January 9, 2013 • 32 mins
How does this muscle-building hormone act in the body? What's the relationship between testosterone and masculinity? Does testosterone fuel aggression, or the other way around? Join Cristen and Caroline to learn more about this oft-misunderstood hormone.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And in a follow up to
our last episode on how Estrogen Works, we're gonna talk
about how testosterone works. Yeah, everybody has it. Everybody has
(00:26):
It affects people differently, just like estrogen, and if you're
a man, it gradually declines by about one percent every
year after thirty. Yeah. So men, listeners over over thirty,
you know, there's your testosterone levels are going down as
as we speak. Uh, and testosterone, what exactly is testosterone?
(00:49):
It is part of a class of hormones called gonadotropins
ding ding ding u a k A. Sex hormones that
in men is made in the large amount in the testicles,
and in women it is produced and obviously not not
as great of amounts in our ovarives and and in
(01:09):
all of us it's produced in small amounts by our
adrenal glands. And uh. It helps maintain things like men's
bone density, fat distribution, muscle strength and mass, red blood
cell production, sex drive, and sperm products theone. So those
all sound like good things to control. So what happens though,
(01:34):
if you don't have enough testosterone, well, uh, well you
grow boobs and ovaries and you can have a baby. Nope,
that's not what happens. Hypogonadism is the clinical term for
low testosterone, and this happens when the body is obviously
unable to produce the quote unquote normal amounts of testosterone.
(01:57):
And it estimated two to four million American men suffer
from this. And so with with primary hypogonadism, the ovaries
or the tests themselves don't function properly. It's probably why
you're not getting as much testosterone as you would need. Right.
Central hypogonadism is when the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland
(02:18):
don't function properly. And so the symptoms to look for
when you, as a man do not have enough testosterone
floating around in their breast enlargement, decreased body and facial hair,
muscle loss, and sexual problems. So what what can cause
lowered testosterone in men? We've got tumors on the pituitary gland,
(02:40):
problems with the testicles themselves, injury, infections, and being overweight.
Researchers have found that abdominal fat actually has a greater
capacity to convert testosterone to estrogen than other types of fat.
Who knew, yeah you belly yes, because sausterone was normally
broken down in the body's fat cells. So if you
(03:02):
have a lot of fat, your body breaks down testosterone
extra fast, leading to deficiency. So it sort of sends
that into hyperdrive. And there are also things like alcohol, diet, stress,
and lack of exercise that can affect a man's testosterone
levels as well. And um, one thing though, I will say,
like in in researching this whole low testosterone thing, it
(03:26):
reminds me of commercials that we're now seeing more on
television for medications like specifically testosterone creams to quote unquote
cure low tea as it's often called this, uh, this
low testosterone and some large pharmac pharmaceutical companies are hunting
(03:47):
down a cure for this. And um I was. I
was watching the documentary Orgasm Inc. A couple of weeks ago,
and it's all about the sort of creation and of
a quote unquote disease. It's essentially it was manufactured by
in the large part by a pharmaceutical company called Female
(04:09):
Sexual Dysfunction. And uh, it's this idea that you know,
if a woman doesn't have an orgasm every single time
that she has a sexual intercourse, then that's a dysfunction.
But the there's not very much empirical evidence this is
actually a disease. And a lot of the stuff that
you read about with this new like low TEE that
were suddenly hearing about everywhere, a lot of which is
(04:31):
promoted by pharmaceutical companies. Um I'm skeptical of because you
now see in here pharmaceutical reps speaking of it in
terms of a disease. But in the same way that
female sexual dysfunction doesn't have a lot of uh, empirical
(04:51):
data to back it up, the low tea seems similarly manufactured.
