Men's average testosterone levels have halved in last 50 years

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• Hacker News
• Can't help wondering to what extent the decline is directly and/or indirectly influenced by both the positive changes (eg increased women's rights and power) and the negative (presumption of masculine "toxicity" and fallibility) in socio-culture over the period surveyed.
  by mellosouls
• That is not how biology works
  by greekrich92
• of course the demonization and social shaming of traditionally "testosterone" involved social hierarchy, behavior, and hobbies is going to have a conditioning effect. im sure that also contributes to high cortisol in men which itself is a significant impediment to healthy testosterone levels
  by snootypoot
• Do you feel your testosterone falling if you walk past a woman wearing trousers?
  by thefz
• ... Wait, what would the mechanism of action be there?!

  Like, if the choice of explanations is (a) obesity, and maybe some pesticide stuff, who knows, or (b) _witchcraft_, Occam's razor points a particular way.

  by rsynnott
• Or the negatives (toxic femininity)
  by superze
• Unsurprisingly, the authors didn’t name “women’s rights” or any other feminism-adjacent culture war issues as a cause of declining testosterone. They did name obesity and diabetes.

  In other words, if you’re looking for a boogeyman, blame sedentary lifestyles and ultra processed foods.

  by janalsncm
• It's just our shitty food system and sedentary lifestyle but everyone is projecting their weird hangups on it
  by greekrich92
• Lift weights. Nobody lifts weights or does labor like they used to.

  Endocrine function can still be normal despite obesity. There are plenty of fat guys with solid testosterone levels because they work with their hands all day.

  I'm not saying that's all there is to health, far from it, but what kind of bubble does one have to live in to not see this counterexample? Do we just casually ignore them because they fit undesirable stereotypes of "toxic masculinity" or what? You don't have to become that guy just to lift weights.

  by sublinear
• > Nobody lifts weights or does labor like they used to.

  I'm fairly sure _vastly_ more people lift weights today than in the 70s. At that point it was, well, not niche exactly, but you didn't have anything _remotely_ like the number of gyms around. Can't offhand find figures for back to then, but apparently it's up ~60% in just the last two decades.

  by rsynnott
• I'm playing with fire going against the narrative, but I'll just say this:

  You should be highly skeptical of any claims of drastic variance in human biology over short time periods.

  by pembrook
• Half way to utopia.
  by thot_experiment
• Endocrine disrupting compounds.
  by DANmode
• Microplastics.
  by metadat
• Or rising obesity and poor overall health
  by ThrowawayTestr
• “Obesity and diabetes could easily account for all of this,”

  Wither Ozempic? I've seen several friends and family members use it to great effect and thought it might sweep the nation. But I imagine most of the same barriers that keep people from eating better or moving more are also in play when trying to engage with any new habit.

  by standardUser
• soy, cortisol, plastics, birth control remnants in the water and food supply, adipose tissue accelerating conversion of testosterone into estradiol, and compounds acting to keep free testosterone levels low and bound testosterone levels high. combine that with sedentary lifestyle, the demonization of red meat healthy fats and cholesterols (cholesterol is extremely close to testosterone and converts easily) and the systematic promotion of a plant based heavily processed diet can easily lead to this. the traditional diets of slaves and serfs was low meat & high grain to keep them weaker dumber and shorter in general. the lowered testosterone and will to fight and resist oppression was also a "feature, not a bug" as my llm likes to say every chance it gets.

  the industrial revolution has been a disaster for the human race.

  by snootypoot
• Proof: <https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/806/8fc...>
  by TMWNN
• I wonder how this correlates to Prostate Cancer. From what I heard, high testosterone can be one of the causes of Prostate Cancer. But that is over a long time.

  So if levels are falling, is prostate cancer lowering a little bit ? But that will be hard to determine due to the advancement of Medical Treatment over the past 50 years.

  > Rising levels of obesity and diabetes

  Plastic Bottles also replaced glass starting in the early 70s too. I remember reading some type of plastic can leak estrogen into the food. So seems a lot of things happened of the past 50/60 years that will impact ones health negatively.

  by jmclnx
• Nothing a war couldn't solve
  by notaigenerated
• America found the solution, put everyone on enhanced TRT and cash a shit load of bucks in the process :)

  Others are trying to regulate pesticide, junk food (obesity, diabete). For instance nutriscore in Europe, also the recent change on pesticide allowed.

  I'm not sure it will be enough, but at least they are attacking to the root cause. You're not just adding even more problem, like the increased cardiovascular event or erectile dysfunction with overdosed TRT.

  Same for the semaglutides that everyone and their mother take in the usa, people wouldn't need them so much if they didn't eat absolute crap all the time.

  We know that semaglutides have also side effects, and that rebound happen when you stop, but I guess it's better than just fixing the food lobby ?

  by aucisson_masque
• one of the two compounds in clomid, a womans drug, is known to significantly raise testosterone levels in men.
  by snootypoot
• Sperm counts, too, have dropped precipitously.
  by bolangi
• Seems like a minor issue, since most men only utilize their sperm two or three times in their entire lives, if at all. Maybe men should be freezing sperm while they're young and virile.
  by standardUser
• I think testosterone increases when men do strength training.

  I wonder if men nowadays don't move around or lift things as much.

  by m463
• I'd say "quality not quantity" but not in this case...
  by FerretFred
• Could this be a possible factor in the reduction in violent crime (at least in some countries)?
  by ThinkingGuy
• That is extremely closely linked to lead, especially the ban on leaded gasoline
  by lynguist
• I really wonder, what is “normal”?

  One class of doctors thinks roughly 250 is enough for a middle aged guy - anything over shouldn’t be medically treated. Of course, the “men’s clinics” don’t rest until it’s over 1000...

  With the standard range so wide (even after age adjustment), why isn’t it measured annually, like the CBC and others?

  Sure, it’s easy to point at obesity, but statistical ranges completely fail the individual.

  by BobbyTables2
• There are wide ranges but it's more about how you feel personally and what you've noticed over time. Some men have below average T but feel great and build serious muscle anyway.

  The two sigma range is something like 300-900 with std being 150 and median 600. This is for what is labeled as healthy 18-39 men. It doesn't include obese men.

  If you want to take something away from it, just get yourself measured a few times over a few years. Then later if you have issues that relate to low T or whatever you can flag it with your doctor. In my case, it was super important because I found out I am in the top 0.01% of (healthy) total T producers. If I had "low T" type symptoms and went to my doctor without that information - they'd be like, "no, your T is amazing actually."

  Everyone has a different baseline. I only wish I started measuring before I was in my mid-30s because I feel my levels before were even more ridiculous.

  by bradlys