[HN Gopher] Testosterone levels show steady decrease among young...
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Testosterone levels show steady decrease among young US men
Author : rasengan
Score : 254 points
Date : 2021-01-14 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.urologytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.urologytimes.com)
| francisofascii wrote:
| There have been studies that indicate women on birth control
| prefer men with less masculine faces (presumably from lower
| testosterone). So with birth control around since the 1950's,
| perhaps there is a link.
| godmode2019 wrote:
| My 2 cents is we are much more socialised with the internet. Kids
| spend less time outside more time knowing what the latest social
| pressure is. One slip up and you will be cancelled.
|
| Similar to taking a dog to doggy day care they are socialise not
| to be aggressive, from a young age around other dogs and small
| children.
| ty1564 wrote:
| I'm reminded of two facts from Matthew Walker's book Why We
| Sleep:
|
| * People 5-18 years old sleep ~2 hours less per night than they
| did 100 years ago.
|
| * U of Chicago study found that men who limited their sleep to 5
| hours per night for a week experienced a drop in testosterone
| equivalent to 10-15 years of aging.
| fjabre wrote:
| The ones staying inside all day playing Cyberpunk and not moving
| from the couch all day? Surprise. We've turned ourselves into
| actual couch potatoes. Wall-E was prophetic in this regard.
|
| I would love to see this on a chart next to video game and
| netflix original series releases.
| [deleted]
| adkadskhj wrote:
| Wall-E was made when obesity was already insanely out of
| control. It was a commentary on society, not a prediction.
| paxys wrote:
| "The youth of today is lazy and stay indoors all day unlike our
| generation" - evergreen complaint documented going back at
| least 2000 years. Aristotle was ranting about "millennials" in
| 4 BC. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20171003-proof-that-
| peo...
| whatshisface wrote:
| Well, the thing about evergreens is that they keep getting
| taller...
| draw_down wrote:
| Sure, nothing has ever changed. Anyone who says anything has
| changed is just Aristotle
| vadansky wrote:
| "evergreen" but context matters. If these were issues that
| were raised during the decline of civilizations then it's
| still valid.
|
| I mean, look at Greece now.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| physical activity was controlled for
| asdff wrote:
| but not sleep
| adrr wrote:
| Can you really control for that when our lifestyle has
| fundamentally changed over time? Washing dishes by hand is
| something I have stopped doing since 1990 as an example.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Sure seem to be a lot of comments attributing this to changes in
| daily life that were controlled for.
|
| Not saying it's 100% chemical, but it's always good to educate
| oneself on the possibility
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen
| [deleted]
| rm2040 wrote:
| Mean total testosterone decreased from 1999-2000 (605.39 ng/dL),
| 2003-2004 (567.44 ng/dL), 2011-2012 (424.96 ng/dL), 2013-2014
| (431.76 ng/dL), andd 2015-2016 (451.22 ng/dL; all P < .0001).
| ausbah wrote:
| would this have any relationship to declining sperm rates as
| well?
| hyko wrote:
| The paper doesn't show a steady decrease.
| bzb6 wrote:
| Giving a literal sense to the saying "back in my time, when men
| where men"
| xwdv wrote:
| I'm sure this thought will be a downvote magnet but I wonder if
| low testosterone levels is somehow related to the "snowflakes"
| phenomenon in US culture.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Hipsters, Hippies, Beatniks, Bohemians- there have always been
| youth cultures with an equal mix of idealism and entitlement.
| Usually these subcultures are rooted in the educated middle
| classes. With the massive increase in higher education rates in
| the past half century, these subcultures grow larger. None of
| this is new. It's just an effect of societal development.
| ausbah wrote:
| how does that related to the study? lack of physical activity
| or something? it seems like they controlled for such factors
| and the problem persisted
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I'm not referring to the study, I'm arguing against the
| OP's claims that "snowflakes" are a new phenomenon.
| [deleted]
| multjoy wrote:
| Except it isn't actually a thing. The people who loudly
| proclaim 'snowflake' invariably have zero personal resilience
| themselves.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| Exactly. Constant complaining doesn't show much resilience.
| xwdv wrote:
| I don't see how that's dismissing my idea? Low testosterone
| all around it seems.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| S/He's dismissing the idea of snowflake culture, not the
| testosterone study.
| helen___keller wrote:
| "snowflake" is used commonly as a pejorative without a clear
| definition in mind, much less a consistent application
| criteria. If you could specify in more detail what phenomena
| you think may be related to low testosterone, you're more
| likely to find better reception.
| xwdv wrote:
| Someone else can probably describe it better than me with
| concrete examples and comparing and contrasting different
| periods in history, I only have a feel for the zeitgeist.
| eplanit wrote:
| I think it correlates, but I don't know if one causes the
| other.
|
| I've been hearing of these kind of "testosterone levels are
| declining" studies for a while. For a looong time I've been
| perplexed by modern males -- they just don't seem like people I
| grew up with. Physical forms are much softer, voices lighter --
| lots of either ectomorphs or endomorphs. For me, these studies
| provide an "Ah, so that must be it" way of seeing it. At least
| it's a plausible explanation.
|
| Related to this, we need to bring the word "twerp"[1] back into
| the vernacular.
|
| [1] https://www.wordnik.com/words/twerp
| okprod wrote:
| That's because everyone is in front of screens these days,
| usually seeking attention.
| o_p wrote:
| And that's a good thing!
| ginko wrote:
| You jest (I assume), but it really is startling how this isn't
| treated like the health crisis it seems to be.
|
| I come from a country with compulsory military service and
| there's regular talk about the health of young conscripts
| declining over the years. The solution by the government?
| Reduce the requirements for fitness so they can get the
| necessary number of men (not women of course).
| o_p wrote:
| I'm not sure if HNers worry about this because actual health
| risks or because of some male pride, maybe Im ignoring health
| risks caused by low testosterone, but I feel is quite the
| opposite, women are generally healthier and live longer.
|
| If anything, low T will make you bald less, there are many
| unhealthy habits of the modern life, sedentarism and obesity,
| that have real negative impacts, its odd to me why we would
| specifically care about this
| DC1350 wrote:
| It also makes you sad, have low energy, less drive to do
| anything, lower muscle mass, worse facial aesthetics, more
| feminine fat distribution, weaker sperm, and less bone
| growth through puberty. It is pretty much not a good thing
| for any reason.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| I have zero T after being chemically castrated, feel no
| sadness at all. I would say life is better after no
| longer having an urge to chase a hole all the time.
| kizer wrote:
| 26 and just was prescribed testosterone booster. Haven't changed
| anything... it really came out of nowhere.
| __alias wrote:
| I'm 25.
|
| Had a test 6 months ago out of curiosity, results came back at
| under 150. Doctor told me it had to have been a dud and had
| another test which resulted in around 300.
|
| Results are still significantly below average but the Doctor
| advised I don't purse TRT or anything as I don't have any adverse
| symptoms.
|
| I eat healthy, work out fairly regularly and get a fair bit of
| sun. I often wonder how different my muscle density / focus / sex
| drive would be at average T levels.
| hippich wrote:
| For what it is worth - I am in my 30s, but not really having a
| healthy lifestyle. Had test of about 250 (one of the labs I
| done in search of getting motivation back). Doc put me on trt.
| In 4 month we dialed it to about 900-1000 stable. Had no
| noticable improvements in any areas (except morning wood like I
| am teenager again). Later there were some side effects and I
| discontinued it. Again, no noticable differences.
|
| For what it is worth, it appears that my body seems to need
| just that much of test.
| joncrane wrote:
| Some people have more receptors and/or are more sensitive to
| certain things.
|
| Higher testosterone leads to more risk taking and other
| adverse behaviors, as well as increased blood pressure and,
| anecdotally, "increased aging." I believe it has something to
| do with collagen synthesis.
|
| You absolutely made the right decision to come off TRT.
| eecks wrote:
| How do you organise a test? Do you have to go see your doc just
| to ask and then go back again for the test?
| joncrane wrote:
| Not sure what country you live in but if it's a GP, they
| write you a prescription and you go to a lab.
|
| Many endocrinologists have blood draw facilities within the
| practice.
|
| Either way you have to go back to interpret the results and,
| if appropriate, receive the prescription.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Plastics and what not feel like easy targets, but I would bet
| this is primarily BMI. The paper seems to conclude that BMI is
| the big part.
|
| > Elevated BMI was associated with reduced total testosterone
| levels (P < .0001), with the mean BMI increasing from 25.83 in
| 1999-2000, to 27.96 in 2015-2016 (P = 0.0006).
|
| They do say: > Lokeshwar noted that even men with a normal BMI
| (18.5-24.9) had declining total testosterone levels (P < .05)
| during the same time frames.
|
| However the range of 18.5-24.9 is wider than the mean increase
| that they think is the most noteworthy independent variable. It's
| fully possible that within the BMI band of 18.5-24.9, average BMI
| nonetheless increased and is the primary driver. Note that the
| effect size over time is muuuuch more significant when not
| controlling for binned BMI.
|
| That doesn't mean whatever environmental shit you're not fond of
| is safe of course. Heck, in some roundabout way it may even be
| contributing to obesity, possibly even through other hormonal
| changes. Wouldn't be my first guess though.
| r00fus wrote:
| But didn't the study control for BMI?
| klmadfejno wrote:
| control is a weird term. I don't have the paper to validate,
| but I'd guess by control they meant they verified the effect
| was visible within BMI bands based on the wording of the
| article.
| nxc18 wrote:
| Completely agree about BMI ranges potentially being too wide.
|
| I just checked Fitbit and was surprised to see I'm now in the
| "ideal" range. I have man boobs and a muffin top. While I'm
| rarely the fattest person around anymore, I'm very clearly
| still overweight.
|
| It's rare enough to see men that aren't visibly overweight that
| it feels like a real exception when I do.
|
| I suspect there are _lots_ of fat men with an "ideal" BMI
| 18.5-24.9.
| asdff wrote:
| BMI is only so good of a measure. A bodybuilder would be
| labelled as morbidly obese.
| staticman2 wrote:
| The BMI recommendations are not supposed to be based on
| beauty standards it's supposed to be based on health
| outcomes.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > I just checked Fitbit and was surprised to see I'm now in
| the "ideal" range. I have man boobs and a muffin top. While
| I'm rarely the fattest person around anymore, I'm very
| clearly still overweight.
|
| In college a classmate used the term "skinny fat" to describe
| himself, same body type you describe. He was within the
| healthy weight range for his height and frame, but because of
| poor diet and exercise (primarily exercise) he had a rather
| high body fat percentage. It's easy to hit that point if you
| have a halfway decent diet (at least by calorie count) but a
| sedentary lifestyle (like us at the time, and perhaps more
| now, living on our computers playing video games and
| programming). The rest of us were just "fat fat" since our
| diets (especially sodas, he never drank any and some of us
| were only hydrated because of them) were much worse than his
| and we were similarly sedentary.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Also, the "muffin top" only really goes away at like 15%
| body fat or lower. I had a small muffin top back in college
| with an incredibly active lifestyle (lots of walks all the
| time) and a BMI of 21.8 (well into the 'ideal' range)
| worker767424 wrote:
| I've been from 10% to 25% body fat and an confirm 15% is
| about right for the muffin top, and 20% body fat at the
| cutoff for a healthy level.
| likpok wrote:
| One other interesting factor: BMI is a rough measure with
| substantial room for error. Everyone likes to criticize BMI
| because a lean athlete can show up as "overweight" due to
| muscle, but the opposite is also true. If you have a lot _less_
| muscle then increased fat can show up as "normal".
|
| I would hazard a guess that there are a lot more people with
| less lean muscle tissue than the 1970s, so BMI can understate
| how fat people are.
