Why are male testosterone levels falling?
backreaction.blogspot.com
backreaction.blogspot.com
I do not find this analysis and conclusion convincing. Basically don’t worry about it is the conclusion. We have rising infertility, both female and male (which people blame on hormone disrupters: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reproductive-prob... ) and also in developed nations soon to be significant falling populations (already started in China, Japan and South Korea) and just less sex overall ( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-... ). This likely plays into this in some way. These trends do not lead to a sustainable future - it is like global warming, slow but indicative of bad things coming down the line, but manageable in the immediate.
I am quite disappointed in the author to be so dismissive on a topic she is an “instant expert” on. Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory (and whose expertise there makes sense) make the front page doing an analysis on testosterone.
"Interesting" does not imply any in the set of "correct; insightful; clever; informed; perfected ..."
A submission is a document. A post is part of a discussion. Hence Plato diminished the role of books, favoring those contributions which are "still alive". They are two pretty different realms. A document can be highlighted because pointing to something interesting; a post is more normally a direct contribution (highlighted for such value).
It's like nerd catnip when you mix a deeply scientific expert, say in astrophysics, with sarcasm and cynicism. "They are so cocky it must be true. Also they're a physicist!"
"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightned by my intelligence" - Aalewis
Are there any studies how much of this is caused by hormone levels and medical infertility? ....and how much is caused by people studying until 25 and working on their careers until 35 before they even star trying (compared to going to highschool until 18, starting a job at 19 and making kids at 20)? Also, how many people can actually afford to move to a place with an extra room for a child + all the extra expenses when you actually get a child?
I know it's anecdotal, but i know very few couples who want a kid, but are unable to get one while trying... i know more than that people, who didn't want a kid, but it "just happened", and i know A LOT more people, who'd like a kid, but "when they can afford one", and that 'when' isn't 'now' (mostly due to housing prices)
edit: also looking at a whole population, there is a huge difference if you start making kids at 20 (since you have time to raise 2, 3, even more... if you can afford them) or if you start making your first at 35, where the biological clock is showing it's signs, and even a second kid is a big "if", if you don't start immediately after the first one.
Funny how one persons experience is the polar opposite of another's.
I am not saying that things are not multi factor but that to dismiss hormones going weird as just nothing to worry about is not correct.
The phenomenon is worrisome, but qualified people are already working on it, and will likely succeed in halting or reversing the decline.
If they can’t… well, we’re probably fucked regardless of what joe does, so again, no point in worrying.
You are not wrong that it isn’t a near term concern but I witnessed the lack of progress on global warming in the 1980s and 1990s and do not completely trust experts to make progress by themselves without a larger awareness at the societal level that there is an issue. In many ways the problem isn’t experts but at some point you need politicians involved and they only really react when the voters care. And thus you need the average joe to care so that polticians care and act.
I think that this is the global warming-like issue of the next 3 decades.
The author of this piece basically concluding that there was no issue. She didn’t conclude that it wasn’t a concern for the average joe but that there wasn’t an issue. That is wrong.
It would be a lot easier to make people care, if the people speaking the loudest about climate change would actually behave in the way they want 'others' to behave.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwilliams1/2021/11/05/118-...
qualified people are already working on it
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/teenage-elephants-need-a-fathe...
On top that, I think stress from modern life contributes a lot. Anecdotally, my partner and I had been trying for over a year, and as soon as we went on holiday and detached from our stressful jobs for a couple of weeks... boom, pregnancy.
I can't say if life easier or harder 30 to 50 years ago, but there definitely seems to be a lot more stressed people than there used to be.
I know huge amount of people, even in their 30s, 40s and 50s talking about kids. Would have to be the first time in history I'd imagine?
Anyone can have an opinion on anything and make it to the HN frontpage. The fact that she is well versed in scientific literature and method make her assessments a tad more interesting than average IMO. A hallmark of her videos is presenting conflicting research results, separating the knowns from the unknowns and then drawing conclusions that she finds plausible, sometimes with some gusto. Generally (not always) I find myself agreeing.
In this case however I agree she skips over the main problem a bit too easily, which to me is the ever increasing abundance of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment, some of which we are aware of like PFAS, many of which we have likely yet to discover the adverse effects of.
> ever increasing abundance of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment, some of which we are aware of like PFAS, many of which we have like yet to discover thee adverse effects of.
It is likely that many common drugs we take are affecting fertility (eg Advil) and many other chemicals in the environment and they may affect us long after the exposure is done (eg forever chemicals or pre birth exposure.). And it may also just decrease sex drive which in a way also decreases fertility in a more indirect route.
I think we are way more affected that we realize right now and we’ll look back and wonder how did we ever survive this era of rampant hormone disruption.
I wonder how many times this could have been said in the ~4 billion year history of life on this planet, and then life just keeps going anyways in some new form.
It's just evolution. You have a changing environment, decreased hormones or what not, and some parts of the population will develop ways around it and others won't. If you have a set mindset on how life should propagate, as in "we need so-and-so hormone", then you're probably going by the wayside in terms of an evolutionary perspective.
What's the most obvious answer here? The emergence of technology. We might not even have sex hormones in the future. There might be some completely new way of genetic propagation (if genes themselves are even a thing in the future) that we can't even dream of right now. The concept of sex, hormones, etc., might even disappear as whatever new form of "information" propagation takes hold. We just have no idea. We could be in the middle of the change right now, or the bare beginnings. Maybe those new forms of life will be resistant to the effects of global warming and other things as well, and so on.
