Carnivore MD Paul Saladino Urges Men to Ice Testicles During Saunas

The caption read simply: "My favorite sauna hack 🧊🥜." Behind it was Paul Saladino, the physician and carnivore diet advocate known online as Carnivore MD, posting a recommendation that ice applied to the testicles during a sauna session could protect fertility and potentially lift testosterone. The video pulled 3,044 likes and 36 comments, landing it squarely inside a debate that has been building in men's health and cold-therapy circles for months.

The logic Saladino draws from is not invented from nothing. Testicles sit outside the body for a specific biological reason: spermatogenesis requires a temperature roughly 2 to 3 degrees Celsius below core body temperature. Sauna heat disrupts that window. One study found that regular sauna use over just two weeks produced measurably impaired sperm movement. Laptops on laps, hot tubs, prolonged cycling, and sedentary habits all push scrotal temperature above the body's optimal range for sperm production. That much the science backs clearly.

Where Saladino's recommendation runs ahead of the evidence is the next step: that applying ice during a session actively offsets those effects and stimulates testosterone production. Ghayda, a fertility specialist at Legacy, said that while heat can cause damage to sperm, there is "no evidence to say that icing testicles will be of benefit" or that targeted cooling compensates for the heat already applied. A separate study found that cold exposure following exercise actually reduced testosterone levels in 19-year-old men, running directly counter to the boosting claim. Reviews of the research have returned inconclusive results on whether short-term cooling reverses any damage at all.

Saladino is not the only public figure running this experiment. Longevity researcher Bryan Johnson has also discussed icing his testicles mid-sauna to protect fertility, which helped push the practice from fringe biohacking forums into mainstream wellness feeds.

There is a concrete physical risk anyone in the cold-therapy community should factor in before grabbing the ice bag: applying it directly to that skin can cause cold burns and frostbite. A cloth or towel barrier between ice and skin is not optional.

For men specifically concerned about fertility, the more evidence-backed approach targets heat sources rather than trying to counteract them. Keeping laptops off laps, limiting cycling to under five hours per week, cutting sauna frequency, and avoiding heated car seats all reduce scrotal temperature without introducing a frostbite variable. Those habits address the problem at its source rather than attempting a hack the research has not yet validated.