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A Population-Level Decline in Serum Testosterone Levels in American Men (2007)
- GoToRO 5y agoIn one documentary they said that the contraceptive pill is poisoning the water with “female” hormones. Hundreds of millions of women take it every day and the hormones end up in the drinking water. Women are not affected, but men get “womenized”.
- short12 5y agoWomen are massively effected by birth control. That results in physical and emotional changes. Granted it will vary person to person. But there are major changes happening in the body that result from messing with hormones
- GoToRO 5y agoObviously they were talking about the hormones taken from the water.
- gjvc 5y agoJanuary 2007
- tersers 5y agoThat just makes it scarier
- doctorhandshake 5y ago“ These findings indicate that the past 20 yr have seen substantial age-independent decreases in male serum T concentrations, decreases that do not appear to be the consequence of the contemporaneous trends in health and lifestyle considered here. It remains unclear to what these apparent population-level decreases in T are attributable.” My first thought was BPA, but it appears the effects of plasticizers on the male endocrine system are mixed[1]. Still can’t help but think this is something environmental and chemical at work. [1] https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-018-0447-6 https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-018-0...
- pueblito 5y ago> Still can’t help but think this is something environmental and chemical at work. I absolutely agree. I read a meta study where they concluded lab rats have been gaining fat since the 70s - and these rats have well documented genetics, very precisely controlled diets, tons of expertly collected high quality data. It was pretty damning
- atlasunshrugged 5y agoRemember the name of the study by chance? Sounds interesting
- whacim 5y agoThis Scientific American article may touch upon some of it. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-lab-rats-are-changing-our-view-of-obesity/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-lab-rats-are-...
- atlasunshrugged 5y agoThanks!
- rafale 5y agoHaven't we seen a decline in violence and crime during that same period... I wonder if there is correlation, or even causation.
- inglor_cz 5y agoAnd growth in individuals that identify themselves outside the traditional straight/gay framework. While this is generally considered a cultural change, I feel that hormonal changes cannot or at least should not be ruled out a priori.
- willcipriano 5y agoWe have observed hormonal changes in animals when changes occur within their societies, for example when they are no longer the dominant male in the area. I'd imagine that a changing of the role of men in society could cause hormonal changes, also the other way around. Perhaps they compound each other.
- kruxigt 5y agoThis is a good point. The current gynocentric society might still be in a phase of positive feedback through among others this process.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago[flagged]
- theli0nheart 5y agoHave we? Could you provide a source?
- realce 5y agohttps://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-... The classic "easy answer" for this stat has generally been the removal of lead paint from most people's lives.
- prepend 5y agoI wonder how they do these studies to accommodate trans men. Is it allowed to filter these studies on birth sex rather than gender? I can’t find good stats on the percent of trans men in the population but I imagine it’s both low, and increasing from 2007 to now. May not be significant enough to affect the study if it includes some from random sampling, but I imagine trans men have lower testosterone than non-trans men.
- FastEatSlow 5y agoFiltering by birth sex makes sense, this is a biology study, so any treatments trans men are receiving could taint the data. Though, by that logic, they should also ignore obese men, since they also have lower testosterone levels. It's a complex issue as to who to ignore really based on their life style choices.
- chmod600 5y agoSelection of participants should be driven by the hypothesis being tested, not abstract ideas about who is a man and who is obese.
- serverholic 5y agoIs it really that hard to understand why they should focus on real men instead of artificially created men?
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- seventytwo 5y agoThe “anti-soy-boy” crowd is going to have a field day with this one…
- goldenkey 5y agoEh, I drink liters of soymilk daily. Most common brands of Soymilk are junk though, ie. Silk. Other brands like Westsoy and 365 sell real soymilk without being watered down, sweetened, and fillered. If anything, the soyboy superstition probably comes from just drinking sugary beverages and meals that lack sufficient fats and proteins for muscle building. Lack of cholesterol could also be an issue if one's genetics are of a low-production type. Soy itself is somewhat of a super legume. The only legume that comes close is peanuts. And it's not very common to find peanut milk. Elmhurst used to sell it, it was amazing. I have no problem building muscle [1] and my last free T test was around 850. Anecdotally, I doubt soymilk is the issue. [1] https://i.imgur.com/K6kEeUD.jpg https://i.imgur.com/K6kEeUD.jpg
- symlinkk 5y agoNo, it comes from studies that claim that soy raises estrogen levels in the body.
- goldenkey 5y agoNever start a post off with "No," if you don't know much about what you are professing. Phytoestrogens aren't estrogen. In fact, some actually act as estrogen antagonists (opposite effect.) They don't affect human biology the same way that they affect plants or grazing animals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen
- im3w1l 5y agoHe's right about where it comes from. Whether the claims check out is a separate question.