It's like how organisms such as cyanobacteria changed the composition of the atmosphere billions of years ago, and wiped out previous forms of life as oxygen become abundant. A whole new ball game got started, and we're here now.
In other words, a present solution might no longer work well for the current environment (a specific sex hormone), and so it begins to filter out of the 'system'. The issue here though, as is obvious on this forum, is that we can get attached to so-and-so hormone from an emotional standpoint, since we've been fooled into believing that it's our identify, and then get angry when we see it no longer "useful", even though that hormone is just one interchangeable part of our identities.
> I am quite disappointed in the author to be so dismissive on a topic she is an “instant expert” on. Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory (and whose expertise there makes sense) make the front page doing an analysis on testosterone.
I'm new to hacker news, and am quite surprised by the amount of ad hominem arguments on here.
Too bad that the parts of the human condition that actually matter don't occur at evolutionary timescales. Sure you can say that there's a good chance Homo Sapiens will be around in one form or another for hundreds of thousands more years but that could mean a population numbering in the thousands reduced to barbarity along with all its ills.
> We might not even have sex hormones in the future
> that hormone is just one interchangeable part of our identities
Sex hormones like testosterone fulfill many more functions than the name "sex hormone" implies. Like any hormone in the body they act as a form of chemical communication between a variety of systems. This topic is far too deep to get into in a comment so I suggest you do some reading on it.
Welcome to reality. Evolution doesn't care which species is here or not or what form it takes, it's just the basic essence of adapting to new conditions.
> Sex hormones like testosterone fulfill many more functions than the name "sex hormone" implies. Like any hormone in the body they act as a form of chemical communication between a variety of systems. This topic is far too deep to get into in a comment so I suggest you do some reading on it.
Strawman argument ^ Sex hormones only came into being around 500 million years ago. That is the point I'm making. In another 10 billion years, whatever life exists at that point might look back in time to see this small little period of history where there were these things called "hormones" existed, before evolution got rid of them.
So true.
High testosterone is great for people doing jobs that make those people disposable. In the past, that's been the male gender, if you lump them into a group. If activities like combat, climbing power poles, contact sports (women making inroads), are deprecated by tech or whatever, then I guess less testosterone is needed. To add, since population numbers are stagnating, why do we need disposable and non-disposable jobs drawn down gender lines at all? Why do we need our sports separated by gender?
To add, cutting your nuts off has been shown by studies to extend life in males. Whatever your pref is I guess. I'll sacrifice a few years to keep my nuts, thanks. I love my nuts. Oh, and my penis. Strictly my personal preference. To each their own.
I agree with your criticism of the dismissive tone. Low t is associated with low health. Cause and effect aside, dismissing a decrease in average health rubs me wrong.
If only that phenomenon were limited to HN.
aaaaand ... yes, it is Mme Hossenfelder. she seems to be all over the place recently
For background: I started taking lifting weights when I was 14, to train for competitive powerlifting. By the time I was 17, I was on steroids.
I'm in my late 20's now, and I've got to be on TRT for life, due to how compromised my endogenous production of testosterone is (my Leydig's cells no longer function. They don't produce FSH/LSH, which in turn means I naturally produce the Test of an 80-year-old man).
I got lucky in that my response to TRT puts my testosterone up around 1,100ng/dL which is around twice what the average person has. And during my steroid use, I have bloodwork where my testosterone was over 10,000ng/dL and e2 (estradiol) were over 200 pg/mL.
You'd never know from talking to me, I'm super introverted and socially anxious. Even when I had the testosterone of quite literally 10 men, I was an introverted nerd who liked to sit quietly in my house and would prefer to lift by myself.
I don't have much else to offer the thread, but I want to throw out of the notion of "testosterone/estrogen makes you some crazed he-man" out as a wives tale. I think people like to use it as an excuse/scapegoat for their behavior.
Actually, maybe one interesting anecdote: My sex drive was no higher on copious amounts of anabolic steroids than it was before, often times it was worse
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fk9P55VCuld0iQOO88dNxk0eIel...
And then years later, with 150 (slightly above female):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uhDVTBtYARCDrtL5ZL-zVrWLNjX...
It's possible to have high total T but low levels of free T, which is the bioavailable stuff.
I was on 250mg Test Enanthate a week then (no AI or other hormones, I think I may have been on GHRP/GHRP peptides like Ipamorelin + CJC 1295 but that's irrelevant):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgqXihtCe9KgJHwRrFw60LLQuv5...
Here's the results for the lazy. The first number is the value, the second set of numbers are the reference ranges:
Testosterone, Serum 1465 HIGH 348-1197
LH <0.2 LOW 1.7-8.6
FSH <0.2 LOW 1.5-12.4
Sex Horm Binding Glob, Serum 10.6 LOW 16.5-55.9My point was to illustrate how reductionist that kind of thinking is.
It's also possible I have weird neurochemistry and am an outlier, so I didn't respond typically.
I don’t think anyone is claiming steroids makes everyone aggravated.
Plus there are different types of steroids with Tren being more strongly linked to aggression.
I treated my body like a walking science lab during my teen years.