Because there are billions and billions of dollars. It's conspiracy
theory over well. I mean also the fact that it's
just called low T instead of just lower the normal
levels of testosterone, or hypogonadism, like let's create a name
(05:11):
for something that we want to pour money into to
fix quote unquote so that we can get a lot
back on our investment. Right, And that's not to say
that hypogonadism does not exist. That it's time to say
that there aren't some women who like have there is
a physiological problem with uh, you know, their their orgasm functions. Um,
(05:32):
but it's more a thing of manufacturing widespread disease, of
saying like seeing a commercial and saying, well, I feel
I feel tired, I feel fatigued, I don't want to
have sex all the time. I need this right. Well, okay,
so going to our trusty source, Mayo Clinic, testosterone therapy
is not a bad thing. I mean, it's not a
(05:52):
bad thing. If you have lower levels of testosterone and
you need therapy, then by all means, go out and
seek it. It can help proverse effects of hypogonadas gonad
is um. But according to Mayo, it's really unclear whether
such therapy can actually help older men who are otherwise healthy. So, like,
if you're just feeling kind of kind of sleepy and
maybe like you don't want to go out and play
(06:14):
like you know, full contact sports every day or something
that you need all of a sudden start taking testosterone,
that's just not the case. Well, and there's also you know,
the Mayo Clinic would also warn that, Uh, let's consider
the fact that a like we've mentioned test saucer and
levels naturally begin to decline after the age of thirty
and um doctors when they test for testosterone levels. Good
(06:39):
doctors at least will not want to take one blood
sample and say, oh, well, this is your testosterone level,
because those levels changed throughout the day and will vary
day two days, So you want to have that tested
multiple times to establish, you know, an actual and more
accurate view of of where it really is. Right, and
(07:00):
testosterone therapy definitely should I mean it technically should only
be used to raise your testosterone to a normal level,
not to raise it to somewhere because you think you
need to be like Mr Muscleman, like the brawny man
in his plaid shirt. Anyway, So there are a lot
of risks associated with testosterone therapy, so you really need
(07:22):
to talk to your doctor. In two researchers actually halted
a study of testosterone therapy and Alderman because of a
of such an increased rate of cardiovascular problems such as
heart attack. But there are so many other risks that
come with it. It may contribute to sleep apnea. It
could cause your body to make too many red blood cells,
which increases the risk of heart disease. It can cause acne,
(07:44):
and skin reactions stimulate noncancerous growth of the prostate in
large breasts and limit sperm production or cause testical shrinkage. Yeah.
So it's the same kind of thing when you're producing
two little at sausterone and you start to get those
unwanted physical side effects. Same thing happens, can happen when
(08:08):
there's too much of it backfire. Yeah, and we will
see that a lot associated with men who take steroids. Right, So,
there are Christian other therapies out there, natural therapies like
what like the horny goat weed or so to speak. Uh,
scientists are making a case for masturbation if you have
(08:31):
not too low of a level of testosterone, if you're
just looking for a boost. Researchers at the Yerk Center
for Primate Research at em University here in Atlanta said, Hey,
it works for monkeys, let's all do it. So they
found that monkeys that see sexually active female monkeys register
as much as a four dent jump in testosterone. And
(08:54):
they are not the only ones who have noticed things
like this. German researchers found that just having an erection
is enough to spur testosterone levels and there's no difference.
They said, whether the man is watching sex on TV
or having it in real life. So that's interesting. What
comes first? The erection of the testosterone sounds like the
test or the erection, but I guess you would still
need some testosterone to to get that erection going. This
(09:17):
isn't how erections work, but it does. But it is
interesting though, because a lot of times we probably have
that relationship flipped in our brain. Um. Now. Rutgers University
researcher Helen Fisher, who we have referenced on the podcast
many times, also had some advice for men in quote
unquote captivity situations. Oh, Helen, this is what this is
(09:41):
what Helen calls men who are married with children, and
she advises that they just go online and look at
porn as a kind of hormone replacement therapy, because she says,
quote porn drives up dopamine levels, which drives up your testosterone,
while just making out with your wife isn't gonna they're
gonna do much. It actually drives it drives it down. Yeah. Well, Harvard.