| watwut wrote:
| BMI is _great_. But, not for individuals. If you average BMI,
| you get great cheap population measurw
| wonder_er wrote:
| I listened to a podcast episode recently - I don't really listen
| to much of the podcast, but I had a 12 hr drive, and have enjoyed
| occasional episodes in the past.
|
| The host is Eric Weinstein, who is himself a scientist and seems
| to be a rather sharp individual.
|
| https://theportal.wiki/wiki/19:_Bret_Weinstein_-_The_Predict...
|
| It takes _a while_ to get going. Eventually, however, the host
| has his brother explain a convoluted story where, basically, his
| brother (an _extremely_ competent researcher and scientist)
| discovered a genetic anomily in all the mice used in labratories
| around the world.
|
| Because the mice were bread with such a pressure on the
| population, the telemeres on their DNA were getting awkwardly
| long (or short? I don't remember) resulting in their cells being
| _unusually good at repairing themselves_ with a downside of
| under-reporting the incident-rate of cancer.
|
| The discovery got sniped from him, when he started reaching out
| from other prominent researchers, and eventually the discovery
| was buried.
|
| It seems _plausible_ that he tripped across an extremely damaging
| fact, one that would have forced a broad re-evaluation of the
| risk of many substances and medications recognized as "safe" or
| "healthy".
|
| Stuff like this long-term testosterone decrease, if it's indeed a
| bad thing (it might not be!) could be a result of that kind of
| scientific burying.
|
| Anyway - it was an interesting story.
| helen___keller wrote:
| The study states the majority of the effect is for fairly
| predictable causes like age and obesity, but I found this
| interesting:
|
| > After controlling for confounders--including year of study,
| age, race, BMI, comorbidity status, alcohol and smoking use, and
| level of physical activity--total testosterone was lower among
| men in the later (2011-2016) versus earlier (1999-2000) cycles (P
| < 0.001)
|
| Excluding all those confounders, there's not much we're left
| with. Environmental toxins?
| asdff wrote:
| Simple explanation: americans get less sleep today than they
| did 20 years ago.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-get-less-sleep-than-2...
| sp3000 wrote:
| Bingo. One aspect of this is sleep (quantity and quality).
| The drop in testosterone is likely multifactorial though:
| sleep, nutrition, movement, stress -> all contributors that
| have the potential to decrease testosterone levels and creat
| hormone imbalances.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| Genetic degradation of the human race?
| bencollier49 wrote:
| I don't know why this was voted down. We've been performing
| in vitro fertilisation en masse since the 1980s. All of a
| sudden, men with non-motile sperm are fathering children.
|
| So as a single cause it's not that massive, but at 1% of all
| births, the effects will soon stack up.
| worker767424 wrote:
| Also that reducing infant mortality rate and other early
| death rates means the weak ones live long enough to breed.
| Unlike IVF, this just stalls genetics. IVF actively selects
| for fertility issues.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Diminishing role of strength and aggression as a factor in
| reproductive success?
| trianglem wrote:
| Definitely not a worldwide phenomenon.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| lower real income for working class.
| jointpdf wrote:
| Possibilities:
|
| - stress/anxiety/depression
|
| - sleep deprivation/disruption
|
| - high-speed internet access (--> overuse of porn)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > sleep deprivation/disruption
|
| Add to that an _extremely_ unhealthy work trend. 50 years
| ago, an ordinary factory employee could feed on a regular
| full time wage a wife that could stay home, two kids, have a
| simple house, health insurance and go on a vacation once a
| year.
|
| Today? Two jobs (and/or extreme overtime) for both people to
| make rent, home ownership rates dropped because even simple
| homes run up for well over a million dollars, 2008ff/corona
| have caused an immense wage depression, and people regularly
| go to gofundme for medical issues or go bankrupt.
|
| Add to that: highly processed, unhealthy food is way cheaper
| than fresh, selfmade food, and people living paycheck to
| paycheck can't afford bulk purchases or Whole Foods. The
| effect of food on health is more than sufficiently
| documented.
|
| That is an immense mental toll, and not just in the US but
| worldwide.
| RobRivera wrote:
| i personally chime in my antidote towards stress and sleep
| deprivation. a year after significant reduced stress and
| better sleep hygeine I'm seeing better test levels and
| performance in the gym.
| mrob wrote:
| Another possibility:
|
| - Internet access (and better telecommunications in general)
| means you're competing with the whole world. Every day you
| see many people who are more successful than you, which
| lowers your perception of your own social status.
| Testosterone is believed to increase status-seeking behavior.
| If such behavior persistently fails, maybe testosterone
| production is reduced to avoid pointless risk.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| That's an interesting hypothesis. I do feel that as the
| amount of content online increases, it becomes harder and
| harder to feel like any output you have matters. Be it
| writing a blog or open source software, there's competition
| everywhere. It's also harder to make it a say, a musician,
| when you consider the amount of music that everyone can
| access on Spotify for example. Any amount of creative
| output that someone can output is somewhat diluted.
|
| I find it much harder to motivate myself to produce
| anything than I did 10 years ago. I might just be older,
| but I do think that content dilution has something to do
| with it as well. How do you free yourself from that?
| zanethomas wrote:
| and soy!
| iamatworknow wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20378106/
| danbolt wrote:
| I think if the phytoestrogens found in soy-based foods had
| an effect on testosterone levels anywhere close to
| estradiol, we'd see feminine transgender people using them
| as part of hormone-replacement therapy. It tends not to
| happen though, as soy-based foods aren't really effective
| at feminizing men.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| The fear of phytoestrogens is completely unfounded.
|
| Funnily enough, some men that are concerned about
| estrogen intake through food do stop stop eating cow
| meat.
|
| A female mammal that, unsurprisingly, produces tons of
| estrogen.
| jackallis wrote:
| child rearing and geopolitcal conflict i.e War and conflict.
|
| whole point of testosterone, being tad reductionist here, is,
| atleast in the wild, to make you alpha male - agressiveness to
| defend.
|
| and if you look at 1900s, it was mired with geopolitial
| conflict, probably causing men to lead universally aggressive
| life.
|
| now to post 1990s, things have dramitcally changed.
| toxik wrote:
| What if the geopolitical climate is a result of testosterone
| levels in the population?
| waihtis wrote:
| That's where you get into interesting territory. It's not a
| wild suggestion, is it?
| jackallis wrote:
| this is where you get into the conversation about chicken
| and egg. my hypothesis was geoclimate could have led to
| increased level of testosterone in Men, not other way
| around. What you asked will lead us to ask the the first
| origin of increased T
| downrightmike wrote:
| plastics and estrogen similar molecules they let off
| admiralspoo wrote:
| Why does it have to be toxins? What about diet?
| gameswithgo wrote:
| would need to be dietary changes that don't also change BMI,
| since that was controlled for.
| godshatter wrote:
| I wonder if soil depletion of minerals and vitamins due to
| over farming couldn't also be a suspect here. It's a
| problem I haven't heard much about lately.
| waihtis wrote:
| Plastics?
| lom888 wrote:
| This is a common theory.
| https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-
| plastics...
| lazyjones wrote:
| How about natural selection putting men with physical traits
| like body hair at a disadvantage due to modern beauty
| standards?
| voldacar wrote:
| traces of plasticzers, which can act as endocrine disruptors,
| are found basically everywhere in modern civilization
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Is 'wealth' one of the confounding factors they controlled for?
| In inflation-adjusted terms, most US workers saw a reduction in
| net wages after necessary expenses over this ten year period.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| Why the downvotes? There's been a skyrocketing increase in
| consumption of junk food in low-wage worker class who often
| can't find the time to cook and cannot afford more expensive
| healthy food.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| That relative reduction in wages happened over the same time
| living standards skyrocketed (turns out if you offshore
| everything the newly poor people can afford slightly better
| material conditions because everything is so much cheaper) so
| you're gonna have a hell of a time separating the effects.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Yes. I ask because relative reduction in wages would
| decrease access to foods with a high density of unprocessed
| and non-fortified nutrients, regardless of the quality of
| the non-edible materials in their life. When combined with
| the tendency of US food to decrease in total non-fortified
| nutrient value over time, it could influencing the human
| body's hormone production.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| time spent outdoors?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Low vitamin D (i.e. low sun exposure), has been shown to
| reduce testosterone levels:
|
| > Compared to baseline values, a significant increase in
| total testosterone levels (from 10.7 +- 3.9 nmol/l to 13.4 +-
| 4.7 nmol/l; p < 0.001), bioactive testosterone (from 5.21 +-
| 1.87 nmol/l to 6.25 +- 2.01 nmol/l; p = 0.001), and free
| testosterone levels (from 0.222 +- 0.080 nmol/l to 0.267 +-
| 0.087 nmol/l; p = 0.001) were observed in the vitamin D
| supplemented group. By contrast, there was no significant
| change in any testosterone measure in the placebo group. Our
| results suggest that vitamin D supplementation might increase
| testosterone levels. Further randomized controlled trials are
| warranted to confirm this hypothesis.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21154195/
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Spending time behind a screen more than with people.
| Compounded with more desk jobs too.
| stevenmays wrote:
| I read a hypothesis that it's birth control going to waste
| water facilities, and then getting back into the drinking water
| supply. From what I read a charcoal filter lessens the effects
| - which I believe gets filtered through a normal refrigerator
| filter. Please verify this information first, it's all
| conjecture and hypothesis.
| kibwen wrote:
| Birth control pill usage is slowly but inexorably declining
| as younger demographics start to favor IUDs more; IUDs were
| virtually unknown circa 2000 but today they're about equal in
| popularity. If true then we would expect the above trend to
| reverse within 20 years.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| Modern IUDs release hormones.
| kibwen wrote:
| They release progestin, not estrogen. And even then they
| seem to release a 3-7x lower volume of hormones per day
| than pills.
|
| I also would ask for a source on the relative popularity
| of the hormonal IUDs vs the non-hormonal copper ones; I
| haven't seen any source provide that sort of breakdown.
| worker767424 wrote:
| We don't directly recycle treated wastewater into drinking
| water much in the US. The closest you get is treated water
| being released into a river, and a city downstream uses it,
| there's a lot of dilution going on in-between. You'd also
| expect someone to notice it not affecting cities with water
| supplies that aren't downstream from wastewater treatment.
| mobilejdral wrote:
| Birth control pills these days are a fraction of what they
| were back in say the 50's.
|
| Women on HRT take 20,000 times the estrogen that is found in
| a estrogen birth control for example.
| raverbashing wrote:
| There's apparently also a slight decrease in body temperature
| during the 20th century (not sure if it's men only or all
| people)
|
| Related?
| [deleted]
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| Wouldn't a decrease in temperature result in more
| testosterone? Since sperm production is optimal at 35C.
| iheartblocks wrote:
| I believe that the reduction in temperature is generally
| attributed to lower levels of inflammation, which in turn is
| likely caused by reduced exposure to disease
| eloff wrote:
| Could be something in the environment, something in our diet.
|
| I'm curious if it's porn. Supposedly masturbation reduces
| testosterone levels. [1] Maybe men are just wanking more
| because of access to porn?
| eloff wrote:
| For some reason I can't edit my comment to add the link to
| the study.
|
| This study shows a 45% spike in testosterone after 7 days of
| abstinence.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12659241/
| iheartblocks wrote:
| I see this study referenced frequently, and it's always
| seemed dubious. Why would there be a spike at exactly 7
| days of abstinence, before returning to baseline? It's
| possible that the measuring apparatus was improperly
| calibrated on that day. Has this study been reproduced?
| criddell wrote:
| Maybe nobody could make it past 7 days.
| mywittyname wrote:
| They are not the masters of their domain.
| surge wrote:
| Yeah there's a lot of non-religious people who are finding
| the advantages of abstaining from porn (/r/nofap and
| /r/pornfree) or trying to limit its use. They say the T
| boost is temporary, but the behavioral factors make it
| worth it. Like they're more apt to be social with women, go
| on dates, etc, if they don't just relieve themselves, they
| actually have motivation.
| jswizzy wrote:
| can we not link to toxic websites like Reddit?
| alsssop wrote:
| I hate to tell you, but this website is functionally just
| a mini-reddit. And it exhibits as much toxicity as any
| semi-special-interest subreddit (perhaps even more, due
| to the many posts that are politically topical).