I took AI (if you would have looked at my bloodwork, you would have seen that at 7,500 ng/dL Test my E2 was crushed below the normal reference range, I actually had LOW estradiol) but it caused more issues than it was worth.
People on the internet largely don't know what they're talking about when it comes to anabolic steroids, I discovered that the hard way.
My working theory is the mechanism is similar to alcohol with a lowering of inhibition. The aggregation has to be in you from the start.
Not necessarily. Maybe what's normal for 10 people is normal for you. Natural testosterone levels are known to vary by a huge amount
The big exception to the above is muscles.
Interestingly body builders seem to think the culprit behind mood disturbances with steroid use is estrogen.
If I say testosterone levels cause men to be more assertive, here is an example where that is not the case.
E.g., men are taller than women, is a typical statement that is understood "on average".
I’m now in early thirties, and things are slightly more stable but I’m also in the worst shape of my life. I was planning on getting back into reasonable shape over the next 3 to 6 months and then doing a SARM cycle or two to see if I could get to where I wanted to be. My plan was to then stop and attempt to maintain the gains I’d accumulated. From what I’ve read SARMs seem a safer way to go. I’d be doing it sensibly, aiming to take the smallest dose that worked and getting monthly blood tests if I can afford it to minimise the health risks.
As I’m now approaching midlife and my life hasn’t really turned out the way I’d planned (no wife, no kids, no skyrocketing career) I feel like I don’t really have all that much to lose. Wouldn’t mind getting the opinion of someone whose done this kind of thing though to see if they think it’s worth it even if you end up on TRT. I kind of feel like everyone ends up on TRT naturally anyway (or should be taking it if they’re over 45) so there’s not a hell of a lot of difference.
You'll have to inject yourself once a week, for the rest of your life. It sucks but the benefits are worth it (IMO). I look at it sort of like a multivitamin.
One word of caution about SARMs like LGD-4033 -- despite not being hormonal, they can still cause a degree of suppression. I'd get bloodwork done before & after to be sure, like you mention.
As an aside:
> I was also not aware of just quite how rampant steroids were and how my desired physique (nothing massively over the top but probably something akin to a CrossFit athlete like Mat Fraser/Rich Froning or Marvel superhero physique) was actually out of reach without steroids unless you were willing to be very strict on diet and also put in at least 10 hours in the gym, probably for at least 2 to 3 years.
I'm hoping that eventually we de-stigmatize them so that this sort of thing stops happening. I too had these unrealistic goals based on a lie that I thought I could achieve naturally. It turns out my idol was juiced to the gills.
Aside from it being more out in the open, the other main thing that is making me consider it is finding out about the scientific study that showed someone taking steroids doing absolutely no training puts on more muscle mass than someone natural doing very heavy training. It kind of just made me feel like training natural was pointless if the steroids gave such a massive advantage. Kind of like playing an FPS and everyone is using auto assist. It may not be right, but if everyone is doing it and it’s become the new accepted normal then you pretty much have to follow suit otherwise you’re just going to get left behind.
I am sorry, but I don’t believe that to be true at all. In my environment, I have not encountered anyone who took steroids. Of course, it might have been hidden, but that would really surprise me. Perhaps you are speaking in the weightlifting/sports community?
I am in fifth decade of my life, and fortunately healthy and fit without any supplements, and I would be careful to take any in regard to the biochemical balance of my body.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/21/up-to-a-mill...
Thank you very much for bringing some numbers into this thread.
3% of the male population does not sound as much, but it is actually quite high, especially if it is true that 60+% of the 20-24y cohort is taking them [1]. That is 1.7+M young men. I am quite shocked. I suspect it is a generational phenomenon.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/281208/population-of-the...
As best I can tell a lot of the elite athletes are using peptide based meds which can give a huge amount of control over their physicality.
I know a group of older guys who had the same mentality when they were younger, but now generally regret their steroid use and subsequent destruction of their natural testosterone production.
You will find a lot of optimistic posts and articles from people who want to believe that HPTA axis suppression from steroids and/or exogenous testosterone is reversible, but it’s quite common for people to irreversibly damage their natural production despite doing all of the “right” things and cycle practices. If you go into this, do it with the assumption that it’s a one-way street that will result in a lifelong dependency on testosterone medications and potential adjunct medications that need to be adjusted from time to time.
The other thing people discover is that while TRT can get your testosterone levels back to the same number as before, it never quite feels the same as natural production did. Your hormone systems are more than singular chemicals and the various diurnal cycles and downstream metabolites have effects that aren’t accurately replicated with the medications. A lot of people will spend time trying to fine tune with aromatase inhibitors and so on, but it’s difficult to get it all right. It’s not a case of “more is better” when it comes to testosterone, either.
Finally, it’s interesting to see how much the older power lifters I know regret all of the damage done to their bodies. Steroids allow for higher weights, but that opens the door to bigger injuries and more wear and tear. The person who originally got me into lifting ultimately committed suicide after years of pain from injuries and reduced mobility from injuries sustained during his steroid use.
It’s easy to look at these stories and think “that won’t happen to me because I’ll do it the right way” but I’ve seen enough people go down the steroid use -> TRT -> regret sequence that I suggest you don’t approach this lightly. You actually have a lot to lose, and the potential gains (in your life, not just the gym) are likely not going to be as satisfying as you imagine them to be after the early effects of first-time use wear off.