(10:04):
Harvard did a study in two thousand three that found
that men and committed romantic relationships had twenty one lower
testosterone levels. Than men not involved in such relationships. Yeah,
but here's the thing with U. And I went off
on on our tumbler page stuff mom never told you
dont tumbler dot com a while ago about, um, these
(10:27):
testosterone relationship correlates, because a couple of years ago, there
was this finding that was publicized everywhere about how men
with children have lower testosterone than men without kids. How
and and then there was one this past year saying like,
if you have any contact with babies whatsoever, your testosterone
(10:48):
is lower. And that was you know, that sent the
media screaming saying, oh, oh no, the fatherhood is it's
challenging our virility and manhood. What are we gonna do,
whereas the researchers were saying, no, no, no, you didn't
actually read this whull, this whole study because lower tests,
these lower levels of testosterone are actually a good thing
(11:11):
that helped keep men alive longer and maybe mediates aggressive
behavior in a way that could be good for that child.
It's not turning men into just lifeless sandbags, right, No, exactly.
And I think, um, A good transition from that is
(11:32):
to talk about a study that was in the Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology in October two thousand and six.
Because just like we're saying that lower testosterone in a relationship,
it's not like you're becoming less of a man. It's
just that, like, according to these researchers, you're just off
the market. You're not in like prime mate seeking mode.
(11:52):
You know, you're comfortable in your your committed relationship. And
so these researchers in this study found that men in
real relationships who report cheating on their partners or even
who just say they'd consider it, have levels of testosteron
that are about as high as those in single men.
So that ties into the whole thing of like it's
(12:13):
it's more of like the aggressive mate seeking I'm going
to have sex with everybody attitude in your brain. Well
it's interesting though, because if we're talking about testosteron levels
and relationships, uh, these similar studies have found that while
men in relationships will have lower and this is initially
in the relationship, I will have the lower testosterone, women's
(12:36):
testosterone levels tend to rise though once they get into
a relationship. But maybe that also on the flip side,
has to do with um, you know, that initial passion
and lust that eventually wears a way into nights of
sleep pants and falling asleep in front of the couch.
Wait what oh wistful. And I think it's worth noting though, too,
(13:01):
that we can never attribute one hormone to like such
a complex behavior as say, sexual attraction, even with something
like cheating. You know, they're the study indicates that may
maybe a higher level of testosterone leads men to cheat more.
But then that also, you know, that doesn't take into account,
(13:23):
um any kind of like psychological factors or genetic factors
that scientists are looking more into. You know, there there's
we shouldn't pin the blame for positive or negative behavior
on one thing. And speaking of negative behavior, though, I
really wanted to look into the link between testosterone and
aggression because I feel, I feel like when we think
(13:46):
about what does testosterone due to people, specifically to men,
it makes the muscular horny and aggressive. Yeah right, the
perception of men being like super aggressive because of their
testosterone and women being the shrinking violence who you know,
want everybody to be happy all the time. Aggression is
actually pretty equal opportunity as as far as gender is concerned,
(14:08):
and as far as domestic violence for instance, Um, because
men are physically stronger, more women are injured, but women
still fight back with slaps and less visibly injurious forms
of abuse. Yeah, when it comes to domestic violence statistics,
I want to say about forty of victims are actually
(14:33):
men victims of female on male violence, and that's just
talking about physical violence. But there was an article and
Scientific American looking into whether or not testosterone is just
fueling this aggression, and they point out that women and
girls are simply more likely to exact something called relational aggression,
(14:54):
which would involve things like backbiting, social isolation, gossiping, which
might be more of a product of socialization. And that
notion was popularized by books like Odd Girl Out, The
Hidden Culture of Aggression and Girls by Rachel Simmons, which
came out in two thousand two. Um, So it's like,
essentially the aggression happens, but there's more the gender difference
(15:19):
in the manifestation of how how it goes out, because
you know, women are more socialized against physical violence. There
is a gender gap in physical strength, which makes sense
as to why you know, men are a little more
pugilistic whereas women tend to be They take out their
aggression more verbally and emotionally. That's interesting. So do you
(15:40):
think that's saying that like girls are women who actively
try to, you know, gossip and turn people against each
other are just as aggressive as men who get into
bar fights. Like, do you think that some of these
things can be equated? I think that you could make
that argument. Um uh. There There is one one exception
(16:01):
though to this rule of a of aggression like men
in terms of of physical aggression in the Annual Kingdom,
and that is the spotted hyena. The female spotted hyena
is actually more aggressive than her male counterparts, and studies
have found that she does, in fact have higher testosterone
(16:22):
levels than the male highness. Do so watch out if
you are on a safari for hyenas, because that happens
a lot um and Robert M. Stapulski, who wrote in
the essay The Trouble with Testosterone, also points out that
we have the testosteron aggression relationship backwards. He says that
(16:44):
aggression itself actually stimulates the testosterone secretion, not vice versa.
