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

theguardian.com

31–40 of 87 posts

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

#31
post #14

Sperm counts, too, have dropped precipitously.

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.

Just because you don't always hit a home run doesn't mean you don't need a bat.

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

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not how biology works

While I mostly agree with your statement there's evidence that testosterone is linked to social status and mental well being. A 50% drop most likely has a multifactorial explanation, being told that some traditional male traits are bad (and thus lower well being or social status) or medicated away (see e.g the rise in ADHD and Autism diagnosis) might have some effect. I'm not nearly knowledgable enough to give any re…

> testosterone is linked to social status and mental well being

As well as a zillion other things. And "linked" in which direction?

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

#33
Before the reactions to the headline get too out of hand, the article says the study couldn’t rule out that obesity and diabetes might drive this change. Occam’s Razor leads me to lean on this more than any other exotic explanation.

Of course, PFAS and microplastics aren’t great for sperm health, but neither were leaded gasoline and DDT before they were curtailed.

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

#34
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.

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

#37

I'm old, but I get this subjective read: of my friends and even family who had sons, they seemed smaller and less bold than we were 50 years ago.

There is also correlation of the elimination of Lead Paint to violent crime. So that may need to be taken into account.

Lead Paint elimination started in the Early 70s IIRC, so the same time period :)

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

#39

[flagged]

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.

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

#40
post #4

“The solution that’s being promoted is that we give you testosterone,” he said. “But if you give a man testosterone, you switch off his sperm production. I’ve seen that in the clinic.” Interesting…

Are you being sarcastic? That has been widely known by steroid users for decades, that's why many of them supplements with hCG in an attempt to preserve their natural production.
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