Men's average testosterone levels have halved in last 50 years
47 points
2 hours ago
| 16 comments
| theguardian.com
| HN
janalsncm
45 minutes ago
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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.

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3stacks
3 minutes ago
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Good point. Age and obesity are the strongest correlates with low testosterone. Increases in sedentary lifestyles probably aren't helpful either, but not clear if that is anything other than a proxy for obesity
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idleplant
2 hours ago
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> Obesity was also not controlled for, which is known to be strongly correlated with low testosterone.
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adam_arthur
53 minutes ago
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Testosterone is directly causally inverse to bodyfat in men (once above some very low baseline)

Fat directly converts testosterone to Estrogen via a process called aromatization.

Personally my Testosterone close to doubled when going from 25% bodyfat to 13%. I get blood tests regularly and can see the levels fluctuate pretty closely with fat levels

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moffkalast
24 minutes ago
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My takeaway from this is that obesity... is the cure for baldness? xd
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vinyl7
23 minutes ago
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Baldness is caused by dht
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idleplant
2 hours ago
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In the past decade, research suggests that testosterone levels have actually gone up[1].

[1]https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/why-are-testosterone-levels-risin...

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tokai
49 minutes ago
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Really makes the study completely pointless when the last 50 years has also seen the rise of the global obesity epidemic.
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BoggleOhYeah
43 minutes ago
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I don’t understand why obesity seemingly gets tossed aside when this subject comes up.

It’s the one problem you can see in plain sight at any gathering of people.

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Zealotux
34 minutes ago
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That's literally the main point of the article, the stand-first: "Exclusive: Researchers warn of ‘major crisis in male reproductive health’ partly driven by obesity and diabetes"
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BoggleOhYeah
8 minutes ago
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That’s not what the article primarily addresses though and the study itself didn’t control for obesity. They make note of it at the end to say that the obesity cause is in dispute but the bulk of the article is focused on other potential causes.

It’s like we need something more interesting than “people sit too much and eat too much”.

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plastic-enjoyer
25 minutes ago
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Because it's too obvious. There needs to be some hidden, world encompassing conspiracy, so that people feel superior when they are one of the few enlightened ones that see through the matrix and start drinking raw milk to live like our testosterone pumped ancestors.
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janalsncm
10 minutes ago
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If you are a podcast host that gives hot takes on news headlines, which one are you going to choose?

Option one: obesity and weight problems. Statistically 77% of your audience is either overweight or obese because 77% of Americans are either overweight or obese.

Option two: feminism, microplastics, anime, or literally any other thing than option one.

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altairprime
6 minutes ago
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[delayed]
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xvxvx
1 hour ago
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“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…

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joshkel
1 hour ago
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As explained by https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/magazine/testosterone-mas..., "Supplementing with testosterone sends the message to the brain that testosterone is in oversupply, shutting down the testicles’ production of testosterone and sperm... The hormone is so incredibly effective at decreasing sperm counts that it is being tested as a possible male contraceptive."
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Zealotux
36 minutes ago
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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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littlexsparkee
49 minutes ago
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High cortisol lowers testosterone - some adaptogens like ashwagandha modulate the HPA axis and lower cortisol release, increasing T levels
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OldSchool
59 minutes ago
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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.
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jmclnx
42 minutes ago
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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 :)

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ibero
48 minutes ago
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less bold? what do you mean?
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mellosouls
56 minutes ago
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Can't help wondering to what extent the decline is directly and/or indirectly influenced by both the positive changes (eg increased women's rights and power) and the negative (presumption of masculine "toxicity" and fallibility) in socio-culture over the period surveyed.
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janalsncm
41 minutes ago
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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.

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superze
46 minutes ago
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Or the negatives (toxic femininity)
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greekrich92
54 minutes ago
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That is not how biology works
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LaurensBER
47 minutes ago
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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 reasonable estimate but it would not surprise me if it was higher than 0%.

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_moof
45 minutes ago
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> testosterone is linked to social status and mental well being

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

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ThinkingGuy
59 minutes ago
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Could this be a possible factor in the reduction in violent crime (at least in some countries)?
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bolangi
1 hour ago
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Sperm counts, too, have dropped precipitously.
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standardUser
57 minutes ago
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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.
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scottyah
46 minutes ago
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Just because you don't always hit a home run doesn't mean you don't need a bat.
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aucisson_masque
55 minutes ago
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America found the solution, put everyone on enhanced TRT and cash a shit load of bucks in the process :)

Others are trying to regulate pesticide, junk food (obesity, diabete). For instance nutriscore in Europe, also the recent change on pesticide allowed.

I'm not sure it will be enough, but at least they are attacking to the root cause. You're not just adding even more problem, like the increased cardiovascular event or erectile dysfunction with overdosed TRT.

Same for the semaglutides that everyone and their mother take in the usa, people wouldn't need them so much if they didn't eat absolute crap all the time.

We know that semaglutides have also side effects, and that rebound happen when you stop, but I guess it's better than just fixing the food lobby ?

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thot_experiment
44 minutes ago
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Half way to utopia.
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jmclnx
44 minutes ago
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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.

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standardUser
51 minutes ago
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“Obesity and diabetes could easily account for all of this,”

Wither Ozempic? I've seen several friends and family members use it to great effect and thought it might sweep the nation. But I imagine most of the same barriers that keep people from eating better or moving more are also in play when trying to engage with any new habit.

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pembrook
53 minutes ago
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I'm playing with fire going against the narrative, but I'll just say this:

You should be highly skeptical of any claims of drastic variance in human biology over short time periods.

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DANmode
1 hour ago
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Endocrine disrupting compounds.
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metadat
1 hour ago
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Microplastics.
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ThrowawayTestr
1 hour ago
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Or rising obesity and poor overall health
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SoftTalker
1 hour ago
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Agreed. A lot more men are just fat and sedentary compared to the past.
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DANmode
1 hour ago
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These are all items in the same feedback loop.
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greekrich92
52 minutes ago
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It's just our shitty food system and sedentary lifestyle but everyone is projecting their weird hangups on it
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