> I got lucky in that my response to TRT puts my testosterone up around 1,100ng/dL which is around twice what the average person has.
I wouldn’t characterize this as “lucky”. You’re on the wrong dose. Excess testosterone can cause its own set of mental health issues, particularly if the downstream hormones aren’t kept in check. The sustainable solution is to go back to a normal TRT range and keep your dose there.
It seems that both increase your testosterone levels, and it seems that is what help bodybuilders with their muscle mass
I think that steroids -> aggressiveness comes from documentaries, like those of Lyle Alzedo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Alzado#Steroid_use_and_death
Your "response" to TRT puts you at 1,100 ng/dL because you choose to inject enough testosterone to get it that high. TRT aims to restore men with under 300 ng/dL to a "normal" range of 500-600 ng/dL, and the dosage is adjusted accordingly to hit that target. If you're not adjusting the dosage and you're hitting 1,100ng/dL, it's not luck, it's because you want it at that level.
While most people assume the direction of causality goes from testosterone to personality (higher testosterone leads to higher aggression), plenty of evidence shows it also goes in the opposite direction -- adopting aggressive/dominant attitudes, strength training and boxing, etc. leads to higher testosterone.
For my grandfather's generation, getting into fights (as adult men) was a thing that happened not infrequently. Having your manhood questioned was something you remained vigilant against. And yes, your handshake was firm because it showed dominance, the same way throwing around insults was a lot of the conversation. And it obviously went along with all of the sexism, homophobia, racism, etc.
But culture today is different. You work in teams, you get along, you're open to diverse points of view. You're rewarded for collaboration, not dominance. With most people you shake hands with, a firm handshake is going to freak them out, not assert confidence -- "what the hell is his deal?" Throwing around insults as the basis of conversation isn't how conversation works anymore.
So I'm actually pretty convinced it's changing culture that's leading to lower testosterone. And I see no problem with this either -- there seems to be a widely shared belief that this is a problem because it will somehow lead to more difficulty conceiving, lower reproductive success, etc. But there's zero evidence that men as a whole are having problems conceiving. And even if it did become a problem (which there are no signs of), it's obviously something evolution would fix real quick.
Testosterone has been found to improve mood and cause pro-social behavior, not just aggression. I agree that your behavior (and further lifestyle) has an effect on your testosterone levels.
Whether the supposed "male infertility crisis" is actually resulting in any significant real-world consequences is not even close to settled. The average level of sperm is still well within the range of having children without issue, with plenty of "extra room". Worries about a supposed "crisis" are really about extrapolating if it continues to fall linearly for many decades to come, as opposed to simply plateauing at a perfectly functional level.
In other words, it's kind of like saying there's a "handshake crisis" in that, because people are shaking hands with less force, at some point we won't have the strength to shake hands at all. Which is obviously ludicrous (for handshakes).
So whether this is a "crisis" or just a perfectly fine new equilibrium level really depends on whether you think it's caused by environmental poisons accumulating (and so things will get worse), or just a gentler culture that has no need for unnecessarily high testosterone or sperm counts, where everything's still well within "normal" range.
My sperm counts ranged from 70 million to 12 million, so that means I already have more difficulty than I would if my own counts were doubled as at least some of the time my wife and I had sex I was “infertile.”
One more halving and a very large portion of the population will be considered straight up infertile, and the decline in sperm counts shows no sign of showing. Dogs also show the same decline.
Quite frankly I think it’s a far bigger crisis for humanity than global warming.
By making many man unable to have children? That hardly seems like a “fix”...
But you are completely wrong about there being no male infertility issue, in fact it is hitting both males and females: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reproductive-prob...
The article, and many with it, focuses on sperm count, testosterone levels and other things, but this does not necessarily mean that reproduction is going down. A much bigger cause is probably that couples decide they do not want to have kids or that couples form later today than before so the woman is close to 40 when they start to try.
Often it is also reported as if it is the end of the human race, but we forget that there are many solutions to this (in vitro, adoption, ...). And in absolute terms there are more babies born today than ever before.
Just because we are near peak baby (either now or just recently) doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy-pea...
But definitely part of the issue of population drop is delaying having a family or decide not to have one.
In multiplayer games we find the exact experiences you describe as declining: Questioning manhood, dominance dynamics, and simulated conflict which I imagine feels similar to our CNS (but: without physical exertion so maybe not?). There might be more conflict of this type for your average 20-something man, than in previous generations.
Perhaps it is the lack of strength training and physical exertion that is the major factor.
Our parents' generation were not getting into competition level fights down at the local pub. The vast majority of physical conflicts in bars are just shoving, posturing, and heightened adrenal response.
You’ve talked about culture but haven’t given any evidence of the direction of causality. Do you have any or is this more opinion derived from the second last sentence - “zero evidence that men as a whole are having problems conceiving”?
Handshakes also went somewhat out of fashion
The culture has changed because hormones, environment, food, medicine, etc have impacted the humans. It seems right to you, because you are a product of all those environmental changes.
Or, put more harshly, because males are more feminised, strong males are seen as intimidating, and this is perceived as a problem.
Without making a judgement about right or wrong, what I wonder about is 'what is more natural'?
My view is that the older way was more natural - plainly big aggra, big pharma, big governance, etc played less of a role in determining the environment (and therefore less of a role in determining human attributes) in the past.
