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men failed to self-report changes in sexual desire while experiencing normal cycles of testosterone levels, therefore testosterone does not affect sexual desire

There are no polite words for how utterly worthless this study is. The authors, the publisher, and anyone spreading this garbage should all be ashamed.

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How would you design the study?

NTA but the study is pointless. Miniscule natural fluctuations of testosterone don’t increase sexual desire. The average fluctuation was 14.25 ng/dl. The subjects were aged 18-26. The average testosterone for this age range is probably around 500-700 ng/dl, so that’s a <3% fluctuation at the lower end. It’s minuscule.

They should have structured it by doing things that purposefully elevate testosterone naturally, that way the fluctuations would have been greater.

Right. It's like concluding that traffic congestion has no effect on mood after talking to a bunch of commuters whose commute time never varied by more than five percent during the study.

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