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Exactly. Abstaining from porn made me super horny and
| restless.
|
| If you need to motivate yourself to hit on women, this is
| a positive.
|
| If you need to do something intellectual -- work or play
| -- it's a sharp negative, though. Evangelists tend to
| gloss over this point.
| eloff wrote:
| Actually as Joe Rogan is quick to point out, if you're
| confused about your feelings for a woman, or you're
| feeling tempted by someone who's not your partner. Rub
| one out and you'll be surprised at the clarity it brings.
| svieira wrote:
| The funny thing is, if you hold the line longer (months)
| and have something else to pour yourself into the
| restlessness decreases and you're left with _focus_.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Mmm-hmm.
|
| Let me guess -- if I nofap for months _and_ eat less
| _and_ exercise more, it will also help with weight loss?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Yeah there's a lot of non-religious people who are
| finding the advantages of abstaining from porn (/r/nofap
| and /r/pornfree) or trying to limit its use. They say the
| T boost is temporary
|
| The T boost from refraining from masturbation is
| disputed, and AFAIK no one has even asserted that there
| is one from refraining from _porn_ , as such.
|
| "Some folks online claim that refraining from
| masturbation makes them feel more manly, more masculine,
| more assertive, more dominant, and more attractive to
| females. They allege that this effect emerges from a
| supposed increase in testosterone when they stopped
| masturbating.
|
| "These claims are often supported by reference to a very
| small, un-replicated study from China, which involved a
| very small sample of 10 males. Being interested in this
| study and how the analysis was conducted, colleagues have
| attempted to obtain the study data to verify, but have
| been unable to. But better research finds that
| testosterone isn't as simple as these claims would have
| it."
|
| -- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-
| stray/2020...
|
| "In other words, while there is indeed some research
| finding that sexual abstinence is linked to higher
| testosterone in men, the evidence is--at best--very
| mixed. Also, if you look to the overall trend in the
| data, it actually suggests that being sexually active in
| general increases testosterone, with the most consistent
| finding being that looking at porn enhances T."
|
| -- https://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2020/1/24/can-
| abstaining-from...
| eloff wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. It sounds like the claim is dubious
| then.
| [deleted]
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| probably why the ProudBoy jerks swear to abstain from it.
| mplewis wrote:
| This study is why the Proud Boys practice abstinence,
| yes.
| carabiner wrote:
| Is this study credible? I mean it was based on 28 men. Are
| the researchers and their institution, Hangzhou Normal
| College, legitimate in the field of medical research?
| toxik wrote:
| Huh, that actually makes a lot of sense. I guess then if
| you want gains, stop a-spankin'. Is that true?
| eloff wrote:
| Athletes famously abstain before a major game. I don't
| know if it's true or not, but there's some indication it
| could be.
| newen wrote:
| It recedes to normal after the 7th day, so masturbate
| every 7 or 8 days for best effect..
| zug_zug wrote:
| I'm fairly sure these studies control for recency of
| masturbation (I know sperm-count studies do)
| slothtrop wrote:
| This has been known for awhile, but this spike doesn't
| persist. It quickly levels back down.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I pretty sure if you ask people who grew up before the
| internet age you'd still find plenty of masturbation going
| on. To quote a famous scientist - life, uh, finds a way.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I know from testing that mine would be perfectly normal ... if I
| were in my eighties and had to use a walker to get around,
| according to my doctor. He hypothesized that I may never have had
| normal levels and I am inclined to agree. Unfortunately,
| treatment is complicated by a metabolic disorder I have, so I
| would have to find an aromatase inhibitor to suit as well as
| something to put a halt to 5-alpha-reductase.
|
| Admittedly, I find myself somewhat _afraid_ of a variety of small
| factors. Certainly I would like to keep my hair, but more than
| that I am concerned that I simply wouldn 't know how to deal with
| the drive (normally one would say "renewed" here but I have been
| take-it-or-leave-it about most things).
| davesque wrote:
| I see a lot of speculation here about something like an unknown
| toxin being the cause. Is it possible that societal and cultural
| trends are driving this change? In other words, the emotional
| quality of modern day life. Perhaps another explanation is simply
| just evolution. After all, what does physical prowess really get
| you nowadays compared with even 20 or 30 years before?
| legerdemain wrote:
| Can we use testosterone to absorb excess CO2??
| lmilcin wrote:
| I wonder to what extend this is due to parenting and the fact
| kids are not exposed to other kids their age without adult
| control anymore.
|
| Then when they grow up they get consumed with electronic devices
| and loose chances for actual physical contact with others
| typically necessary to test your position on a ladder.
| icare_1er wrote:
| This explains a lot politically.
| mjfl wrote:
| They say they controlled for BMI, but if the dependence on BMI is
| nonlinear (i.e. higher BMI reinforces it's own destructive effect
| on testosterone) then there will still be a residual effect after
| that control. I think this effect is entirely due to BMI.
| wassenaar10 wrote:
| Microplastics in most water supplies, hormones in most meats, and
| the western diet in general being high in sugars and simple
| carbohydrates seem to me to be the most likely culprits. It's
| also possible that other sources of pollution, for example
| pesticides, pay a role in it but that's something I know less
| about.
|
| Good luck getting anything done about the ubiquity of endocrine
| disrupters in our food and water supply though. The lack of an
| acute effect and the difficulty in even assigning causality for
| something like this makes regulatory action pretty difficult.
| datavirtue wrote:
| That's because you are fighting the people who pay for the
| elections. Outside of that, banning endocrine disrupters is
| trivial. See France.
| williesleg wrote:
| Hey soyboy!
| normlEyezd wrote:
| A baboon group lost its alpha males to illness from spoiled food.
| Researchers noted the remaining group developed more
| affectionate, communal behaviors as a result.
|
| Perhaps our change in culture, teaching kids earlier to adopt a
| more thoughtful approach to interacting with others is creating
| less external stimulus.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/no-time-for-bulli...
| dropbear__cute wrote:
| Young men have important things to do, apart from fighting for
| dominance.
| totalZero wrote:
| Dr. Philip Zimbardo wrote a book called "Man, Interrupted" that
| addresses this topic to some degree. One factor that he mentioned
| was the advent of high-speed internet, supporting both video
| games (virtual achievement) and pornography (virtual
| gratification).
|
| AOL announced its plans for high-speed DSL internet in January of
| 1999 -- the same year as the beginning of the study period.
|
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wV1z7-...
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've also seen articles saying there's a similar declining level
| of physical strength among men (measured by grip strength). I
| wonder if sitting at home all day playing video games instead of
| being outside running around reduces T levels.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| How does being outside running around increase grip strength?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| "Running around" means several things, in context he probably
| means kids being outside playing. Like running around the
| neighborhood, climbing things, throwing things, etc. Not just
| being on their feet running.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Men are becoming wimpier. I know my cousin growing up was afraid
| of dogs, heights, terrified of open water, and so on. He grew up
| with few friends, did not play any sports, and spent most days
| indoors on the computer, very over protective mother.
|
| Honestly, in previous times he would be ridiculed for being very
| wimpy and scared of the world. Very little social pressure now.
| You can just retreat into your man cave, battle station, or
| cacoon after coming home from a very safe office job.
|
| Masculinity is not just genetic. Just like muscles, it needs
| context for it to develop. Had he grown up in Sparta, same
| person, would be different.
| [deleted]
| helen___keller wrote:
| > Very little social pressure now. You can just retreat into
| your man cave, battle station, or cacoon after coming home from
| a very safe office job.
|
| Is there a reason to believe this kind of social pressure would
| actually affect your testosterone levels? Does being pressured
| into acting more manly actually change your hormone levels?
| Sounds dubious, unless we're going by second order effects
| (decreased obesity from doing "manly things", etc).
| newen wrote:
| Exercise increases testosterone levels, for one. So I would
| think, yes, if only because being pressured into acting more
| manly makes men do more exercise and sports to look more
| manly.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Well you answered your own question. You become by doing. If
| you don't train muscles they don't grow. If you're sedentary,
| and obese, knock on effect from doing that.
|
| Just think about it this way. If you got dropped off to live
| in the wilderness of Alaska. And I came back to visit you in
| a year. Do you think you would be more masculine. I bet so.
| All kinds of changes would need to be made by you and your
| body just to survive. From fitness level, to body fat
| percentage, and so on.
| helen___keller wrote:
| > All kinds of changes would need to be made by you and
| your body just to survive. From fitness level, to body fat
| percentage, and so on.
|
| Sure, but if the wimpy guy hits the gym every day and has
| an optimal diet (but otherwise works their desk job, maybe
| with a standing desk, and retreats to their man cave),
| would you expect that to work roughly just as well?
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I don't know how much actually being outdoors matters. I
| suspect that getting exposed to a forest environment;
| cold, bacteria/molds in the air, sunshine, and so on
| might matter too. Even possibly eating gamely animals.
|
| I grew up on a farm, so I know that dogs that are kept
| outdoors, act differently than dogs that are kept
| indoors.
|
| They are more aggressive, appear fitter, and smarter. I
| suspect their brains might develop differently from
| living outdoors.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I find this worldview really funny.
|
| How would you increase estrogen?
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I don't know how to increase estrogen levels in normal
| weight women. But you can definitely lower estrogen
| levels, by dropping below a certain body fat percentage.
| In fact, at some point, a women will lose her cycle if
| she's too skinny and wont be able to get pregnant.
|
| My ex girlfriend had six pack abs, was a very fit person.
| Probably top 1% of all women. I suspect that my
| girlfriend was able to achieve her six pack abs for 3
| reasons. Had a meat/low sugar/low carb diet, and did a
| lot of swimming. But I suspect, the biggest reason was
| that she probably had higher than average testosterone
| levels for a woman. That also had the knock on effect of
| her liking exercise more.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| So the woman who exercises a lot probably does so because
| she has high testosterone,
|
| But the man who has low testosterone probably does so
| because of social norms?
|
| The chicken and egg appears to reverse in your reasoning
| here
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| You make a good point. I think of these more like a feed
| back loop. One can affect the other. You can spiral up,
| or spiral down. Some people might be genetically
| predisposed to become Alcoholics. Once you start drinking
| more, it will make you more of an alcoholic. Drinking
| less, will make you less of an alcoholic. Social pressure
| might help you drink less, or drink more. Its not
| inconsistent.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| What about it amuses you?
| klmadfejno wrote:
| It's conflating traditional gender norms, social
| masculinity, and physical traits like testosterone, then
| bundling everything into you gotta act like X to acquire
| Y, because that's how muscles work. Rugged man living off
| the woods in Alaska feels like a tropey barbarian.
|
| If his logic is to believed, there should be equal
| methods to raise hormone levels for estrogen. I'm curious
| what he would propose.
|
| Living in the wilderness is probably hard work, but I
| might bet more on the guy who plays team sports on
| weekends, eats healthy meals, and tries to get laid in a
| civil society.
|
| People had meek cousins at all times of history.
| staticman2 wrote:
| Stress to the body from overexercise can decrease
| testosterone, though.
| Fnoord wrote:
| @dang, (2020)
| asdff wrote:
| People cite activity declining, but really we've been plenty
| sedentary for all those decades since we eliminated electric
| public transit in most American cities in the 1950s-60s. Some
| people walk 20 feet to their car, 200 feet to the elevator, 20
| feet to the cubicle, then end the day back at home without
| scarcely moving 1000 feet by their own leg. That isn't new
| between 1999 and today. People spend all day inside watching TV
| or playing video games rather than playing outside, that too
| isn't new. If anything, more people are biking, hiking, and
| running outside than they were 20 years ago.
|
| Another potential factor that I think may be a culprit is sleep.
| Americans sleep less today than 20 years ago:
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-get-less-sleep-than-2...