- float4 5y ago
- goldenkey 5y agoA large part might have to do with internet pornography. Masturbation is already known to lower T levels temporarily. Do we know what the long term effects of chronic masturbation are? Before you prepare to downvote me for having Christian sentiment, know that semen retention is actually an old eastern practice known to boost libido and health. And yes, (ready for the pedants), prostate health has been correlated to unclogging old fluid in "the pipes" but that doesn't require the frequency of masturbation that is commonly practiced by single men in America. The mental effects of constant video arousal have already been documented to be the cause of underperformance and erectile dysfunction in men. It's not a far stretch to ask if this psychological effect has a feedback mechanism coupled to libido and testosterone production.
- Bancakes 5y agoWhat about masturbation without pornography? What about people with girlfriends who are sexually boring but otherwise faithful and fun enough to keep?
- Factorium 5y agoPornography should be classified as an addictive, restricted service, and should not be freely available online. Sites should be mandated to charge a minimum fee per month (eg. $10), and ISPs should be instructed to block websites which do not comply. In this way it will be restricted from minors, and be more easy for adults to control their own access to.
- daveguy 5y agoAs someone else mentioned this is from 2007. And another mentioned the first they thought was BPA. I'll also add this from the article: Setting: This was an observational study of randomly selected men residing in greater Boston, Massachusetts. There hasn't been a slew of studies since from around the US. "American Men" is a huge stretch for such a localized study. It very well could have been one of the studies that alerted to BPA, but it could also be a very localized environmental effect. Either way, this study should not scare anyone, except in it's overreach.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y agoWhy would randomly selected men in Boston not be a good enough surrogate for all men in the USA? Are you suggesting living specifically in Boston lowers testosterone?
- campbel 5y agoThere could be a local environmental factor that is responsible for the result.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoLike, they're largely of Irish descent. Or the harbor air. Or all that beer. Any number of things.
- jonahx 5y agoFor example, if the cause was a pollutant in the local Boston environment, or anything else peculiar to that environment.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Why would randomly selected men in Boston not be a good enough surrogate for all men in the USA? Because Boston isn't health-wise, demographically, behaviorally, environmentally, or in any other way representative of the US. > Are you suggesting living specifically in Boston lowers testosterone? Maybe. Or in urban areas. Or in coastal areas. Or the American Northeast. Or in places, America or not, near the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing in a study of men from Boston tells you that the scope of any effect is likely to be “the US”, unless it is clear enough to determine the actual source of the effect, and that source is known to be common throughout the US.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago> In this analysis we observed little evidence of age-independent trends with respect to most covariate factors; notable exceptions to this rule, however, were the aforementioned increases in relative weight, as well as population-level changes in the prevalence of smoking and the concurrent use of multiple medications (polypharmacy). There were substantial age-specific increases in obesity and polypharmacy over the course of study follow-up Obesity is still a huge contributor to reduced testosterone, and this study doesn’t disagree with that. It’s such a well-known effect that it’s one of the first things the authors note and try to account for. These studies are trying to identify factors beyond obesity and reduced physical activity, but it’s difficult to tell if they’ve developed an accurate model to subtract those effects from their study. While it’s possible that environmental toxins like BPA can contribute to neuroendocrine disruption and should be investigated, lifestyle factors are still at the top of the list of things people can adjust to influence their own testosterone levels.
- bigbillheck 5y agoPlease note that "data were restricted to observations obtained on men of age 45–79 yr born between 1916 and 1945" and that this is a longitudinal survey with three sets of sample collection times dating from 1987 to 2004. Also in the absence of longer-term or non-American data, we don't know if this is a decline from 'normal'. There's a lot of weird chemicals out there nowadays with biological effects, but there were a lot of those in the 20th century too. What I mean is, maybe instead of 'testosterone levels are low today because of all the soy', it's 'testosterone levels were inflated back then because of leaded gasoline (or DDT or asbestos or ....)'.
- AbrahamParangi 5y agoGiven more factors, it’s more likely for effects to be mostly orthogonal (independent)
- ryanmarsh 5y agoThis is explained in great detail in Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race by Shanna Swan and Stacey Colino Dr. Shanna Swab has been on at least one big podcast that I’ve seen. The discussion was fascinating. I won’t name the podcast because people get weird about it here.
- visava 5y agohttps://www.healthline.com/health/pine-pollen#:~:text=Testosterone%20has%20been%20found%20in,used%20to%20boost%20testosterone%20levels https://www.healthline.com/health/pine-pollen#:~:text=Testos....
- throwawaymanbot 5y agoThis is the GOP reaping what they sow. Destroy the regulations that protect the environment and human health and create laws that allow stuff like dodgy food additives and hormones given to cows etc.. that’ll do it.