I also can't help wondering whether this is by design - plainly a more feminised culture would be less problematic to those who control/run society. I'm sure 'they' took inspiration from books like brave new world, which very plainly lays out the idea of using everything at one's disposal to engineer a populace that is most amenable to following the governance structure.
Saying what is old is better because it's the way nature intended is just a case of the linked.
Perhaps you are disputing the idea that the environment has changed - with the widespread introduction of, say, plastics, massive use of medication that is re-imbibed in the water, by the use of petroleum based fertilisers, by the application of chemicals to crops, etc? Please say if that is your argument.
So, I'm not saying what is old is better. I'm saying the environment really has changed, perhaps by design. That is not fallacious.
Where culture is concerned, on the one hand, we have the meathead culture of the brute that worships a frankly comical and awkward aggression and machismo. On the other hand, we have a feckless, effeminate, and cowardly culture of indirectness, agreeableness, being "nice", and getting along and at any price. Both are profoundly stupid. Aggression, anger, strength, assertiveness and so on all have their place. All are necessary. Prudence tells us when expressing one or other other is appropriate and to what degree. Virtuous habits develop these, among other qualities, within us in a healthy and normative way. A culture like ours, however, has long vilified these qualities and aspects of who we are, not just their improper expression or their abuse, but categorically, celebrating their complete absence as a virtue. Curiously, doing so actually predisposes the populace to tyranny, domination, and manipulation because agreeable people will go to great lengths to go along to get along, to appease those who threaten them, and they will be ill equipped to respond to the threat.
Conflict avoidance is not some virtue at whose altar we must be prepared to sacrifice everything. That is what blackmailers say. "If everyone only did what I want, nobody would get hurt. Now look at what you made me do." By that logic, no one would ever get raped if they merely acquiesced, so it's the victim's fault. Sometimes we really do have to punch an asshole in the face and break his nose. Sometimes we do need to risk our own lives, or at the very least our comforts, for the sake of guarding or attaining a superior good.
So, I would characterize falling levels of testosterone as a sign of general demoralization, especially among men, rather than a sign of some emerging utopia of a new hippie brotherhood. Academic performance of men in school is dropping. Sperm count is dropping. When we measure a culture, we must measure it against human nature, not the other way around or according to some false ideal we have come to fancy.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. So much of our society outright _denies the existence_ of human nature.
A man used to be undressed without a knife in his belt. Literally you did not leave home without a sharp bit of metal in case you had to stick it into another human being, typically because they were trying to do the same to you.
Remember Romeo and Juliet? The Mont. and the Cap. boys were not lower class yobs. Fighting in the street with freaking swords was their golf.
- - - -
One of the unspoken fears that we men have is the knowledge that the women and children don't really need us. They like us and love us but they don't need us. Not in a civilized "Star Trek" world, which is the sane result that we are all striving for (right? right?).
With modern technology they don't even need us to reproduce.
In the extreme (usually only talked about in Sci-Fi and hyper-feminist manifestos) men are a luxury or a fetish.
(In case it's not clear, I'm putting this out there for the sake of stimulating discussion. I'm not a man-hater on anything like that. Heck I am a man, and I like being one. However, the point above still stands: once you break down traditional marriage in a technological society, men are not necessary.)
I mean, you've heard of DNA?
I mean, they were also fictional characters in a dramatic play about murder and suicide. I'm not sure it's safe to extrapolate broad cultural trends from that.
Then it's a good thing that I'm not doing that. I'm not extrapolating, I'm referencing an example (however fictional, I don't think anyone has accused the Bard of a lack of verisimilitude?) that should be familiar to most people here.
Are you arguing that all those knives and swords were merely decorative? That men solved their problems with, I dunno, words rather than weapons?
Isn't that kinda the whole point of human history: learning to use words instead of sharp bits of rock or metal?
Japan also has an insanely low birth rate.
I've suffered very low test levels (well below reference range minimum) for a long time, due to being in SSRI meds for anxiety. Those meds do their jobs but crushed my test levels. Symptoms included lots of belly fat and man boobs (put on 30lbs in 2 years despite regular exercise), but the major issues were all psychological; low mood, low self esteem, no drive to do stuff.
Finally got on TRT and it's turned everything upside down in the best possible way. I'm more assertive, but calmer, less anxious but also willing to tackle issues. Way more drive and motivation to do stuff. Horny like a teenager. Belly fat is melting away and exercise is showing incredibly fast results. I'm so incredibly motivated to work out because I can literally see progress in the mirror on a weekly basis.
I do this all under doctors supervision (using a well known trt clinic in London), and have had no negative biomarker results, in fact quite the opposite, my lipids have gone from "you need help" to optimal. Even managed to knock up the wife. (I'm on HCG as well to maintain fertility).
Guys, get your hormones checked. It will transform your life.
Hence I made the remark.
and also "the only human study that directly link between onion and testosterone reveal a positive effect of onion extracts on testosterone" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6406961/#!po=9....
Dependent while taking them, sure. Need a cite that says testosterone production won't restart upon cessation.
This is also operating under the assumption that you have anything to suppress: if you're <=200ng/dl, you're not losing much in my humble opinion.
The benefits of exogenous testosterone far outweigh the lifetime commitment aspect.
If you're not 800-1000 ng/dl and injecting yourself regularly, you are doing it wrong and need to find a new doctor.