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/28/7736227...
|
| What is driving this? Well, it could be our addiction to staring
| at a phone screen for hours at a time in total silence, unmoving.
| It's probably a combination of things, like the fact that
| americans are working more hours than they were 10 years ago and
| now have to sacrifice a good nights sleep to get all their
| personal business done when they aren't working:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/american-work-habits-culture...
| kizer wrote:
| Also, it's less acceptable it seems for men to display aggression
| or engage in debauchery. Many men are meant to fight or compete.
| danbolt wrote:
| How do you know what someone's meant to do?
| cashsterling wrote:
| Read up on estrogen mimics:
| https://www.uwec.edu/academics/college-arts-sciences/departm...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen
|
| I think low level chemical exposure to many of these chemicals is
| largely to blame.
| kulig wrote:
| Chronic sleep deprivation?
| tolbish wrote:
| More information on the effects of phytoestrogen (e.g. soy) from
| a study here:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074428/
| second--shift wrote:
| straight from the quoted article:
|
| > For a typical consumer, alarm over soy products is likely
| unnecessary
| MAGZine wrote:
| I can't help but wonder if this has to do with an increasing
| pessimism in the future and higher rates of mental illness.
| vixen99 wrote:
| It is also clear that sperm counts have declined very
| significantly in the past decades. Some estimates put it at
| nearly 60% in Western men. But similar reports can be found for
| China https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67707-x.pdf and
| Africa. http://www.bioline.org.br/pdf?hs17052
| richardARPANET wrote:
| This explains a lot.
| [deleted]
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This seems to be a global phenomenon.
|
| https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-020-0...
|
| Possible toxicity of something that we deem safe could be an
| explanation.
|
| A side comment. I am 42. When I was younger, in the late 90s,
| getting into physical fight was much more common than today.
| These days even drunk young guys seem to be content with hurling
| a few insults. (For record, I am a peaceful person and the
| possibility of getting beaten up for no good reason was something
| I definitely did not look forward to during my old pub crawls.)
|
| I wonder if this is actually a manifestation of population-wide
| testosterone drop.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| Violent crime in the US has been dropping for some time now.
| Reduction of environmental lead (gas and paint) is one of the
| factors as well. https://www.medicaldaily.com/leaded-gasoline-
| linked-rise-and...
|
| Also I would guess that at 42 you are much less likely to be in
| a situation where a physical fight might start than you were in
| the 1990s - at bars at 2am for example. I know that I am.
| mrec wrote:
| Yes, this would be my first suspicion too, especially for a
| comparison with the 1990s.
|
| > _For instance, the peak in leaded gasoline use in the late
| 1970 's corresponds to a peak in aggravated assault rates in
| the late 1990's in urban areas across the United States._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning#Violence
| flukus wrote:
| I wonder if this could be the causal link between the two
| that has always been missing, lead -> higher testosterone
| -> more violence.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| > Possible toxicity of something
|
| This assumes (it seems to be universally assumed in this
| thread) that the earlier average level of testosterone -
| meaning the year 1999 - is more optimal, which doesn't seem
| evident to me.
|
| Why not, equally: a toxin has possibly been removed?
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| If you look at photos from the 90s and from the last couple
| of years people were very obviously much healthier in the
| 90s. Maybe it wasn't optimal, but without further evidence
| I'm going to believe it is closer to optimal than where we
| are now.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| Even if I agree, you're citing this as a measure of
| general/overall health, so testosterone levels are not
| specifically implicated.
|
| High testosterone levels in men are linked to much higher
| heart problems, a major cause of early death.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Back in the 90s we didn't all have phones in our pockets
| with high quality cameras. If someone got out a camera, it
| was a special occasion where people probably looked nice to
| begin with. On top of that, the pictures you see from the
| 90s are the pictures people have kept for 20 years - again
| creating a bias for situations where people looked nicer
| than they were day to day.
|
| If you exclusively look at pictures from the 90s of people
| doing mundane things like shopping at a grocery store, they
| don't look any different from people today (except perhaps
| with worse fashion sense).
| f430 wrote:
| > getting into physical fight was much more common than today
|
| I distinctly remember the popularity of gang culture in North
| American west coast cities. Everybody were forming gangs based
| on ethnicity usually (but racial diversity isn't uncommon).
| This was the era of gangster rap, Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Ice
| Cube, DMX, Bone Thugs, Nas....all the classics...the lyrics are
| simply HARD compared to today.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| All the rappers were talking about slinging drugs. Today'a
| rappers are, or at least a huge chunk are, the people buying
| the drugs.
| burnthrow wrote:
| Nobody tell this person about drill
| dalbasal wrote:
| I'm a similar age. Do school fights still happen? Circa 12-15
| years old, these were a normal part of being a boy. There was
| even a spot outside the school where boys waited for other boys
| they wanted to fight. Several boys would be there on any given
| day. There were enough fights that everyone knew where everyone
| stood in the "rankings." Who you could beat and who you
| couldn't... says a lot considering how fast kids grow at that
| age.
|
| I didn't go to a very violent school, and fights got rarer as
| age made them more serious. My parents also treated it as
| normal. They didn't encourage it, but it wasn't a major
| outrage. Schools too. A note to parents or somesuch minor
| penalty was the usual recourse.
| rchaud wrote:
| The Columbine happened in April 1999 and dominated the news
| cycle for a long time. It likely had a big impact on a
| generation of American kids. Kids that would otherwise have
| proceeded straight to a fistfight may have had second
| thoughts in case the person attacked showed up the next day
| with a rifle.
|
| As for later years, schools took a zero-tolerance policy, so
| that would have cut down on it significantly. With social
| media use increasing towards the end of the 2000s, fights
| could have been reduced further because people did not want
| to end up as a punchline (no pun intended) on Worldstar or
| Vine.
| divbzero wrote:
| It probably depended on where you were. I attended grade
| school in the US in the 1990s and got into only one "fight"
| where punches were thrown. No teachers were around but there
| would have been punishment had it been reported.
| ssully wrote:
| Similar age group as you and also in the US. I can recall a
| single fight in school, and I honestly don't think any real
| punches thrown; it was more of a stand off with light
| hitting that died down quicker than it started.
| simplyaccont wrote:
| Grew up in USSR and Israel. Nothing even close to it.
| dalbasal wrote:
| this was in raanana, early 90s.
| simplyaccont wrote:
| netanya, 93-97 in worst high school of the city. those
| that were expelled from it, next stop was a cross between
| school and juvie.
|
| fights were few and between. those that i remember had
| ethnic background.
| powvans wrote:
| Same age, grew up in the rural southern US and this was my
| experience in middle and high school. Lots of fighting.
| Everyone who wanted to "be somebody" was under pressure to
| participate in it. Winning meant advancing in social rank. At
| some point the school cracked down and the suspension for
| fighting was 10 days. After that it was lots of meeting
| people at such and such location after school or at some
| party on Friday night to settle things.
|
| Definitely tapered off the last couple years of high school,
| but some of the rougher kids continued to engage it. Those
| kids pretty quickly got into serious enough trouble that they
| ended up in jail, expelled, on probation. That quieted things
| down a good bit.
| xxpor wrote:
| I was in HS from 04-08. I can recall maybe one fight that
| teachers would break up a year. The people who got in them
| were not praised as tough guys, but idiots to be mocked.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| They still do happen indeed, but the penalty can be much
| higher.
| kart23 wrote:
| I've seen kids get expelled for getting in fights, even off-
| campus on their own time. That kind of stuff simply isn't
| tolerated anymore.
| dhruvkar wrote:
| I'm 33 but grew up in a developing nation. This was common
| starting at around age 8. The boys fought pretty much every
| week. Exactly like you describe, there were rankings, within
| the class and in the larger grade.
|
| This was common for other people who I met later that from
| developing nations. Not sure if this still happens anymore.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Probably lead.
|
| https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-
| le...
| surge wrote:
| I think the problem is now, school fights are handled by
| actual police, so there's very severe consequences, as in
| criminal records, not just a suspension. So its likely no
| tolerance policy removes these kids or ruins their lives.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Yeah, in the latter years of high school, I saw a number of
| fights end in handcuffs.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| I'm a similar age and in comparison you went to an extremely
| violent school particularly if adults were treating it as
| normal!
|
| I experienced way more violence in my late teens and early
| twenties thanks to drinking in dodgy towns.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Different culture, that is all.
|
| If you read Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Fin, boys
| fighting, even if they just met seemed to be part of life.
|
| > The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet.
| Presently Tom checked his whistle. A stranger was before
| him--a boy a shade larger than himself. A new-comer of any
| age or either sex was an im-pressive curiosity in the poor
| little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy was well
| dressed, too--well dressed on a week-day. This was simply
| astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned
| blue cloth roundabout was new and natty, and so were his
| pantaloons. He had shoes on--and it was only Friday. He
| even wore a necktie, a bright bit of ribbon. He had a
| citified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The more
| Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up
| his nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his
| own outfit seemed to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one
| moved, the other moved--but only sidewise, in a circle;
| they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. Finally
| Tom said: "I can lick you!"
|
| http://www.gutenberg.org/files/74/74-h/74-h.htm#c1
|
| I'm not from that culture myself but I know people who are.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Fighting is one mechanism for establishing the social
| order of a group. So in the absence of some way of
| ranking people, people will eventually devolve to fist
| fights to determine who is boss.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| My gut is saying : plastic.
| underseacables wrote:
| Pesticides in our food?
| smk_ wrote:
| Pesticides in our food are likely one of the reason as to why
| we see a "pandemic-like" increase in Alzheimer's disease
| among our old [1]. It is not too far-fetched to think this
| could affect our young in various ways as well.
|
| [1] http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_474CF2C8A20B417398848
| 6AC... (relevant portion min 40-45)
| HuShifang wrote:
| I've read that fatty tissue in the body triggers an increase in
| estrogen production, and that obesity can thus trigger a
| vicious cycle (insofar as estrogen triggers an increase in
| fatty tissue). Certainly, exposure to plastics and other
| environmental factors might increase estrogen levels alone, but
| given that we know that people (everywhere, I think) are fatter
| than they used to be, and that this seems significantly due to
| their being more sedentary and having worse diets (more
| processed foods, etc.), isn't that a plausible simple
| explanation? (Or at least one worth rigorously analyzing?)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > plausible simple explanation
|
| Yes, and they address this in the study. They controlled for
| BMI, among other confounding variables.
| HuShifang wrote:
| Yup, I should have read the article -- thanks
| slothtrop wrote:
| Their BMI range is wide
| trianglem wrote:
| Aren't Parabens and related plastics endocrine disrupters and
| weak estrogen mimics? Could be one plausible explanation
| thatcat wrote:
| Yes, and microplastic has been found in pretty much all
| animals including humans now. It's a massive problem that
| will be incredibly difficult to clean up.
| 1-6 wrote:
| I believe Dupont's Teflon is also found everywhere in the
| water supply around the globe.
| jolmg wrote:
| > I wonder if this is actually a manifestation of population-
| wide testosterone drop.
|
| Is it possible for the cause-and-effect to be backwards? A
| change in socially acceptable behavior causing the testosterone
| drop?