It's not that we have you know, there's some flood
of testosterone and men just all of a sudden need
to start breaking beer bottles over people's head, and that
it actually exaggerates the testosteron does the aggression that is
already there. And also there was a two thousand nine
(17:06):
study published in Nature which found that testsaster is more
linked to status seeking behavior rather than aggression due to
human social behavior. Like the researchers who are published in
Nature were making the claim that a lot of our
beliefs about testoster and aggression are focused solely on animal
(17:27):
studies that don't take into account human socialization that would
devalue a barbrawl, like we we wouldn't. We don't think
that that is a good thing. So testosterone and men
might more fuel status seeking rather than punching you in
the face, didn't. Isn't this the study also that mentioned
(17:49):
that women who thought they had been given a testosteron
DOS were acting more aggressive, right, And it's just it's
like the social perception. Yeah. One of the researchers actually
told Time magazine talking about that that specific, uh sort
of placebo effect in women, that it's not the hormone,
but the myths surrounding the hormone that induced aggressiveness. So
(18:13):
it's interesting in how these these preconceived notions that we
have about hormones might temper our emotions as well. Yeah,
because the women who actually did receive the testosterone and
didn't know it, that just fostered more cooperative behavior. And
so that ties into the whole status status seeking, not
status seeking like I'm going to be the most popular
(18:34):
kids in school, but like I'm going to work better
with people, which we could now delve into philosophical being
on we think therefore we are, and then this podcast
will never it, won't it. We'll just keep talking. We'll
use the word headin Norman of a Lot and just yeah,
just keep talking. What about sex, Kristen, what about Well?
(18:55):
I think that some of the researchers pointed out too
that well, obviously, you know, test us room does play
a role in sex drive, it's not the end all
be all, because estrogen also for women, plays a role
in our sex drive. And um, this was another thing
that came up in orgasm Inc. Where researchers were initially
(19:16):
touting um testosterone as secure for women who might have
a lower sex drive, but it's not really the case.
They were talking to Kim Wallan, who's the lead researcher
over at the year Key Center at Emory University, and
he's observed for his entire career relationship sexual relationships between
(19:37):
monkeys and uh. They were interviewing him and asking him
the number one thing he had learned was to pay
more attention to the female because he says that the
role of testosterone and estrogen in whether or not people
are going to have sex is probably overblown, and that
from his observations among these primate populations is that context
(19:59):
is a lot more important than simply hormones. Right, So,
if if the male monkey takes the female monkey to dinner, yeah,
and the female monkey feels pretty Yeah, maybe she's wearing
an ice dress that night. She put a little bow
in her four So okay, So what happens when women
have elevated testosterone? We mentioned polycystic ovarian syndrome in our
(20:22):
last episode on estrogen, but we can get a little
bit more into it now since we're talking about testosterone UM. Basically,
a lot of things can happen when um testosterone is
overproduced in women. It leads to the development of typically
male characteristics. It also can lead to things like changing
(20:44):
body shape, increase in body hair, enlargement of the claturus,
increasing muscle mass, etcetera and UM. But also though this
was from a University of Michigan study UM that found
that heightened levels of testop stone in women also did
not lead to a jacked up sex drive like wanting
(21:07):
to have sex with someone else, but did lead women
to want to masturbate more. So. There was also a
study talking about sex drive and women in particular when
it comes to testosterone. UH. This is the Archives of
Sexual Behavior in may Researchers found that testosterone was linked
with a reduced desire to have sex among women, but
(21:30):
a higher desire to masturbate. So less the ladies want
to have, less sex with partners and more solo sex,
so just a different form of of sexual designs. They're
not as driven to have that like person to person
connection maybe and and they're more just wanting to do
it for pleasure, just maybe just in search of that
(21:51):
of of an orgasm. UM. This was reported on in
Live Science and the study was also telling because not
only did it look at women, but it also looked
at a healthy population and this is important. A healthy