(Disclaimer: subjective opinion - not a medical professional: find a licensed professional who directly specializes in this area of medicine and has current training. Many do not report feeling anything at all on monthly injections, creams, etc. that were obtained from their local endocrinologist)
If you're not a doctor, don't give medical advice on HN. (Actually, don't do it even if you are a doctor, as you don't have access to the poster's medical history.)
Edit: this post was made before OP edited in their disclaimer.
If I believe someone is being mistreated by his doctor, am I not allowed to suggest finding a new one? What if his current doctor wanted to perform a lobotomy?
"Find a new doctor" is not "medical advice" as much as you would like to conflate.
The really bad ones are either dosages which are just high enough to shut down one’s natural production but not high enough to replace it, or infrequent dosages (weekly or less) which cause a brief spike of healthy T levels and then a long trough of being too low. Some patients don’t respond well to creams or topical treatments, either.
I suggested a subjective target physiological result with absolutely no specific means to get there beyond "find a doctor."
If someone is severely deficient, then yes.
However, a lot of TRT clinics will essentially give anyone who walks in the door a prescription. Going from low-normal to normal or even high-normal levels via TRT won’t be anywhere near as life changing as going from being severely deficient (like you) to normal levels.
It also comes with a lifelong commitment to TRT.
If anyone is not extremely deficient, they should be exhausting normal methods to improve testosterone levels (diet, exercise, reducing alcohol consumption, and so on) before trying to replace their natural production for the rest of their lives. Obviously it’s a different story for people who have absolutely crushed testosterone levels for other reasons.
I also had to take it for fertility - Clomid is the other option but I felt like absolute crap on it.
I see this as a significant component.
Both of my grandfathers had little to no relationship with their children. Some of it due to the fact that they spent more than half of their waking hours outside - usually working.
My father and generally men of his generation participated somewhat in child rearing, but not to a large extent.
Meanwhile I'm here changing diapers, bathing our child, playing with them etc. and this is also, gradually, becoming the norm.
First, humans are materially wealthier than ever before, and as such “the plague of paradise” becomes an issue. Without struggle, humans go soft. Look at the Mongolian conquerors as the most striking example of this. For all of us today, we don’t struggle in a physical manner to the same extent those before us did.
Second, all incentives in our daily lives push us toward peaceful, sedentary, and “soft” behavior. This reinforces the first.
Third, obesity is a problem. As noted in the OP, as obesity increases testosterone levels decrease. Given how much of the population is overweight, I’m not surprised by the lowering of testosterone.
Fourth, exercise. Many here have noted that earlier generations were far more active. Every doctor with whom I’ve ever spoken has stated that diet and exercise are required for health, and in my experience every part of my life improved by losing 50 lbs and getting moving every day.
Finally… levothyroxine is the second most commonly prescribed medicine in the USA. The thyroid is highly sensitive to radioactivity, heavy metals, PCAs, PBA, PFOAs, pesticides, and herbicides. These can all damage the thyroid or prevent the function of the thyroid and/or thyroid hormones. Thyroid mal/dysfunction has a vast array of effects on the body and can lead to a decrease in the function of many other parts of the body. While I don’t know if it will affect testosterone production, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. These pollutants can also cause autoimmune disorders which can damage the body (including the thyroid). If we already know that hormone production can be impaired by pollution, I don’t find it far fetched to think that this would include testosterone.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7067547/
https://www.endocrineweb.com/lifestyle-diet/everyday-chemica...
It took too long for this to be listed here on HN. I would wager that the overwhelming majority of the causes of low test aren't even cultural (though this is an interesting and unique causal claim) - they're environmental due to endocrine disruptors being fucking EVERYTHING.
I joke that everytime I microwave my ice cream to make it softer that I increase my future child's chances of being a femboy. It's only a little bit joking...
https://www.webmd.com/women/news/20101209/birth-control-pill...
Our allegedly 'clean' drinking water needs to be extra filtered to get rid of a huge amount of estrogen in the water.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00185...
North America is a big place and there are a hell of a lot of different mammals in it. Are there really enough people out there taking regular and reliable measurements of testosterone levels in a wide variety of species over a wide geographic area such that we have a representative sample?
The whole 'roid rage' thing has been shown to be the result of elevated estrogen levels (excess testosterone is converted to estrogen, which is why steroid users take an aromatase inhibitor).
Absolutely some people can do massive amounts of steroids and have no aggressive tendencies, but other people immediately have problems. Its rather notable in some circles, like masters sports where lots of men are on TRT
and who knows what subtle psychological effects are at play, decisions being swayed by your new hormone makeup. Would make for fascinating research delving deeper
This is why I think the drop in testosterone is such a problem for many men. Your brain does not optimize for success and SMV anymore.
https://www.zora.uzh.ch/58008/1/Testosterone_social_interact...
but I have to say that these "where is the source" posts are tiring and more often than not just a lazy attempt to destroy an argument with zero effort.
Reviewing the literature is separate and distinct from entering into argumentation.
If that can be achieved through aggression - a person going to do just that, if that is achieved through team play and compassion, the person would do it instead.
As Robert Sapolsky said, it is sad that in our society aggessive behaviour is the one that leads to success.
I've spoken with researchers that actually administered testosterone to human subjects in experiments, and they found no effect: it doesn't seem to trigger aggression or violence, at least not in the short term. It probably is a bad idea to ascribe a range of complex behaviors to a single cause, and limit it to those behaviors as well.