| mumblemumble wrote:
| That was my first thought. Inspired by hazy memories of some
| 20 year old episode of This American Life talking about
| (IIRC, which I probably don't) men's blood testosterone
| levels rising when they engage in aggressive behavior or take
| part in competitive activities.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The most likely episode is #220, "Testosterone":
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/220
| wassenaar10 wrote:
| > Is it possible for the cause-and-effect to be backwards? A
| change in socially acceptable behavior causing the
| testosterone drop?
|
| How exactly do you propose that a change in socially
| acceptable behavior in the span of about 40 years had a
| tangible effect on hormone levels? It's not like someone can
| say "oh getting into fistfights isn't cool anymore, better
| reduce my testosterone levels". Maybe if we were talking
| about a timespan an order of magnitude or two longer then
| sexual selection (high testosterone and more violent men
| being less favored as mates) could come into play, but again
| for a time span of 40-50 years that's just not feasible.
| Also, socially acceptable or not, violent and aggressive men
| typically don't have problems finding sexual partners; Ted
| Bundy, the notorious serial killer and rapist, was known to
| receive many love-letters in prison, even after the details
| of his crimes (exclusively against women and girls) were made
| public and he was able to marry and conceive a child while
| incarcerated.
| standardUser wrote:
| Tons of factors influence hormone levels. There's nothing
| strange about thinking widespread social patterns and
| physical changes in the environment (diet, air pollution,
| etc) could lead to widespread hormonal changes within a
| population.
|
| You seem to assume testosterone levels are only a function
| of genetics, which they are not.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| It sounds like you're assuming evolutionary pressure as a
| mechanism of change, is that correct?
|
| Have you considered that the body may produce different
| hormone levels as a result of our mental state?
|
| For example, when startled, the body produces a hormone
| called adrenaline. We know with certainty that mental state
| is responsible for certain types of hormone production.
|
| I honestly do not know if there might be a link between
| testosterone production specifically and mental state, but
| I took this to be the question that the above poster was
| asking.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I believe there was a study that found that sports fans'
| testosterone levels were lower after their preferred team
| lost.
| [deleted]
| jdc wrote:
| https://www.webmd.com/men/news/20150313/more-sex-better-
| test...
| jolmg wrote:
| > It's not like someone can say "oh getting into fistfights
| isn't cool anymore, better reduce my testosterone levels".
|
| I was actually considering something like that. That if you
| engage in more aggressive behavior regularly for a long
| period of time, your testosterone levels might stay higher
| on average than if you didn't.
| ben_w wrote:
| Apparently exercise can increase testosterone, which
| implies fistfights (especially frequent ones) would too;
| however, this article also says obesity can reduce
| testosterone, and I suspect that is a bigger factor:
|
| https://www.webmd.com/men/features/exercise-and-
| testosterone
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Lower testosterone probably causes fat gain too. It
| wouldn't surprise me if we eventually find out that
| something environmental is causing both of those
| phenomena.
| mobilejdral wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25982085/
|
| Lower testosterone causes fat gain and fat gain causes
| lower testosterone.
|
| https://simondsmetabolics.com/2020/09/10/how-obesity-
| affects...
|
| > Scientists have established that excess fat increases
| enzymes known as aromatases. These molecules convert
| testosterone into estrogen. While estrogen is present in
| males in very small amounts, increased amounts can alter
| normal function. Having too much estrogen tricks the body
| into thinking that you do not need more testosterone. The
| danger lies in the vicious cycle that develops once the
| high estrogen levels kick in.
|
| Cheap, high calorie food and obesity...
| yannyu wrote:
| This is an interesting hypothesis. The silver fox
| domestication experiment shows that selecting for behavioral
| traits can result in significant changes to physical traits
| as well: https://evolution-
| outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...
| taurath wrote:
| Cultural psychology could have been changing too. Rates of
| corporeal punishment going down resulting in less violent
| behavior. Data in this study shows a 30 percentage point
| drop in rates of spanking, and every study done on spanking
| has shown it is at best neutral but commonly creates
| negative outcomes
|
| http://unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV358%20-%20Published%202019.pdf
| nathanmcrae wrote:
| I much prefer incorporeal punishment. When the ghost
| tries to whack you, you just act like it hurts and you're
| good
| tylerjwilk00 wrote:
| This only makes sense if your underlying assumption is that
| the less violent are reproducing more offspring now. Your
| reference study merely shows that the phenotypical traits
| have a strong correlation with the behavior traits (in at
| least foxes). This selection requires offspring but its
| seems the parent is referencing a hormonal change due to
| social behavior.
|
| I agree with the premise, that social and environmental
| norms can influence hormones, but the fox study is a
| different phenomenon altogether.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >This only makes sense if your underlying assumption is
| that the less violent are reproducing more offspring now.
|
| I wouldn't rule it out. After a generation of anti-
| bullying and zero tolerance schools have gotten pretty
| good at making sure anyone with even the slightest
| violent tendencies is primed to be caught up in "the
| system" by the time they're done and we've thrown the
| "fuck the government I smoke what I want" crowd in
| prison.
| smogcutter wrote:
| Key word there being "selecting", which makes this a pretty
| implausible explanation for something we can observe over a
| couple decades.
| mcphage wrote:
| Hormone production is something that the body controls.
| It doesn't require multiple generations or genetic
| selection.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I don't get what you're saying, every phenotype is
| something "that the body controls."
| echelon wrote:
| Unless production is controlled by the environment rather
| than strictly genetic factors.
|
| This wouldn't be a genetic argument then.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| So then totally irrelevant to the silver fox experiment.
| surge wrote:
| I don't think drunken bar fights was ever socially acceptable
| anywhere but the lowest of social strata. I'd blame lifestyle
| changes and BPA far before I thought exercising normal
| "gentlemanly" restraint caused T to dip. Also, your theory
| doesn't explain the anomaly of all the large muscular men who
| you can tell by physical appearance have high T and who are
| very kind and not aggressive. Bar fights have a lot more to
| do with environmental factors that influence behavior, like
| how they were raised, the same socioeconomic factors that
| contribute to violent crime, etc.
| jolmg wrote:
| > doesn't explain the anomaly of all the large muscular men
| who you can tell by physical appearance have high T and who
| are very kind and not aggressive.
|
| I don't know the numbers, but that would mean that high T
| does not cause aggression, not that aggression does not
| cause high T.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Bodybuilders think high estrogen levels cause roid rage.
| Might be lies they tell themselves, might be a valid
| observation.
|
| On the other hand normal levels testosterone supposedly
| saturate receptors. Big exception is muscles.
| Delk wrote:
| > Also, your theory doesn't explain the anomaly of all the
| large muscular men who you can tell by physical appearance
| have high T and who are very kind and not aggressive.
|
| I don't think higher levels of testosterone have been
| reliably linked to aggressive behaviour except in case of
| anabolic steroid abuse. Those kind people might well have
| high levels of testosterone.
| cat199 wrote:
| > I don't think drunken bar fights was ever socially
| acceptable anywhere but the lowest of social strata.
|
| Not how it fits in the discussion, but I'd put duelling in
| the same category, and this was clearly acceptable among
| elites when it was acceptable overall
| irrational wrote:
| Is it really similar? Duels would be scheduled in
| advanced. There would be rules to be followed. I don't
| think I ever read about a duel involving fisticuffs. I
| suppose you could be saying that a duel is the posh
| version of a drunken bar fight, but that's like saying
| that a moderated debate is the posh version of a
| profanity filled screaming match in a bar parking lot.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Plastic
| [deleted]
| kerblang wrote:
| It's really harmful to go around pushing the uninformed
| assertion that "testosterone == violence". This leads to people
| lashing out at men in general, then further backlash from there
| in the form of the "they're-coming-to-get-us" trumpian insanity
| that is going on right now.
|
| The whole phenomenon of "toxic masculinity" is not about
| "masculinity makes you toxic" but about the ways we terrorize
| young males and indoctrinate them with fear & violence at an
| early age.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
| greggturkington wrote:
| Testosterone arouses brain areas for aggression and muscle
| development (in humans and other animals). Masculinity is a
| different topic.
|
| It doesn't "===" violence but if you're intentionally using
| "==" for type coercion, it could be true.
| orangesitebad wrote:
| Interestingly, js usage steadily increased over the same
| time period.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Testosterone is linked to violence, in that stronger people
| tend to have higher testosterone levels and people with
| higher testosterone levels tend to be more aggressive. I
| think the whole idea of toxic masculinity is bullshit, but we
| shouldn't ignore obvious correlations just because they upset
| our ideas about how things should be.
| belorn wrote:
| I want to first mention that both violence and aggression
| is defined in term of culture and as such is a difficult
| subject for researcher to define in studies.
|
| The link between aggression and testosterone in modern
| studies is a complicated one. The theory that testosterone
| levels can be used as a predictor for violence has been
| extensively debunked. However violence is a predictor for
| high testosterone, a finding mostly done on apes. The
| prevailing theory, as far as I seen in modern research, is
| the challenge hypothesis. If two males fight, the winner of
| the two will have raised testosterone afterward. The winner
| will also be more likely to be more vigorous defending
| themselves if their new won status is challenged.
|
| On a more subtle human experience, place people in a
| economic game and inject some with testosterone. What ever
| behavior that the game has in order to defend status will
| be increased in those injected. If status is preserved by
| giving money, those injected with testosterone become more
| generous.
|
| A similar study has been done on sport fans. When a team
| wins a match, male fans of that team will have their
| testosterone raised afterward. If there is a confrontation
| between fans of the two different teams, it is more likely
| that the winning side will react more aggressively.
|
| Talking about toxic behavior, there is also a similar
| finding for women. It is however a bit more complicated and
| involve multiple hormones. The aggression is also more
| complicated, harder to define, and is more context
| sensitive.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| [citation needed]
|
| There is plenty of scientific research on the topic.
| "Testosterone == violence" is plain wrong. In some papers,
| partial correlation was indicated.
|
| The belief that testosterone is some sort of "manly warrior
| hormone" is an example of cultural bias that has been
| researched as well (see google scholar) and fits very well
| the description of "toxic masculinity".
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| It looks like it's more complex than just testosterone,
| but there is a link between testosterone and risk-
| aversion: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/p
| ii/S1570677X1...
|
| There's a biological basis for men being less risk-averse
| than women. If you think about cavemen days, as a woman,
| if you are pregnant, or could be pregnant, going hunting,
| making physical threats, or taking unnecessary risks will
| reduce your chances of reproductive success. It's better
| to be safe and conservative, because the life of your
| children could be at stake.
|
| As a male, in primitive times, it was the opposite.
| Obviously it wouldn't be to your advantage to just pick
| fights with everyone, but there is much more of a
| competitive dynamic. The men who go out, hunt, and bring
| the food, will have more success within their tribes. In
| order to succeed as a caveman, you had to leave the camp
| in a hunting party and risk getting killed.
|
| AFAIK, based on studies on mitochondrial DNA, we have
| 2-3x female ancestors as males. Meaning most males died
| childless. This is obviously not a model for how we want
| modern society to be, but I think it's healthy to
| understand where we come form, and why males may have
| more of a tendency for violence, or to get themselves
| killed in motorcycle accidents. It's not just because of
| socialization. There is a biological basis.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| You didn't refute what I said at all. Testosterone levels
| are linked to violent behavior. This is very clear in the
| literature. Does it mean everyone with high testosterone
| levels is violent? Obviously not. And violence is not
| always a bad trait either. I don't believe in toxic
| masculinity. Masculine and feminine traits have their
| place and are obviously adaptive in different situations.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > You didn't refute what I said at all.
|
| And I don't intend to. The topic is big enough for a
| degree and specialization in endocrinology.
|
| I recommend to read the books from
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sapolsky or at the
| very least watch all his lectures on youtube.
|
| > I don't believe in toxic masculinity. Masculine and
| feminine traits have
|
| You are confusing "toxic masculinity" with "masculinity
| is toxic"
|
| "toxic work culture" does not mean "work is toxic"
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Testosterone is also linked to a greater sense of fair
| play, both as the recipient and the benefactor.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/testosterones-
| eff...
