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Ok then explain why the testosterone reference ranges have went from like 800-2000 in the 60s to 200-800 now. Not just obese people, a "normal" healthy young ma

Ok then explain why the testosterone reference ranges have went from like 800-2000 in the 60s to 200-800 now. Not just obese people, a "normal" healthy young man these days has the test levels of like a 60-80 hear old then. I think it's something more than just obesity causing endocrine disruption.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
I have never looked into testosterone before. After some research, I cannot find anything to support your claim about what's happened since the 60s, but it sounds unreasonable to me. Average levels appear to have been dropping since the 80s, but not by such a significant scale as you claim. I did however find this harvard article with the following passage: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/obesity-unhealthy-and-unmanly https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/obesity-unhealthy... > Obesity lowers testosterone levels. For example, a 2007 study of 1,667 men ages 40 and above found that each one-point increase in BMI was associated with a 2% decrease in testosterone. In addition, a 2008 study of 1,862 men ages 30 and above found that waist circumference was an even stronger predictor of low testosterone levels than BMI. A four-inch increase in waist size increased a man's odds of having a low testosterone level by 75%; for comparison, 10 years of aging increased the odds by only 36%. All in all, waist circumference was the strongest single predictor of developing symptoms of testosterone deficiency.
jijji 5y ago
Here is a story [0] to support your claim, with testosterone levels declining 1% per year on average [1] [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/10/02/youre-not-the-man-your-father-was/?sh=62b71ff38b7f https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/10/02/youre-not-t... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/health-testosterone-levels-dc-idUKKIM16976320061101?edition-redirect=uk https://www.reuters.com/article/health-testosterone-levels-d...
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I found this during my own research but did not agree with the conclusions in the reporting. Here's a paper by the same author: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579652/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579652/ Table 4 has the highlights. An extra 10 years of age has an odds ratio of 1.4 and a p value of 0.02. A 10 cm increase in waist size has an odds ratio of 1.9 and a p value less than 0.001. That is to say, this same author found waist size was a stronger predictor of testosterone than age. This study occurs a few years after the one referenced in the article. Here's the actual study which does make the claim that these factors are insufficient on their own to explain age-normalized t levels. Personally I'm not totally convinced by their methods to control here. It's surprising to me that the later cohorts studied were seemingly the same weight but had poorer health metrics for one. The initial cohort also had an age range of 47-71. The later cohort had an age range of 57-80. The average age being 10 years older. I'm not convinced their mixed effect linear model is going to get a good comparison between these too. https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434?login=false https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434?login...

spywaregorilla 5y ago

I have never looked into testosterone before. After some research, I cannot find anything to support your claim about what's happened since the 60s, but it sounds unreasonable to me. Average levels appear to have been dropping since the 80s, but not by such a significant scale as you claim. I did however find this harvard article with the following passage: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/obesity-unhealthy-and-unmanly https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/obesity-unhealthy... > Obesity lowers testosterone levels. For example, a 2007 study of 1,667 men ages 40 and above found that each one-point increase in BMI was associated with a 2% decrease in testosterone. In addition, a 2008 study of 1,862 men ages 30 and above found that waist circumference was an even stronger predictor of low testosterone levels than BMI. A four-inch increase in waist size increased a man's odds of having a low testosterone level by 75%; for comparison, 10 years of aging increased the odds by only 36%. All in all, waist circumference was the strongest single predictor of developing symptoms of testosterone deficiency.

jijji 5y ago

Here is a story [0] to support your claim, with testosterone levels declining 1% per year on average [1] [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/10/02/youre-not-the-man-your-father-was/?sh=62b71ff38b7f https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/10/02/youre-not-t... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/health-testosterone-levels-dc-idUKKIM16976320061101?edition-redirect=uk https://www.reuters.com/article/health-testosterone-levels-d...

spywaregorilla 5y ago
I found this during my own research but did not agree with the conclusions in the reporting. Here's a paper by the same author: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579652/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579652/ Table 4 has the highlights. An extra 10 years of age has an odds ratio of 1.4 and a p value of 0.02. A 10 cm increase in waist size has an odds ratio of 1.9 and a p value less than 0.001. That is to say, this same author found waist size was a stronger predictor of testosterone than age. This study occurs a few years after the one referenced in the article. Here's the actual study which does make the claim that these factors are insufficient on their own to explain age-normalized t levels. Personally I'm not totally convinced by their methods to control here. It's surprising to me that the later cohorts studied were seemingly the same weight but had poorer health metrics for one. The initial cohort also had an age range of 47-71. The later cohort had an age range of 57-80. The average age being 10 years older. I'm not convinced their mixed effect linear model is going to get a good comparison between these too. https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434?login=false https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434?login...