This is one thing I have noticed, men in my parents's generation in their 50s were much stronger than my peers (and me). And I have been noticing I am a bit stronger than men in there 20s (on average). Of course I tossed out people who work out.
I have been seeing articles like this for a while, I personally believe this has to do with the environment and how the food we eat is grown.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
I'm called upon to unscrew the difficult lids off jars, but other than that I expect I am underutilizing my muscles.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/13/4815909...
I wouldn't be so quick to do this either. Many gym goers focus on targeted muscle hypotrophy over strength training. The two aren't entirely decoupled (building muscle mass will increase your overall strength potential regardless of goals), but you can certainly look very strong (bulky and defined muscle mass) and not have much actual strength, especially for those who do few compound exercises.
I recently helped move a couch with a friend meeting your your prototypical "meat head" standards and they were struggling to lift their side and frequently resting. They squat and bench almost twice what I can, arms and back are notably larger, heck I wish I looked that muscular but alas, all I can do is easily move couches.
Us trans people understand deeply what not having enough of the “right” hormones does to you.
That it's become normalised for people to take them for a variety of dubious cultural reasons, rather than genuine medical reasons, isn't a good case for loosening these restrictions.
...I mean, my understanding was that the elephant in the room is BPA and microplastics, but maybe all the other factors are not given enough attention.
One thing I'd like to know is if the effect on east Asian societies is worse given how much more plastic they use than say European ones.
Somewhat unrelated but interesting is the focus on BPA. It is actually not proven that the other plastics are good, it just means we have data on BPA.
Anecdotally, if someone like John Carmack can drink 9 Diet Cokes per day without noticeable ill-effects over several decades, it's going to take strong evidence that he (and others like him) are major outliers in their resistance to BPA "damage" to convince people that a small amount of BPA in their foods and drinks is harmful enough to change their lifestyle and habits to avoid it.
Where is the logical fallacy?
There are mouse studies described towards the end, but they concentrate more on sperm production than hormones. (Also they were fed tiny bits of polystyrene, BPA only gets a smaller mention in the introduction.)
https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-06...
after two years of covid, sedentary life, and existential stress, my t levels were hovering around 290-310, which is borderline “you need an injection or a patch or something” territory.
I got my ass off the couch and started lifting to max, and doubled those numbers in 4 months. my max weight also increased, but that’s beside the point here, since it’s not the absolute value of mass that matters.
Picking up things that are almost but not quite too heavy for your body is a powerful signal to lots of systems in your body, and hormonal regulation is absolutely one of them. It’s also good for bone density and a bunch of other things, so, win win.
Mine is currently hovering around 350. I'll gradually increase it to 600 and see how it feels and how my body reacts.
Treatments like HCG mono therapy to increase upstream hormone production might be used, but usually the easiest, most effective and simplest thing is exogenous injectable testosterone cypionate or test entheanate, injected once or twice weekly.
But realistically, significant increase in testosterone levels is only achievable with medication. And that's REALLY not something you want to do without a doctor monitoring your frequent blood tests. Because there is always a price to pay when we intervene with medication. And you want that price to be the lowest possible.
What units are this? Free or total testosterone?
My blood tested as having 350 Nanograms per decilitre. Or 350 Nanograms per 100mL.
350 ng/100mL equals 12.1351 nmol/L
See: https://balancemyhormones.co.uk/testosterone-units-conversio...
Why is it a crisis? What's the problem? Things change. But why is it a bad change?
(Assuming it's possible to even say what a "normal" testosterone level is).
This would not really be good for anyone.
Why? Europe (as an example) has a net population decrease, why can't this happen on a global scale without an epidemic?
“Children of Men” outlines what that might look like.
> Personally I see the decrease of testosterone levels more as a reaction to our changing environment than reason for concern. The world changes and we change with it.
While humans ate tons of carbs since agroculutural revolution those carbs were ~95% glucose (starch), eg potato, grains, rice, beans,...
Only in the last ~70 years did we have an explosion in
1) sugar (50% fructose) and HFCS
2) fruits with a high sugar content: most modern fruits didn't exist ~100 years ago, and those that did had a fraction of fructose that modern fruits have.
Fructose is known to be the most destructive things you can put in the body (glucose is almost harmless compared to it).
Eg a study shown that replacing or even just replacing fructose with glucose had a massive improvement in fatty liver in children in just 9 days!
Fructose is metabolized like alchocol, which is why in the ~1970 or 1980 you start seing T2 diabetes and fatty liver in children, while before T2 diabetes and fatty liver was only a problem of alchoholics.
The american heart association estimates a 60%-70% overweight/obesity ratio.
Individuals still choose their own lifestyle behaviors :)
Ever eat or drink something hot out of a plastic container? Ever touch thermal paper such as a receipt? You just received a dose of synthetic estrogen.
Hopefully there will come a time when greater society decides to care about this and limits plastics in food manufacturing and storage.
Now please go ahead and downvote me since my opinion violates your worldview.
Regarding packaging, growing up condiments were in glass. Good luck finding mayonnaise or ketchup in glass jars now. (I am able to find glass for my peanut butter and jelly fix — the peanut butter is some kind of natural stuff that you have to hand-mix though.)
