Tuesday, January 23, 2018

The Great Testosterone Implosions of the Western World

Population wide testosterone levels are crashing, but that's okay because we don't really seem to care.

As some of you may be aware, we've known for many years that there has been a drastic and ongoing drop in testosterone levels. Well over 1% per year since the 1980's, even longer according to some researchers. This is seen in people in Europe, Japan and North America mostly. Populations in Africa and South America among other parts of the world are not experiencing this, yet.

At first the very existence of this drop was being debated, but with much better recent studies with larger samples, it's shifting from questioning the existence of the drop, to questioning why it is dropping.

But why care about all this stuff? It's not like it's constantly in the news or anything. Aside from those of us trying to look like Aaanold, ( you know, The Govenaytah ) what difference does it really make?

Anyway, isn't it supposed to be dropping as we age? Actually, no. Researchers were surprised to find that among very healthy men it remains stubbornly high throughout life. What happens to those who are not so lucky?

Low testosterone levels cause all manner of health problems such as cancers, depressed mood, memory impairment, joint pain, low muscle mass and strength, weight gain, bone density loss, insomnia. It goes on and on.  It's not just limited to typical stuff we would think of like low libido, erectile dysfunction and impaired fertility.

To make matters worst health issues are not only limited to men, women are also affected in different ways and it starts at a young age. Some negative effects are being seen in utero and childhood with a flare-up of problems around puberty.

Some are proposing it is having an impact on our society. I've even found a few right leaning articles on the web pushing the idea that this is some kind of leftist anti-male scheme, emasculating men and then claiming that low testosterone levels are either normal or better for society. A recent downward World Health Organization revision of testosterone levels is cited as evidence of our transformation into left-leaning pansies.

Even a new harmonized study of over 9000 healthy American and European men is being used to support this claim. For the first time this study allow doctors to compare against a large accurate sample, but since it is being done after testosterone has been dropping for decades it will obviously be setting standards using an already lowered level. In any case, it's rather expensive to go back in time and get 9000 samples from the late 50's, so this is the best we've got and will have to do for now.

Now that we know all this is real, what is causing all of this? Take your pick: Pesticides, hormone-disrupting chemicals, diet, stress, smoking and obesity are all in the running according to multiple researchers.

Personally I don't know why smoking which has been around for ages would suddenly start causing testosterone to drop, so I'll skip that one for the time being.

Others like diet and stress seem more plausible. We know diets ( Sugar Will Robinson! Sugar! as our friends from Lost in Space might say ) have been going downhill for some time, it's part of what is driving the obesity issue. Intensifying the trend is the unholy dynamic going on with lower physical activity, higher cortisol levels ( aka stress ), insomnia, and lower muscle mass which all shows up with or in close proximity to lower testosterone levels. One of the big indicators of this downward slide is the important increase in depression and anxiety disorders, especially among younger people who in the past were the least likely to suffer from those problems kind. Yup, our modern lifestyle really sucks. Lets move on to the next cheerful bunch of suspects.

Pesticides and hormone-disrupting chemicals, yum! Yes that's right, researchers at Harvard is telling us that people who eat food with higher levels of pesticides have lower sperm counts ( and we can presume lower testosterone since the two are so closely linked ). Surprisingly the higher pesticide food turns out to be stuff like apples, strawberries, spinach, lettuce, things your mama told you to eat because they are good for you. Well they are good for you, but the chems on them... Not so much.

Researchers see pesticides flush out of our body to very low trace amounts within two days after we stop eating fruit or vegetables within legally safe levels. This is done by switching to food lower down on the contamination list or going for organic produce. Two days after resuming consumption of food within the higher ranges of contamination, they can detect them again.

It's not only the food we eat. People who work with or around pesticides are also showing abnormal levels.

More of these so called endocrine disruptors hide in plain sight. Assorted plastics leach them into our food, getting an extra nudge when we microwave something in a plastic lined container. Or through our skin, even in dust we inhale thanks to fire retardant chemicals used in upholstery and fabric.

A couple of links of interest:

A website that lists the "dirty dozen" or most pesticide loaded fruits and vegetables:
https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty_dozen_list.php#.WmY-dOsS-rU

How to boost your testosterone levels, The Manly Way:
https://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/01/18/how-to-increase-testosterone-naturally/

More about xenoestrogenes:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen

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