population of men as well, with normal levels of testosterone
and these University of Michigan behavioral neuroendocrinologists UH positive that
(22:15):
their findings debunked the link between testosterone and sex drive
because they found that in the men in the healthy range,
when they gave them an extra shot of testosterone, it
did not seem to influence any interest in having sex,
and from that they they drew the conclusion that the
(22:38):
idea that testosterone fuel sex drive is an idea based
on animal studies and studies of men who produce extreme
or abnormally low levels of testosterone, and speaking to Life Science,
one of the lead researchers said, quote, in this regular,
healthy range of testosterone, it's high enough that the variations
aren't what's driving any changes. So again we find that
(23:00):
sex drive, like all of these behavioral aspects that we're
talking about, is multifaceted, and while testosterone is certainly an ingredient,
it is not the entire dish, right right. It's nice
metaphor you okay. So we talked about how elevated testosterone
in women can lead them to, you know, stray away
(23:24):
from sex with a partner, you know, raises but still
masturbating exactly, yes, So what else does it do? We
also touched on polycystic ovarian syndrome in our last episode
on estrogen, So what does what happens? Basically, when a
woman has elevated testosterone, it has several effects, not only
(23:46):
internally but externally, things like the body shape changes. There's
an increase in body hair, enlargement of the torus, increase
in muscle mass. Women can even experience male pattern balding. Yeah,
and if you want to learn more about PICOS in depth,
we do have an entire episode. It's a little bit
back in our archives, but we do have an entire
(24:07):
episode dedicated to that. Because PICOS is a problem for
a lot of women. We had a lot of listeners
right in about that episode because it can be extremely
hard to diagnose because a lot of the symptoms doctors
initially think are attributed to other things and not necessarily
levels of testosterone. So it's good to learn more about that,
(24:29):
educate educate yourself about picos as well. Yeah. Well, so,
something that I found really interesting when when we were
studying for this episode was the whole thing with sex hormones,
sex traits and athletes, because this really came up in
the summer Olympics. It was the I O. C. The
(24:50):
International Olympic Committee's planned to prevent from competing women who
tested in the male range for testosterone and whose body
has responded to the hormone. So why did they want
to do this? Back in two thousand nine, at the
World Championships, South African runner Castor Semenya's sex was questioned
and she wasn't allowed to compete for a year, after
which time she was reinstated. Yeah, and it raised this
(25:12):
whole question that is really worth talking about in these
episodes on how testosterone and how estrogen work, of how
we associate the levels of these hormones with gender, gender identification,
and biological sex to point out not only you know,
the fluidity of gender, yes, but also the fluidity of
(25:34):
biological sex, because the IOC wanted to essentially use testosterone
levels of a benchmark level of that to say well,
if you're above this, then guess what, you're a guy,
and if you're below this, then you are a woman,
which you really cannot do at all, because even if
(25:57):
you take physical characteristics of uh say second very sex
traits like your genitalia into account, even then with the
hormone levels combined, you can't necessarily say well, this is
what you know, exactly what a man is, and this
is exactly what a woman is because of things like say,
(26:17):
congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Right, that's a condition that causes what
they call ambiguous genitalia, including in large plutorus is that
may look like small penises. And they point out that
women with this disorder might fail an exam for sex
even though she has ovaries and a uterus. Yeah, and
then you also have things like complete androgen and sensitivity syndrome,
(26:39):
where chromosomally you have the the X Y, so the
normal makeup for a man, but their bodies aren't responsive
to testosterone. So despite having an x Y chromosome, these
people will develop female genitalia and breast but they have
tests and not ovaries, and so they would fail a
(27:00):
test of femaleness based on chromosomes, though they generally people
with complete androgen insensitive use syndrome tend to live their
lives as women. Yeah, and so Christian was talking about
how you can't just simply say that if your testosterone
level is here, you can compete as a man or
a woman, you know, and vice versa. If it's not,
you can't um British into chronologist Peter Song since two thousand.
