’re a man over 35, chances are you’ve felt your edge slipping.

Your mental focus isn’t as sharp.

Your drive — in all senses of the word — has taken a backseat.

And if we’re honest… your sex drive and libido isn’t where it used to be.

Most guys chalk it up to stress.

Or getting older.

Or “maybe I need more sleep.”

These are all possible (especially the sleep part)

But I’ll tell you the truth I see every week in clinic:

It’s your gut.

Silhouette with glowing brain and neural pathway to digestive system. Intestines filled with bacteria and a flame symbolizing inflammation. — Could your gut health and libido be connected?

And not just digestion — your gut is driving inflammation, rewiring your brain, messing with your hormones, and quietly draining your performance and libido.

The Modern Man’s Double Threat: gut health and low libido

If you're experiencing:

Brain fog
Low energy
Low libido

…there’s a high chance it’s not a hormone issue alone.

It’s your gut-brain axis firing on the wrong cylinders then gut health and libido that's in the gutter will go together.

This isn’t fringe science.

We now know the gut sends more signals to your brain than your brain sends back. It makes 90% of your serotonin.

It governs key neurotransmitters like dopamine, GABA, even affecting testosterone output via inflammatory signalling.

When your gut’s off, your motivation, mood, energy, and sex drive take a hit — long before your testosterone levels ever show it on paper.

The Gut-Brain Axis: The Control Panel You’ve Been Ignoring

Your gut isn’t just a food tube.

It’s attached to a complex neural network called the enteric nervous system, connected to your brain by an even more widespread nerve called the vagus nerve — your body's main 'switchboard'.

When you’ve got gut inflammation, bloating, dysbiosis (imbalance of microbial species) or a compromised lining (aka “leaky gut”), it doesn’t stay local.

It sets off a fire alarm that spreads through your body:

Brain fog from bacterial endotoxins crossing the blood-brain barrier
Disrupted dopamine and serotonin production (bye-bye motivation and libido)
Poor micronutrient absorption (magnesium, zinc, B vitamins – essential for testosterone and neurotransmitters)

This is what I see in clinic week after week — men who look fine on paper but feel anything but optimal.

Jack Kruse’s Take: Quantum Gut = Quantum Brain

Now if you’ve followed my content for a while, you know I reference thinkers like Dr Jack Kruse.

His take and my take?

The gut isn’t just biochemical — it’s electrical.

A leaky gut messes with the body’s semi-conductive surfaces, disrupting how electrons and protons move through your system.

This disrupts:

Mitochondrial energy production
Magnetic coherence in tissues
Hormonal signalling timing

Put plainly: If your gut is inflamed, your energy-making machinery fails — in the brain, the testes, and everywhere in between.

Inflammation is Stealing Your Testosterone

Unmanaged gut inflammation isn't just bad for bowel control it drives:

Higher cortisol
Lower testosterone
Disrupted HPG (hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal) axis - communication between your brain and the testes

This isn’t just theory.

I’ve had clients double their testosterone and recover morning libido without TRT — just by improving sleep, reducing gut inflammation through diet and lifestyle changes and of course restoring nutrient status.

What We Actually Test in Clinic (And Why It Matters)

Here’s the deal — at Miller Health, we don’t run gimmicks or throw supplements at the wall.

We rely on hard data from our Explore package:

DEXA scans – to identify visceral fat (a major driver of inflammation), muscle mass and bone density.
Resting Metabolic Rate tests (RMR) – to assess how efficiently your body burns energy and to detect metabolic suppression.
Advanced blood panels – including testosterone, oestrogen, hs-CRP, B12, vitamin D, thyroid output, and more.

These help us spot what’s often missed:

Early signs of low-grade inflammation
Subclinical deficiencies sabotaging libido
Stress-driven suppression of metabolic output

Our Protocol: Real Food Meets Root Cause

Once we have your test results, we don’t reach for band-aids — we build real recovery plans based on root cause principles.

What You Can Start Doing Now

Here are five easy wins you can implement now:

Get sunlight in your eyes within 30 minutes of waking→ Circadian signalling = improved gut barrier + hormone production.
Cut the emulsifiers and processed food→ They destroy microbial diversity and gut lining integrity.
Eat real food→ Think local, seasonal, colourful, and slow-cooked.
Breathe slow, nasal, and deep→ Stimulates the vagus nerve to calm gut-brain signalling.
Book a proper metabolic and hormone panel→ Don’t guess — test it properly and get a custom plan that works.