5 ms·

> Possible toxicity of something This assumes (it seems to be universally assumed in this thread) that the earlier average level of testosterone - meaning the

> 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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
  - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
    If health has declined and testosterone levels have declined then absent any other information I am going to assume that the decline in testosterone is at best uncorrelated with health. Now, maybe there is a reason to assume that lower testosterone levels are actually healthier but I'm going to trust my eyes for the time being.
    - throwaway2245 6y ago
      By almost any measure, global health has improved and global testosterone levels have declined. Absent any other information, you should therefore assume...
      - bordercases 6y ago
        At the same time you are hiding information by taking the global average as the proper baseline for comparison. This is disingenuous here because the original study picked a US cohort. The factors that are responsible for global health indicators improving might be, at least in principle, cancelled out in the US.
- jjk166 6y ago
  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).
  - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
    I grew up at a beach town. There really is no debate here. If you go back to the 80s it's even more extreme.
    - jjk166 6y ago
      I too grew up in a beach town. It's selective memory.
      - bordercases 6y ago
        Combined with an increase in obesity over the last several decades, is saying "it's just selective memory" as strong of a rebuttal?
        jjk166 6y ago
        The average american woman weighed 163.8 lbs in 1999, she weighed 171 in 2020. Average BMI increased from 28.2 to 29.1 in the same time period. Women on average added 2 inches to waist size. Men went from an average weight of 189.4 to 197.9 in the same time period and BMI went from 27.8 to 29.1. Men on average added 1 inch on waist size. A 5% increase in weight over 20 years might be concerning from a public health perspective, but it's not something you'd see just by looking at people.
  - mythrwy 6y ago
    From memory, there weren't as many obese people back in the 80's/ early 90's. Being really heavy was a thing that made a person stand out. I think it's a lot more common now but that might just be selective memory.
bordercases 6y ago
Testosterone has well-studied correlations to muscular health and the tuning of status in social behavior. Going further, it also affects behavior in a way which I can only label as agentic: it's correlated with motivation, vigilance, and low levels of anxiety or fear.[0] I choose these words for two reasons. First, the ratio of muscle to fat is important for most any metabolic disorder (this means both diabetes and obesity, which are comorbid). Muscles are actively important in metabolic health as they burn calories through use. And contrariwise, among their other problems, fat cells store and secrete estrogens, which is problematic for those that wish to identify as cis male. Clearly some level of the growth cascades that testosterone produces is useful for metabolic health, if not testosterone itself. Else we get into an obesity spiral and limit the development of our own bodies. Second, high testosterone is often associated with anti-social outcomes like violence. While this is (weakly!) true, this isn't the whole truth. For instance, people given testosterone actually produced fairer deals vs non-blinded placebo.[0] So it seems more appropriate to call testosterone a status regulator than an aggression hormone. Let's say we avoid the view that no testosterone is good – this would be ad absurdum considering its central role in the body's development. Even if you were to disagree as to basal level of testosterone in 1999, there are clear positive outcomes associated with testosterone which we can organize our sense of what is optimal around; it is possible that we have swung too far, and our current levels are not good enough. To deny the positive aspects of testosterone, is to deny its usefulness to metabolic health, to regulating status, and maintaining the spiritedness to engage with life. [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uRg5Q2vAteDem5b5S/social-status-and-testosterone https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uRg5Q2vAteDem5b5S/social-sta...
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  >To deny the positive aspects of testosterone... I think this comment illustrates a significant problem of people's (including some scientists) thinking around testosterone. I'm identifying that people are only suggesting positive aspects of high testosterone and ignoring the negative. And, you are again reiterating the positive aspects in a biased, almost spiritualised way. Clearly, as you suggest, 100% testosterone is absurd and not desirable, so there must be some limit to the amazing wonder-drug testosterone. Excessive testosterone is harmful to health apart from in behavioural changes (it's linked at least to heart failure).

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

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 6y ago
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.
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  If health has declined and testosterone levels have declined then absent any other information I am going to assume that the decline in testosterone is at best uncorrelated with health. Now, maybe there is a reason to assume that lower testosterone levels are actually healthier but I'm going to trust my eyes for the time being.
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    By almost any measure, global health has improved and global testosterone levels have declined. Absent any other information, you should therefore assume...
    - bordercases 6y ago
      At the same time you are hiding information by taking the global average as the proper baseline for comparison. This is disingenuous here because the original study picked a US cohort. The factors that are responsible for global health indicators improving might be, at least in principle, cancelled out in the US.
jjk166 6y ago
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).
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  I grew up at a beach town. There really is no debate here. If you go back to the 80s it's even more extreme.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    I too grew up in a beach town. It's selective memory.
    - bordercases 6y ago
      Combined with an increase in obesity over the last several decades, is saying "it's just selective memory" as strong of a rebuttal?
      - jjk166 6y ago
        The average american woman weighed 163.8 lbs in 1999, she weighed 171 in 2020. Average BMI increased from 28.2 to 29.1 in the same time period. Women on average added 2 inches to waist size. Men went from an average weight of 189.4 to 197.9 in the same time period and BMI went from 27.8 to 29.1. Men on average added 1 inch on waist size. A 5% increase in weight over 20 years might be concerning from a public health perspective, but it's not something you'd see just by looking at people.
- mythrwy 6y ago
  From memory, there weren't as many obese people back in the 80's/ early 90's. Being really heavy was a thing that made a person stand out. I think it's a lot more common now but that might just be selective memory.

bordercases 6y ago

Testosterone has well-studied correlations to muscular health and the tuning of status in social behavior. Going further, it also affects behavior in a way which I can only label as agentic: it's correlated with motivation, vigilance, and low levels of anxiety or fear.[0] I choose these words for two reasons. First, the ratio of muscle to fat is important for most any metabolic disorder (this means both diabetes and obesity, which are comorbid). Muscles are actively important in metabolic health as they burn calories through use. And contrariwise, among their other problems, fat cells store and secrete estrogens, which is problematic for those that wish to identify as cis male. Clearly some level of the growth cascades that testosterone produces is useful for metabolic health, if not testosterone itself. Else we get into an obesity spiral and limit the development of our own bodies. Second, high testosterone is often associated with anti-social outcomes like violence. While this is (weakly!) true, this isn't the whole truth. For instance, people given testosterone actually produced fairer deals vs non-blinded placebo.[0] So it seems more appropriate to call testosterone a status regulator than an aggression hormone. Let's say we avoid the view that no testosterone is good – this would be ad absurdum considering its central role in the body's development. Even if you were to disagree as to basal level of testosterone in 1999, there are clear positive outcomes associated with testosterone which we can organize our sense of what is optimal around; it is possible that we have swung too far, and our current levels are not good enough. To deny the positive aspects of testosterone, is to deny its usefulness to metabolic health, to regulating status, and maintaining the spiritedness to engage with life. [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uRg5Q2vAteDem5b5S/social-status-and-testosterone https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uRg5Q2vAteDem5b5S/social-sta...

throwaway2245 6y ago
>To deny the positive aspects of testosterone... I think this comment illustrates a significant problem of people's (including some scientists) thinking around testosterone. I'm identifying that people are only suggesting positive aspects of high testosterone and ignoring the negative. And, you are again reiterating the positive aspects in a biased, almost spiritualised way. Clearly, as you suggest, 100% testosterone is absurd and not desirable, so there must be some limit to the amazing wonder-drug testosterone. Excessive testosterone is harmful to health apart from in behavioural changes (it's linked at least to heart failure).