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12191-hormones-
| affect...
|
| The concept of testosterone=aggression is damagingly
| simplistic, and should not be held up as a good model.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Yes, I'm not in disagreement with this. I also don't
| think aggression is a negative trait.
| [deleted]
| jbboehr wrote:
| I don't mean to necessarily imply you are doing this, but I
| suspect "toxic masculinity" is a motte-and-bailey[0].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's even possible, I imagine, that it's the reverse... Perhaps
| testosterone production is increased by a toxin or stressor
| that our ancestors were exposed to but we managed to minimize.
| encoderer wrote:
| This could also be explained by phasing out of lead-based
| paints.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| What is the process for determining long-term safety of new
| substances that might end up in the environment? Ah right, just
| use them until problems show up, then try to deny and hide the
| problems for a few more years. It would not surprise me at all
| if even in the absence of a smoking gun there are simply a lot
| of endocrine disruptors at low (even within safe limits,
| individually) dosages working simultaneously.
| rsync wrote:
| "Possible toxicity of something that we deem safe could be an
| explanation."
|
| This is a needlessly complex explanation.
|
| Very low physical activity rates are the likely cause.
|
| A majority of men in the US are obese or overweight[1] and,
| culturally, Americans barely even walk.
|
| Testosterone levels are linked to physical activity.[2][3]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#P...
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706091/
|
| [3] https://www.cpandr.co.uk/2018/08/22/the-impact-exercise-
| has-...
| Reason077 wrote:
| Perhaps you missed the part where they controlled for _"
| confounders--including year of study, age, race, BMI,
| comorbidity status, alcohol and smoking use, and level of
| physical activity"_
|
| So, _after_ correcting for BMI, physical activity, etc, there
| was still a very significant decline in testosterone between
| 1999-2000 and 2015-2016.
| rsync wrote:
| I see that and I'm glad they included it, but ...
|
| Was 1999-2000 that golden age when we all threshed the
| fields by hand and steered the plows on foot ?
|
| I remember people being quite sedentary and obese then and
| I don't know that an activity comparison to 1999-2000 has
| any utility ...
|
| EDIT: OK, I am thinking about this backwards - if, as I
| suggest, people were just as sedentary in the first period
| as they are in the second, then the T drop begs a different
| explanation. As you suggest, they also corrected for age.
|
| So, perhaps, my instinct is wrong. I would still look very
| closely at the (adjusted, corrected) physical activity
| before drawing any other conclusions ...
| haihaibye wrote:
| 1999-2000 is a period in the past when they had
| measurements.
|
| I mean ideally they'd have huge numbers of testosterone
| samples from all of human history, but what are they
| going to do?
| thejoeflow wrote:
| it's a reference point? The article isn't comparing to
| some platonic ideal of what men's testosterone levels
| should be...it's just pointing out a statistically
| significant decrease in those levels over a period of 20
| years
| alan-crowe wrote:
| There is something double strange about the p values.For
| the main effect, the broad based decline, p < 0.0001. But
| for the result for men at "normal" weight, 18.5 < BMI <
| 24.9, the p value is given as p< 0.05.
|
| The first strangeness is that this _hints_ at a much weaker
| effect. The second strangeness is reporting the p value
| rather than the effect size. I clicked the link to a pdf at
| the bottom of the article, but it is _not_ the paper.
| _shrug_
| cgh wrote:
| Yeah, but a few paragraphs later, we have this:
|
| "According to Lokeshwar, potential causes for these
| declines could be increased obesity/BMI, assay variations,
| diet/phytoestrogens, declined exercise and physical
| activity, fat percentage, marijuana use, and environmental
| toxins."
|
| My personal, totally unsupported hypothesis: society is
| simply kinder and gentler now. As evidenced by the high
| testosterone in prison populations, this hormone responds
| to environmental threats of potential violence.
| sebmellen wrote:
| This may be part of the explanation, but read this:
|
| > _Lokeshwar noted that even men with a normal BMI
| (18.5-24.9) had declining total testosterone levels (P < .05)
| during the same time frames._
| zetazzed wrote:
| The first line in the article is: "The decline in total
| testosterone was observed even among men with normal body
| mass index." So obesity may be a factor, but it does not seem
| to be the only factor.
| eloff wrote:
| They said this accounted for most of the effect.
|
| But if you look at the study the effect persists after
| controlling for both BMI and exercise. There must be more to
| it.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Stress is also linked to reduced testosterone.
|
| Sexual behaviors can radically change testosterone as well.
| offtop5 wrote:
| I think America is one of the most obese countries on earth.
|
| I completely blame the food. Even eating absolute junk in
| Europe I noticed I lost 5 or 6 pounds over 2 weeks.
|
| Here if I eat junk food for 3 days my weight jumps by 7
| pounds. I am a bit dismayed with all the attempts to
| normalize obesity in the US. I was morbidly obese up until I
| got serious about my weight in my early 20s. You can read all
| the dating books you want, but getting in shape is the only
| thing that works. It's much easier to hop on Reddit and
| complain though.
|
| I'm very optimistic I'll be able to move to a healthier
| country once I retire at 40 or so. Not exactly easy to stay
| in shape when this country tries to pump us all full of corn
| syrup
| rsync wrote:
| "I completely blame the food. Even eating absolute junk in
| Europe I noticed I lost 5 or 6 pounds over 2 weeks."
|
| I don't. Certainly it doesn't help and, of course,
| Americans should eat much better than they do, but ...
|
| I think the most important factor is that our built _and
| cultural_ environment are constructed to make us obese.
|
| If one does not live in a modern city center one barely
| ever walks. Most Americans sit all day - at a desk or in a
| car.
|
| Further, many Americans are 1-2 generations removed from
| "the farm" and are still heavily influenced by habits like
| "three square meals per day" that made great sense on the
| farm and make no sense at all in the city.
|
| _We 're bad at being urban_.
|
| I contrast us with people I see who are _good at being
| urban_. The old Chinese women in the park doing Tai Chi
| every morning. The 70+ woman I saw running ( _running_!) to
| get the bus in Zurich. The Spanish people I lived with who
| sort-of ate one big meal every day at 14:00 ...
|
| We'll get there ...
| prawn wrote:
| Were you travelling in Europe? I typically lose weight
| while travelling because I'm walking more and have fewer
| snacks around. This includes months in the US last year
| where pace and timing of a lot of our driving meant we
| ate fast food a bit. It was hot so we couldn't stash
| chocolate/ice cream, we didn't have access to a fridge so
| we didn't scoff leftovers, etc. We mostly lived out of a
| cooler and cooked on fires. We walked around exploring
| cities/towns where many residents would not have though.
| The number of mobility scooters and the like is
| incredible.
| opportune wrote:
| I agree that there is a big cultural factor here. I wish
| people focused on this more. So many people want to look
| at correlations like income:BMI that don't generalize to
| other countries or cultures. Really what they expose are
| cultural and societal idiosyncrasies, much more than they
| expose that "cheap food is not healthy". Of course, that
| is less appealing to an epidemiologist because the cause
| and effect is less clear and has much greater
| implications than recommending more exercise.
| offtop5 wrote:
| >We'll get there ...
|
| You can also write an article for the Huffington Post
| arguing it's impossible to ever lose weight.
|
| I'm not calling for fat shamming, but you can't be both
| obese and healthy. You can't really be obese ( over a
| certain point anyway) and be happy. When I was over 300
| pounds every day was an experience in pain.
|
| But it's considered rude even for doctors to say you need
| to lose weight. I was fortunate enough that an
| alternative medicine provider told me to just lose
| weight.
|
| And that said, I'm even reluctant to make the argument
| above since there's a lot of really angry people who will
| try to misconcue it and call me a monster or something.
| But I've been morbidly obese, and I'm in shape now (
| still trying to lose that last 10 pounds ) .
|
| Life is better now in every single way.
| rchaud wrote:
| > You can't really be obese ( over a certain point
| anyway) and be happy. When I was over 300 pounds every
| day was an experience in pain.
|
| So if that's the case, why does it matter what the
| Huffington Post says?
|
| I'm not morbidly obese, so perhaps I've missed the pro-
| obesity PR. A fashion magazine might give a cover to an
| obese model once a year, but the other 11 months all seem
| to have the same rail thin models that have dominated
| since the '80s.
|
| Same goes for TV and movies. Producers wouldn't hire a
| fat guy to play Mark David Chapman, it'd be an easier
| sell to get a fit actor and have him balloon up to that
| desired weight.
|
| The only obese poeople of renown in our society are older
| politicians and the rich, i.e. people that do not care
| about meeting society's beauty standards.
| Delk wrote:
| While it may be true that the American lifestyle is more
| sedentary, I don't think obesity can be entirely or even
| mostly explained by that. AFAIK diet generally affects
| weight more than exercise does; if your diet is energy-
| heavy, it's very difficult (without being an athlete) to
| exercise enough to consume as much as your energy surplus
| from the diet is.
|
| I don't have any references or numbers to back that up,
| but that's what I've understood from what I've read in
| papers and heard from some people who apparently did the
| math.
|
| With that said, physical activity has lots of benefits
| beyond just weight loss, and it would be worth it to make
| one's lifestyle non-sedentary in any case.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| It's really that baseline metabolic burn is pretty high,
| you have to work a lot to double the number of calories
| you burn, but it's easy to eat double your metabolic
| needs
| xnyan wrote:
| >easy to eat double your metabolic needs
|
| Or more! When I started losing weight, my target was 1600
| kcals a day. I learned that I was eating 1600+ calories
| __every single meal__, plus snacks. Pasta is the devil
| y'all.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I was in Germany for some time, I thought I would lose
| weight walking everywhere and eating differently; but I
| actually didn't lose a single pound. I don't know if muscle
| replaced fat, but I felt I looked the same and weighed the
| same. I was truly baffled.
|
| During the early pandemic, I stopped drinking for 3-4
| months...and still didn't lose any weight. I honestly don't
| understand the human body.
| krisroadruck wrote:
| "You can read all the dating books you want, but getting in
| shape is the only thing that works."
|
| I don't know my guy. I'm 39, weigh 280lbs at 5'9 but am
| married to a smart and beautiful women a decade younger
| than me and 150lbs lighter than me. It's not a sugar daddy
| thing either, she makes more than I do. Not everyone is
| shallow and a great sense of humor / shared interests /
| good personality is more than enough for plenty of people.
| That said, being fit certainly ups the odds in your favor.
| fossuser wrote:
| A large component is the dating market you're in.
|
| If you're a man in DC, NYC, or some rural town you'll
| have more luck.
|
| Bay Area? Zero chance.
| pstrateman wrote:
| > I think America is one of the most obese countries on
| earth.
|
| Yes but not by a very wide margin. [1]
|
| Average BMI in the US is 28.5, Saudi Arabia is the same,
| Mexico is 28.1, New Zealand is 27.9, UK is 27.3, Canada is
| 27.2.
|
| My point is that the impression that the US is unreasonably
| fat compared to the rest of the world is mostly just bias.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body
| _mass...
| JimTheMan wrote:
| I don't have any stats to back this up, but the
| impression I got from the states is that the weight gain
| is distributed unequally.
|
| Some people seemed very very fat.
| martinald wrote:
| I think you are just pointing out very car reliant
| countries. London has good public transit, but the rest
| is extremely car dependant.
|
| This shows IMO in obesity rates - they are significantly
| lower in London than the rest of the UK.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Not sure that the UK is that car reliant. I guess in
| rural areas, but that's true in most countries. In
| cities, not at all.
| VRay wrote:
| > You can read all the dating books you want, but getting
| in shape is the only thing that works.
|
| Counterpoint: I got in great shape in my early 20s, but
| didn't have much luck with dating because I was still a
| "Reddit niceguys"-style jerk
|
| Later on I stopped being a jerk, and even though I
| ballooned back to a very stately American weight I had way
| better luck with dating. Including "attractive females" as
| a young involuntarily-celibate gentleman might say
| xnyan wrote:
| Agree. Try to be a good person and be honest. Treat your
| hygiene as important, clean up your home and maybe think
| a little bit about some clothes that look nice on you.
| That's all you need to do.
| creamytaco wrote:
| Assuming you're at least moderately physically
| attractive. And even then, the quality of partners you
| can attract in terms of looks is non-linearly decreasing
| as your own physical attractiveness drops. OkCupid
| studies have proven that women find 80% of men below
| average looking.
|
| If you don't happen to be at least average in terms of
| looks, things are looking grim.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I wonder how much is due to regulation about inner dosage.
| I hear that mcdonalds recipees varies a lot between Europe
| and USA, saying that USA have way more everything in it,
| whereas in EU limits are imposed.
|
| That or USA citizens really like to eat overly sweet and
| fat stuff.
