What do your LH levels mean?
The short answer
Nobody we follow has said what your LH should be. It comes up in the interviews we follow, but never with a number.
For LH, the range shifts with cycle phase and menopause. Read yours against the range printed on your own report.
A typical lab range is 1.9–12.5 mIU/mL.
Labs print different ranges by sex: about 1.9–12.5 mIU/mL for women and 1.7–8.6 for men.
What LH measures
A pituitary hormone that triggers ovulation and tells the testes to make testosterone.
Read with FSH and the sex hormones, it separates a problem in the ovaries or testes from one in the pituitary.
Checked against MedlinePlus — Luteinizing Hormone (LH) Levels Test.
What changes your LH?
About where you are in your cycle.
“So patient will either monitor her urine LH and remember LH goes up just before ovulation.”
About women after menopause.
“when a woman is in menopause what you'll see is no estrogen no progesterone very high LH very high FSH”
About the time of day.
“But again, for reproduction, FSH and LH are released from the brain in the early morning hours.”
About men as they age.
“as you get older you lose muscle you don't exercise as much you know you get more insulin resistant and so you get lower testosterone you get lower free testosterone you get higher LH because your body's trying to like make more but you're just not doing it”
About women on the birth control pill.
“when you're taking those high doses of estrogen and progesterone it's suppressing the pituitary hormones namely the LH and FSH”
About men taking testosterone.
“when you give testosterone you have to be mindful of the fact that your LH and FSH are going to go to zero because your body is going to stop making testosterone”
About sleep and stress.
“the most common thing that we see clinically that results in that picture i.e low testosterone but with an inappropriately low lh and fsh is sleep deprivation and hypercortisalemia uh i.e lots of stress”
Common questions
What is a normal LH level?
The normal range for LH depends on cycle phase and menopause. Read your number against the range printed on your own report. The quotes on this page say what moves it.
What does your LH number mean?
Where it sits against the range your own report prints next to it. Nobody we follow has drawn a tighter line inside that range.
What does the LH test measure?
A pituitary hormone that triggers ovulation and tells the testes to make testosterone. Read with FSH and the sex hormones, it separates a problem in the ovaries or testes from one in the pituitary.
Why is there no target here?
Because nobody we follow has named a number for LH. If that changes, it will be here.