While cereal is still in boxes, the lining/bag for the cereal was waxes paper (or waxed foil/paper if it was Super Sugar Crisp, emphasis mine).
I would love to see a branding campaign by some food conglomerate that introduced a line of glass (or wax paper) packaging for their products. I would absolutely pay a little more for that (although I wish it were the default again of course).
I've never seen ketchup in glass, but mayonnaise is sold in glass in all supermarkets in the Netherlands, as well as small aluminium tubes and plastic squeeze bottles.
No escape from endocrine disruptors.
https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/09/13/estrogen-animal-produc...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-meat-consumption-pe... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/beef-and-buffalo-meat-pro... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/pig-livestock-count-heads https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/egg-production-thousand-t...
In most countries the numbers are growing.
https://nutritionfacts.org/2019/06/04/beer-phytoestrogens/
If you know your diet, you're not increasing estrogen in your own body
I'm still laughing at the "phytoestrogen or flight response" :p
I somehow feel uncomfortable next to macho people if full display, it might be that it has become a non-adaptive trait?
(2022). "Endocrine disruptors of sex hormone activities." Vartikovski et al.
https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.mce.2021.111415
> "In this review we focus on sex hormones and their mimetics whose effects reach far beyond reproductive health and development: androgen (A), estrogen (E) and progesterone (P), because substantial experimental and epidemiologic data support their presence in the environment and potential effects as EDCs. We reviewed extensive literature on steroids in the environment and methods used for their detection, studies on variety of organisms, including fish and amphibians (Scholz et al., 2013). We have included glucocorticoids (G) in this review because activation of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) substantially alters the biological effects of other nuclear receptors, as described in the GR section. This information underscores the complexity in establishing guidelines for “acceptable” levels of EDCs, especially when a mixture of EDCs is detected in environmental samples."
This is complicated because exposure in the womb can have effects that only occur later in life (post-puberty, say), so it's not just immediate environmental exposure. Abnormal hormone production could even be related to exposures in previous generations.
> "The harmful effects of prenatal exposure to EDCs may not be immediately apparent and could manifest later in life, making it difficult to discern from other causes and some EDCs lead to harmful traits that are carried over to future generations (transgenerational effects) (Brehm and Flaws, 2019). These transgenerational effects frequently have epigenetic origin. Although they do not induce changes in DNA sequence, their effects are, nonetheless, inheritable (Ankolkar and Balasinor, 2016)."
Note also there is public confusion over how sex hormones work: it's the ratio of 'male' to 'female' sex hormones that matters, as males and females also produce estrogen and testosterone respectively, so defects in either production pathway can have notable effects in women as well as in men:
> "Human testosterone is mainly produced by testis in males and the ovary in females. In addition to male sexuality and reproductive health, androgens are also critical for female reproduction. Dysregulation of androgens in females results in polycystic ovary, which is associated with infertility, obesity, insulin resistance and other disorders."
Practically, this means that in certain specific disorders, testosterone therapy for women and estrogen therapy for men are the appropriate options, although societally this would unfortunately be interpreted as some culture war issue regarding the 'feminization of men' or the 'masculinization of women'.
Eg I have very high natural T, go to gym and I have zero cardio endurance, I never do cardio.
A possible reason are pills against pregnancy for women -> they then pee out the massive amount of estrogen due to pills -> that estrogen ends up in the water which ends up in the environment -> which ends up in our tap water.
But, the fact that levels were dropping prior to the introduction of the birth control pill seems to indicate that something else was going on too.
Does anyone know of solid research that analyzes a connection between that very big change, and anomalous physical changes like this?
1. 'The mind' and 'the body' have a 'relationship'.
2. 'The mind' is affected by the information age. [e.g.: 1]
3. Therefore if #2, then the 'relationship' has 'changed'.
Doesn't this give us a place to stand for what could be an interesting discussion, even if the discussion is a debate about #2?
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-goog...
I'm entering "~2000" as a value here. I was going to use 1990. My argument doesn't need further precision, and I assume it either exists, or researchers are actively debating.
1. I still don't get how the body is changed, yes the mind is related to the body but maybe not in this situation?
2. I genuinely didn't know what you were talking about, which is, I assume, the culture changes due to mass information being easily available.
The normal way to phrase that would be to reference the cause of the change not just the year.
It's like saying "the french people changed after 1332". Now if you said 1776 or 492 those are widely known events.
Finally the mind and body stuff in the beginning threw me off
But wtf do I know, not a biologist, not a doctor, etc. just my 2 cents.
I have never encountered this phenomena.
Also: decent job? House?
Anecdotal I know, but this seems to be a pretty common viewpoint in left coast tech circles. You can read comments on here along the same lines. Sure some social circles will have less or more than my rough 15% observation. Would be interesting to see the actual numbers.
First, plastics leach endocrine disrupting chemicals that mimic estrogen into our food and drink. https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-06...
Second, soy products in food contain endocrine disrupting chemicals that mimic estrogen. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12093826/
We know if you give men estrogen, testosterone levels drop, so it seems to me like the focus should be on the enormous increase in consumption of estrogen mimicking chemicals.
Has it not? it seems like there's pretty clear consensus that they are positively correlated.
Proof that T causes high aggression in isolation, in humans, thus far, has not been decisive. There is no consensus on this. Looking at the absence of the inverse (low T decreases aggression) would tip a few things.