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| The study in OP controlled for age and weight.
| subsubzero wrote:
| I think its just a sedentary lifestyle with poor diet causing
| much of this. Almost all well paying jobs require you to sit
| motionless(well almost motionless - typing) in a chair 80% of
| the working day, couple that with fast food and cheap processed
| food everywhere, voila, you have a health crisis of obesity and
| low testosterone.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| It's too complex of a phenomenon to reduce to one, singular
| explanation.
|
| However, increasingly sedentary lifestyles are definitely
| part of the problem. Jobs encourage people to sit motionless,
| of course, but most of our leisure time has been replaced by
| other motionless activities.
|
| Global obesity rates have also been rising steadily while
| testosterone levels have trended downward. Obesity is well
| known to reduce testosterone levels.
|
| There might be additional answers in environmental
| toxicities, but it's a mistake to ignore the elephant in the
| room: Lifestyle is a problem.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Cameras everywhere make for easy criminal records so people
| throw punches less these days.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Yup, why go around and publicly make a fool of yourself when
| you can do that anonymously online?
| rriepe wrote:
| > Possible toxicity of something that we deem safe could be an
| explanation.
|
| It's porn. Porn has proliferated right alongside this trend.
| castlecrasher2 wrote:
| I doubt this is the only factor, but I imagine it
| contributes. I suspect it's more due to sedentary lifestyles
| and high-carb/sugar/fat diet.
| RickS wrote:
| This is an interesting hypothesis, and data probably exists
| for it, right?
|
| For this to be the case, we'd expect to see a spike in the
| frequency of masturbation that corresponds with the drop in
| T.
|
| General sexuality like this tends to be pretty well studied,
| and I'd expect that if such a correlation existed, it'd have
| been noticed and called out. But it would be good to see some
| data. I've got no idea where to find such a thing.
| smk_ wrote:
| Recent studies has shown that exposure to flouride (which is
| found in toothpaste), is correlated with lower IQ scores. That
| might be a contributing factor.
|
| [1]
| https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| That's just a reflection of demographics vs municipal water
| availability.
| smk_ wrote:
| Yes, that is a possibility. There is also this fairly
| extensive meta-analysis over a period of 20 years, that
| finds a "consistent and strong association between the
| exposure to fluoride and low IQ". [1]
|
| There is, in other words, an undeniable correlation. The
| more interesting question is -- are there any safe levels
| of exposure, and what are the effects over time?
|
| [1]
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12011-008-8204-x
| Panoramix wrote:
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/water-fluoridation-
| reduces...
|
| That rumor is false
| sergiotapia wrote:
| snopes.com
| c0nducktr wrote:
| Yes, and?
| voldacar wrote:
| hasn't this been known or at least suspected since the
| 90s/00s? I recall seeing similar studies from that period
| agentdrtran wrote:
| "Due to the different study populations and areas, the
| conclusion that excessive fluoride causes loss of children's
| IQ still lacks strong evidence."
| [deleted]
| whalesalad wrote:
| I remember in 4 Hour Body Tim Ferris experimented with no
| longer storing his phone in his pocket (used an arm band
| instead) and it boosted his sperm count by a ton.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Probably a) changing culture. b) young men today don't have
| brain damage from lead exposure.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > getting into physical fight was much more common than today.
|
| You also largely got away with it back then too.
|
| When I was in school, so long as you didn't hurt the other
| person too badly, the punishment for fighting was generally
| getting thrown into a room with all the other bad kids and
| forced to sit in silence for the entire school day. If you did
| it too much, they'd eventually expel you, but I only remember
| this happening to a few people.
|
| Today, I'm pretty sure you end up getting your ass beat by the
| cops before getting thrown into juvie.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Contrary to popular belief, testosterone doesn't cause males to
| rage and become violent.
| runjake wrote:
| Conversely, I regularly test as testosterone deficient but I've
| got some muscle (under a dad bod) and would describe myself as
| pretty aggressive (but try and remain peaceful and burn
| aggression in BJJ.)
|
| I am wondering if our current understanding of testosterone
| traits is wrong, or perhaps my understanding is wrong?
|
| Edit: I'm a little older than you.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Presumably there are other factors, but I'm pretty sure
| testosterone correlates with aggressive traits, sex drive and
| other similar aspects, most definitely.
|
| You can have muscle if you have low testosterone, but it will
| develop slower compared to if you had higher testosterone.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| T levels also depend on where one grows up rather than where
| they end up living: https://www.everydayhealth.com/mens-
| health/where-men-spend-t...
|
| _Does this research provide any insight into why testosterone
| levels have been in steady decline in the United States for
| several decades? If a safer, less-challenging environment leads
| to higher testosterone levels, wouldn't levels be rising
| instead of falling?_
|
| _Magid points to trends toward higher rates of obesity and
| lower rates of smoking that at least partially explain lower
| levels of testosterone. "There are a number of theories why
| this might be occurring, and there are those who dispute
| whether this is either a real trend or what it could mean for
| male health in the long term," he says._
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > When I was younger, in the late 90s, getting into physical
| fight was much more common than today
|
| Testosterone is not simply and directly causing aggressiveness.
|
| A lot of research shows that human behaviors are way more
| complex than that, and sometimes absolutely counterintuitive.
|
| We are not baboons.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Seems like global warming and higher atmospheric CO2 levels
| correlates well with the timeframes.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Also a strong inverse correlation with pirates.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Been yachting in the Arabian Sea recently?
| mumblemumble wrote:
| It was a reference to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
| Monster.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pi
| rat...
|
| Note that the model does take the Arabian Sea into
| account.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| I know! And I was referring to the flying spaghetti
| monster's original liturgy being inaccurate!
|
| https://www.spaghettimonster.org/about/open-letter/
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| Isn't it just the more sedentary life, the safer environment?
| stonecraftwolf wrote:
| If due to environmental toxins (say, hormonally active "forever
| chemicals," plastics, etc), my guess is you'd see the deleterious
| effects first in women. Women also make (and need) testosterone,
| just at much lower levels than men, so they have much less to
| lose. There's research going back 30 years on the efficacy of low
| dose TRT in women to treat all kinds of things that tend to hit
| women in their late thirties on (when natural testosterone has
| been declining for 15-20 years); I'm on mobile now, but what I
| recall most from a review paper was the efficacy in treating
| fibromyalgia pain. The lack of continued research on this seems
| to be almost entirely due to social pressure. (People lose their
| minds when you talk about women and testosterone, or men and
| estrogen.)
|
| It's hard not to wonder if environmental toxins affecting the
| testosterone levels of men are also contributing to the rise of
| health issues in women, especially autoimmune conditions,
| fibromyalgia/CFS, obesity, depression, etc.
|
| In other words, women might be the canaries in the coal mine for
| systemic problems arising from environmental endocrine
| disruptors.
| Damorian wrote:
| Related, girls (women?) are starting their periods about 5
| years sooner compared to 100 years ago:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menarche#Changes_in_time_of_av...
| perardi wrote:
| Per Wikipedia, and other sources I've read, it seems heavily
| correlated with BMI.
|
| Which...makes a naive sort of evolutionary sense. You need
| some percentage of body fat for your body to kick into
| reproduction mode.
| joncrane wrote:
| This has to do more with better nutrition and comfort than
| anything else.
|
| While it's true that estrogen-like compounds may also have an
| effect, it takes calories to ovulate and to menstruate.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Yet another symptom of the obesity epidemic.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| That's not all of it. "Lokeshwar noted that even men with a
| normal BMI (18.5-24.9) had declining total testosterone levels
| (P < .05) during the same time frames." lack of hard physical
| labor in general, or modern diets just being filled with
| hormones?
| likpok wrote:
| The "real" measure of how fat you are is body-fat percentage,
| which can vary at a given BMI level. It's not hard to imagine
| that people have gotten fatter at the same BMI level, as well
| as people being at the higher end of the "normal" range.
| rychco wrote:
| Lack of hard physical labor, combined with increasing average
| caloric intake may contribute to lower average muscle mass &
| total testosterone while still maintaining a "normal" BMI. I
| don't have evidence to support this, but this is my guess for
| falling testosterone within the "normal" BMI range over time
| (in addition to the effect of environmental pollutants on
| hormones).
| nabergh wrote:
| Isn't it a fair question to ask though whether the average
| BMI of those with a "normal BMI" (18.5-24.9) changed during
| the time frames of interest? And if it did, couldn't that
| still be a cause?
| ravenstine wrote:
| It's not the only cause but, from my experience, it's a big
| one, no pun intended.
|
| I might have made different diet choices as a young man if I
| knew that body fat aromatizes testosterone into estrogen. This
| is the primary cause for most cases of gynecomastia, which is
| why it's rare to see a man with breasts who isn't also
| overweight to some extent. Obesity is effectively feminizing a
| large portion of men and lowering their sexual market value.
| Overall, I think obesity is making people less attracted to
| each other, which can partially explain the decline in the rate
| of reproduction.
| fortran77 wrote:
| In my opinion, it's the biggest problem facing us. Even this
| COVID pandemic would have been much less expensive without an
| obese population, because our hospital capacity may not have
| been pushed to its limits. CDC says being obese triples the
| likelihood a person would need hospitalization:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html
|
| I don't see a solution. We're not going to be able to use the
| same techniques used to get people not to smoke to address
| the obesity problem.
| Coding_Cat wrote:
| > which is why it's rare to see a man with breasts who isn't
| also overweight to some extent.
|
| While (assumedly) true, I feel the need to note that the
| reverse does not hold generally: 'man boobs' are purely fat
| in nearly all cases and will go away when someone loses
| weight.
|
| Gynecomastia is breast tissue and does not go away if you
| lose weight.
| netizen-9748 wrote:
| My money is on the ubiquitous endocrine disruptors that have
| polluted our ecosystem
| mamon wrote:
| Yeah, all that soy lattes start to add up :)
| netizen-9748 wrote:
| Oh, I didn't realise soy was a pollutant. Interesting.
| WalterSear wrote:
| That's a myth from the 80s.
| anovikov wrote:
| It may be just simply due to overall degradation of mankind due
| to lower child mortality. It doesn't come for free after all.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Chalking this up to declining physical activity amongst young
| U.S. men.
| nomoreusernames wrote:
| it mentions that they controlled for that.
| cellis wrote:
| how did they control for that?
| ausbah wrote:
| by adding it as a feature into whatever model they created
| likely
| srmatto wrote:
| They said that they controlled for that in the study.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Don't let this be you or your sons. Be an example.
|
| 1. Lift
|
| 2. Eat right
|
| 3. Hydrate
|
| 4. No porn
|
| 5. Do masculine things - something involving your strength and
| hands
| gnulinux wrote:
| Do we have any evidence this would make a difference to
| testosterone levels?
| throwaway93832 wrote:
| weights definitely does acutely .
