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Comment by lprd | Hacker News Reader

This has been brewing for the last 50~ years. The average testosterone level found in men is drastically lower than our ancestors. Testosterone is a man's primary hormone, and being deficient in it can cause a multitude of issues including depression, little to no sex drive, and even sperm count. Yes, diet and exercise play a role in overall health and T production, but this goes deeper than that.

I know the article isn't about testosterone, but I believe this is all connected in some way or another.

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Endocrine disruptors, diet, plastics, reduced exercise (exercise absolutely causes more testosterone to build muscle in response to stress), less violent and physical environment/society, other pollutants.

Heck, sitting in chairs puts your testes closer to your body, which reduces sperm count.

There are tons of reasons that probably add up. The scary part might be the pollutants though.

Women also change their level of testosterone preference based on the stress level of environment. Civilization is by definition a less stressful environment regardless of inflation/unemployment rate.

> The average testosterone level found in men is drastically lower than our ancestors.

I'm curious -- how far back do we have good data on that? When did we learn enough to measure it? Are there techniques to estimate it for people in the far past, or is this the kind of thing where you really need to collect / process samples at the time of interest?

Cigarette smoking increases testosterone levels in men [0]. With the decreased prevalence of cigarette smoking in many countries, we should expect average testosterone levels to fall as a result. The hard part about historical data would be to disentangle the smokers from the nonsmokers and then find a way to measure testosterone to see if there is yet another factor at play. I'm not aware of any easy methods to conclusively preform that analysis.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24457405/

I never knew cigarettes increased testosterone - I would have expected the opposite... Don't know what to think about that.

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