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Isn't that amazing? That we can help people extraneously without having to administer chemicals which have a nonlocalised effect on our bodies. There's still s

Isn't that amazing? That we can help people extraneously without having to administer chemicals which have a nonlocalised effect on our bodies. There's still so much to learn I recently heard that new fathers see a reduction in testosterone. How does having a baby chemically alter a man!? What's the stimulus and mechanism for that...

whythre 2y ago
Pheromones from the pregnant mother seem like a good candidate for the reason behind Low T…
- datavirtue 2y ago
  My vote as well. Proximity and "stickiness" to the mother. Likely not a thing if the father moves on to the next region/town after sireing a child. I think back to the isolated humans encountered by the British when working on their rocket programs. Basically groups of women that men moved between, impregnating. Move into a group, kill a child or two and/or fight other males, impregnate someone and move on. I overlay this behavior whenever I try to figure people out.
edmundsauto 2y ago
As a recent father: low sleep.
- djtango 2y ago
  I can't really refute this but I suspect based on the body of research on this study, the drop must be a lot more than just sleep deprivation. There are plenty of men who work long hours and have poor sleep but I don't believe the drop in T is as remarkable as that post partum How about the science behind how a baby's crying stimulates milk production.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Again cognitive. These are only challenging you because you’re assuming cognition cannot affect hormones/chemical systems but we know otherwise.
    - djtango 2y ago
      Not really challenging me, I'm more marvelling at the fact that as giant bags of proteins, we're able to look at our baby and our testicles decide that it's the time to stop doing what they do most of the time. Cognition is such a handwave IMO - what's the biochemistry behind that? What's the signalling mechanism by which our brain does that? Does that mean with the right external brain signals we can turn off T production? The implication of cognition having control over the body, which you assert is so well known, is that if we can achieve more control over our cognition we can achieve biochemical control of our body. So the bene gesserit is less fiction than we like to think?
      - borski 2y ago
        “Mind over matter” is not a colloquialism for no reason. It doesn’t work all the time, but to say it never does is a mistake.
      - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
        I think that (as with many of the problems of the modern world ;P) it can all be blamed on Descartes. The notion of dualism is profoundly problematic in a bunch of ways, but the biggest problem with it is that it created generations of scientists who ended up believing that consciousness and body experience are completely separate, which is a little ludicrous when you think about it.
      - fgd135 2y ago
        Is it really much different to, say, looking at food and getting hungry, or looking at someone naked and getting aroused? While these are more immediate and conscious experiences, its clear that something as simple as looking at things can affect our biochemistry.
- nonameiguess 2y ago
  This plus added stress, likely poor nutrition, missed exercise, a whole lot of things happening to new fathers that can lower measured serum testosterone. Whether or not it matters is an entirely different matter. Headline bloodwork numbers don't mean much out of context, and most of the outcomes you'd actually care about (athletic performance, muscle retention, general feeling of wellbeing and energy level) are all impacted by the same things whether or not testosterone is lowered. The one thing that might matter separately is sperm production, but if you care about being maximally able to get your wife pregnant again immediately after she gives birth, you can get that tested separately.
llamaimperative 2y ago
Why couldn’t it just be cognitive? Your endocrine system is not totally isolated from your cognition. It’s fairly apparent how fathers amped up on testosterone could be worse for offspring survival than those who have a drop, so the evolutionary pressure is pretty clear, then the mechanism is readily explained by “they know that they have a child.” How does adrenaline get released when you see a dangerous situation with merely your eyeballs?
BurningFrog 2y ago
This seems very much like a mechanism that would be favored by evolution, not an accident of circumstance. I have no clue how that mechanism migh operate, of course. I realize that makes this comment less persuasive, but so be it.
- djtango 2y ago
  The evolutionary advantage of it is fairly apparent - but understanding how we can control our own body chemistry without pharmaceutical intervention is of great interest to me. It's a silly example but what if you could combat age onset testosterone decline with brain exercises or by watching an hour of UFC everyday. I'd take that in a heartbeat over hormone therapy if it worked

whythre 2y ago

Pheromones from the pregnant mother seem like a good candidate for the reason behind Low T…

datavirtue 2y ago
My vote as well. Proximity and "stickiness" to the mother. Likely not a thing if the father moves on to the next region/town after sireing a child. I think back to the isolated humans encountered by the British when working on their rocket programs. Basically groups of women that men moved between, impregnating. Move into a group, kill a child or two and/or fight other males, impregnate someone and move on. I overlay this behavior whenever I try to figure people out.

edmundsauto 2y ago

As a recent father: low sleep.

djtango 2y ago
I can't really refute this but I suspect based on the body of research on this study, the drop must be a lot more than just sleep deprivation. There are plenty of men who work long hours and have poor sleep but I don't believe the drop in T is as remarkable as that post partum How about the science behind how a baby's crying stimulates milk production.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Again cognitive. These are only challenging you because you’re assuming cognition cannot affect hormones/chemical systems but we know otherwise.
  - djtango 2y ago
    Not really challenging me, I'm more marvelling at the fact that as giant bags of proteins, we're able to look at our baby and our testicles decide that it's the time to stop doing what they do most of the time. Cognition is such a handwave IMO - what's the biochemistry behind that? What's the signalling mechanism by which our brain does that? Does that mean with the right external brain signals we can turn off T production? The implication of cognition having control over the body, which you assert is so well known, is that if we can achieve more control over our cognition we can achieve biochemical control of our body. So the bene gesserit is less fiction than we like to think?
    - borski 2y ago
      “Mind over matter” is not a colloquialism for no reason. It doesn’t work all the time, but to say it never does is a mistake.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      I think that (as with many of the problems of the modern world ;P) it can all be blamed on Descartes. The notion of dualism is profoundly problematic in a bunch of ways, but the biggest problem with it is that it created generations of scientists who ended up believing that consciousness and body experience are completely separate, which is a little ludicrous when you think about it.
    - fgd135 2y ago
      Is it really much different to, say, looking at food and getting hungry, or looking at someone naked and getting aroused? While these are more immediate and conscious experiences, its clear that something as simple as looking at things can affect our biochemistry.
nonameiguess 2y ago
This plus added stress, likely poor nutrition, missed exercise, a whole lot of things happening to new fathers that can lower measured serum testosterone. Whether or not it matters is an entirely different matter. Headline bloodwork numbers don't mean much out of context, and most of the outcomes you'd actually care about (athletic performance, muscle retention, general feeling of wellbeing and energy level) are all impacted by the same things whether or not testosterone is lowered. The one thing that might matter separately is sperm production, but if you care about being maximally able to get your wife pregnant again immediately after she gives birth, you can get that tested separately.

llamaimperative 2y ago

Why couldn’t it just be cognitive? Your endocrine system is not totally isolated from your cognition. It’s fairly apparent how fathers amped up on testosterone could be worse for offspring survival than those who have a drop, so the evolutionary pressure is pretty clear, then the mechanism is readily explained by “they know that they have a child.” How does adrenaline get released when you see a dangerous situation with merely your eyeballs?

BurningFrog 2y ago

This seems very much like a mechanism that would be favored by evolution, not an accident of circumstance. I have no clue how that mechanism migh operate, of course. I realize that makes this comment less persuasive, but so be it.

djtango 2y ago
The evolutionary advantage of it is fairly apparent - but understanding how we can control our own body chemistry without pharmaceutical intervention is of great interest to me. It's a silly example but what if you could combat age onset testosterone decline with brain exercises or by watching an hour of UFC everyday. I'd take that in a heartbeat over hormone therapy if it worked