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoP6NCGb3oM
| sergiotapia wrote:
| We have evidence squats increase test
| mullingitover wrote:
| I would wager that over the past four decades there's a pretty
| tight correlation between sugar consumption, obesity, and reduced
| testosterone.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Toxins in plastic lower testosterone.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nextavenue.org/how-chemical...
| glitchc wrote:
| One contributing factor is human beings self-selecting for
| passivity. We lock violent people away, and that dramatically
| reduces their chances of procreation. Over time, the population
| is likely to become more passive.
|
| Also, comfort. Life in North America, even for the poor, is more
| comfortable than life elsewhere on the planet.
|
| Finally, the average human in modern societies is far more
| cerebral now, because society requires complex interactions to
| get even simple things done. Thinking about the number of steps
| required to obtain temporary shelter now (book a hotel or AirBnB)
| vs 10000 years in the past.
|
| Just speculation in all cases, no hard data to back any of it up.
| zeku wrote:
| If it's not happening in Europe then both of your points are
| destroyed, just a thought. Very comfortable place to be, most
| of Europe.
| patentatt wrote:
| The study is focused on the last couple of decades, doesn't it
| seem unlikely any evolutionary selective pressures are a cause
| in such a short and recent time span?
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I wonder if hormones will ever become widely available for
| personal use, or if we will just accept a changing hormonal
| landscape for men and woman. I doubt any of the underlying causes
| of "obesity/BMI, assay variations, diet/phytoestrogens, declined
| exercise and physical activity, fat percentage, marijuana use,
| and environmental toxins." will actually be fixed
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| As a transgender person, I also feel that this practice will be
| (or at least should be) common in the future.
|
| My estrogen levels were too low for a while and this caused me
| all kinds of side effects. My endocrinologist simply increased
| my dose. Then we noticed that my testosterone levels were too
| low, so we reduced the dose and got rid of the testosterone
| blockers.
|
| After a while we noticed that my levels fluctuated too much
| during the day. So we switched from pills to injections (which
| create curves that last a week instead of 24 hours).
|
| This solved my brain fog problems, made it easier for me to
| fall asleep at night, brought me back to the energy levels I
| had in my early twenties, etc.
|
| It made me realize how dependent we are on stable hormone
| levels. I think many people would benefit from hormone therapy
| or at least annual lab checks.
| perardi wrote:
| Cisgender male here, but, uh, let's say _enhanced_ with a
| little more testosterone.
|
| Tanking your estrogen levels, or having them too high,
| suuuuuuucks. And the surprise to me was having estrogen come
| in _too low_ from taking too much aromatase inhibitors. The
| mood, skin, and libido changes are awful.
| castlecrasher2 wrote:
| >Tanking your estrogen levels, or having them too high,
| suuuuuuucks.
|
| Out of curiosity, what does it feel like?
| perardi wrote:
| * Certain things were not as rigid as I'd like
|
| * Really dry skin
|
| * Night sweats like you would not believe
|
| * Urinating a lot
|
| * Depression and fatigue
| davio wrote:
| There's a TRT place 5 minutes from my house. The google reviews
| make it sound like people are getting the results they want.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| It's trivially easy to find a doctor willing to sell you
| testosterone replacement therapy these days. There are plenty
| of unscrupulous doctors who will find an excuse to do it,
| although they usually require you to buy the testosterone
| through their store.
|
| It's a total racket.
|
| Be warned: Going on TRT should be considered a one-way street.
| Once you start adding exogenous testosterone to your system,
| your body's natural production will decrease. It doesn't take
| long for your body's natural production to virtual stop
| completely, making you dependent on TRT for the rest of your
| life.
|
| There are hypothetically ways to try to counter this shutdown,
| but it's far from guaranteed. Many people who start and then
| stop TRT end up with lower levels than when they started, even
| with the countermeasures in place.
|
| No man should experiment with testosterone unless they're ready
| to continue using it for the rest of their life. I know plenty
| of people who thought they were getting a leg up in their 30s
| by getting on TRT, who now regret having to constantly buy and
| maintain TRT supplies and carry it around whenever they travel.
| The initial euphoric effects of TRT will wane over time, too.
| RickS wrote:
| +1 for this warning. My scores are on the low end of average
| (mid 400s). Not low enough to warrant corrective T therapy
| (200s), but enough to wonder if the 600-700 range might mean
| a big change in quality of life.
|
| I was pretty adamant about giving it a shot, and consulted
| with an endocrinologist who said the same thing ("it's not
| low enough to introduce what would become a life sentence of
| treatment"). After much stubborn research trying to find a
| legitimate second opinion[1], I finally conceded that he was
| right.
|
| I'm all for biohacking, but the one-way/ratcheting nature of
| T therapy specifically should make it an endeavor of last
| resort.
|
| [1] I say legitimate because you can effortlessly find
| someone who will agree that you and everyone needs a T boost,
| and will write you an Rx on the spot if you have the cash. An
| it will work. It's not that it's a scam, or particularly
| deadly. The benefits are just very overplayed compared to
| their permanence, which is downplayed.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > The benefits are just very overplayed compared to their
| permanence, which is downplayed.
|
| The testosterone hype is out of control.
|
| The scariest part is that many people are skipping straight
| to TRT instead of trying to identify underlying causes of
| low testosterone. For most people, simple lifestyle and
| diet changes can make a dramatic difference.
|
| Many people also overestimate the benefits of increased
| testosterone. This is doubly challenging because sudden
| testosterone increases can feel quite good for a short
| while, but the effects will subside as your body acclimates
| to the higher levels. When the initial effects wear off,
| many patients start asking for higher doses or looking to
| steroid cycles to augment the testosterone.
|
| It's also important to note that testosterone isn't an
| isolated hormone system within your body. TRT will alter a
| number of related hormones with various effects that aren't
| well-studied. Exogenous testosterone can't match your
| body's natural cycles, either. A person might actually feel
| better with a natural testosterone level of 400-500
| (actually totally normal and quite common) than a TRT-
| driven level of 600-700 due to these effects.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| But getting a shot is way less tedious than changing life
| style.
| RickS wrote:
| > The scariest part is that many people are skipping
| straight to TRT instead of trying to identify underlying
| causes of low testosterone. For most people, simple
| lifestyle and diet changes can make a dramatic
| difference.
|
| Yep. This was an admission I had to make to myself: it's
| a bit ridiculous to gripe about low T while 50lbs
| overweight, working a sedentary desk job, and subsisting
| mostly on beer and snacks. There's a strong argument to
| be made that my T wouldn't be so low if I had my shit
| together.
| throwboi-420 wrote:
| > I wonder if hormones will ever become widely available for
| personal use
|
| By that you mean sex hormones. Melatonin and insulin are widely
| used hormones e.g..
|
| Depends where you live, but these days in the US it's quite
| easy for kids to get sex hormones from doctors, related to
| gender "reassignment." I'm not sure about doctors' tolerance
| for becoming more-manly if you're already a man, though.
| karmicthreat wrote:
| It did not take much effort on my part to get on TRT with my
| primary care physician. Less than 200 ng/dl free testosterone
| and another test to make sure it wasn't a bigger issue. Once I
| started within a couple month I was amazed at how much better I
| felt than I ever had. Even my 20s. Like vitamin D people need
| more than you would think and guidelines are too conservative.
| I could have probably had fewer issue if they would have just
| juiced me up with this in highschool. Rather than just let me
| be chronically exhausted.
| staticman2 wrote:
| The guidelines say that people like yourself need more
| testosterone... you got more and it works... so you've
| concluded the guidelines are too conservative? That doesn't
| follow.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Women already get to play with their hormones without a
| prescription, but for some reason we make it really difficult
| for men to safely adjust their hormone levels. There's a lot of
| misconceptions about testosterone and how it can be used to
| benefit lots of men. If you go into any doctor and they have
| tour testosterone tested, they probably won't give you TRT
| unless your T is below the low-bound of "normal", but being on
| the low-bound means you're not at your optimal. There's also
| lots of scare material about TRT out there for people who don't
| want to body build; supposedly you're guaranteed to have
| cardiovascular issues, shrunken testicles, 'roid rage, and so
| forth. If you keep your T at its optimal level but not going
| significantly past that, the chances of serious issues are
| minimal.
|
| TRT aside, young people need to get their vitamin D, get
| exercise, eat little to no refined sugar, filter their water,
| and be allowed to co-mingle; when males and females are
| separated for long periods of time, testosterone decreases even
| more.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| _when males and females are separated for long periods of
| time, testosterone decreases even more._ Source?
|
| BTW you're totally right and this misinformation and dumb
| overregulation is criminal to men happiness
| nxc18 wrote:
| I'm skeptical re: point about keeping men and women
| separated.
|
| As a gay man does being around women increase or have no
| effect on my testosterone levels?
|
| For straight men, can it be any woman (your mom, your aunt,
| your daughter, the unattractive neighbor)? Or is it about a
| sexually-relevant female? Do they have to be attractive?
| tsdlts wrote:
| Even at replacement levels you'll shut down your natural
| production and risk never being able to naturally produce
| your own T. Needing to do intramuscular injections for the
| rest of your entire life is usually not a consolation prize
| people want to sign up for. Plus, in the U.S., should someone
| lose their health insurance and not be able to afford
| exogenous testosterone anymore they'd be in a pretty awful
| situation.
|
| Also you'll likely end up infertile.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Yes, the downsides of TRT are numerous, but rarely
| discussed online.
|
| It's not as simple as "experimenting" with TRT. Exogenous
| testosterone will begin diminishing your natural
| testosterone production immediately. In theory there are
| ways to counteract this, but in practice it's not
| guaranteed that someone can ever discontinue TRT once
| they've started. Even those who rebound may not return to
| their original, pre-TRT levels.
|
| Testosterone is also interconnected with other hormone
| systems, which will also be disrupted by TRT. For many, TRT
| turns into a game of adjusting various medications up or
| down to try to get back to how they felt pre-TRT.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > but for some reason we make it really difficult for men to
| safely adjust their hormone levels
|
| Because in men you can't.
| [deleted]
| dqpb wrote:
| What are the optimal testosterone levels?
| perardi wrote:
| I'm not sure about optimal, but normal depends on age. 600
| ng/dL would be a reasonable average for a normal level.
|
| https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-
| catalog/Clinical+and+Int...
| mrweasel wrote:
| > Women already get to play with their hormones without a
| prescription
|
| I don't think that's true. Even birthcontrol requires a
| prescription.
| scohesc wrote:
| In some places you can ask your pharmacist to write up a
| prescription for birth control without even consulting your
| doctor.
|
| I know this because I live somewhere where this is the
| case.
| [deleted]
| andrekandre wrote:
| > filter their water
|
| what kind of filtering?
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I'd note that hormones for women in birth control often come
| with some pretty heavy side effects that a lot of women
| aren't effectively prepared for or warned of in the mental
| health space.
|
| Just adjusting one's hormone profile to hit some level you
| have in mind is not as easy as you imply.
| hristov wrote:
| Pollutants in the environment have also been increasing. The
| world seems about the same as it did in the 90's but the amount
| of microplastics, herbicides and pesticides in our water and our
| food has gone through the roof.
|
| I wonder if we can scientifically show that lax environmental
| laws and enforcement of said laws ensures that your son will
| become a wimp, will that make all the fat head right wingers
| start taking environmental protection seriously?
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