(27:25):
Year two thousand analysis of six hundred and fifty Olympic
athletes found that five percent of women tested in the
male range for testosterone and more than six percent of
men tested in the female range. So if all of
a sudden we're drawing a line in the sand, that
that really affects a whole lot of athletes. Well. And
(27:45):
also think about when we were talking in how estrogen
works about how lower levels of extremely low levels of
body fat and women tends to lower the level of
testoster or estrogen being reduced, and so that could also
you know, if you're thinking about elite athletes, I'm sure
they have very low body fat percentages, so they might
(28:07):
have lower estrogen than the typical female population. So they
are all of these variations when it comes to estrogen,
testosterone and their behavioral, physiological and biological effects on our bodies.
Hormones are wonky people. They do all sorts of things.
(28:29):
But saying that testosterone makes you a man and estrogen
makes you a woman is not the case, because we
make some of both, and some people make more of
each than others, and some people are completely insensitive to uh,
some hormones compared to others and who and we're all different.
(28:49):
Let's just hammer out home one more time. Everybody is
a little bit different. Yeah, so I think that that
covers testosterone estrogen. Who. Yeah, I'm used taking each other
on date. That's right, monkey dates. I feel more enlightened.
I hope that you feel more enlighted as well. If
there's anything on your mind about testosterone estrogen hormones in
(29:14):
general that you would like to chat with us about,
you can always send us some email mom stuff at
Discovery dot com, or hit us up on Facebook and
like us there while you're at it. But before we
get to a couple of letters to share with you,
all right, Well, the first letter I've got here is
(29:34):
from Debbie, and this is in response to our episode
about empty nest syndrome. She says, I'm the younger of
two daughters. So that first Saturday after I left for
college was the date it really hit my parents that
the nest was empty. Unsure what to do, they ended
up watching some infomercials and bought a Showtime rotisserie oven.
(29:55):
The next Saturday, they purchased the entire line of Orange
Glow products, and a Saturday after that, they decided to
go out to breakfast because it would be cheaper. Thirteen
years later, they still go to breakfast at that same
local restaurant nearly every Saturday morning. Also, I moved back
in with my parents a few months after I graduated college,
and I would join them some saturdays. So, in a
(30:16):
weird twist, the daughter that returned to the nest was
participating also in the empty nest coping strategy. And the
restaurant has these made amazing potato cheese bacon things called
not So Fries that I have to order when I'm
visiting my parents, even though it's breakfast because I get
to go so rarely. Yum yum. Indeed, yeah, I like that.
(30:38):
They purchased the entire line of Orange Globe products, and
I assume like set out to furiously clean the house,
after which they were like, well, what do we do now?
They'll just look at each other. Hope. Two and a
half Minazon, Sally, and Chad, We're looking at you. Okay.
Here's a letter from Michelle about our Rhythm Method podcast.
(30:59):
She's d My mom was using the Rhythm Method when
she got pregnant with me. She was actually planning on
joining the military and had gone off to basic training
before she was discovered she was pregnant. Once she realized
what was going on, she decided to stay, hoping she
could get away with finishing the training. She was discovered
two weeks from the end of training, and her options
were to leave or get an abortion. She ended up
(31:22):
leaving and never did join the military since she would
have to start basic training all over again. I think
it's sort of a funny story about my beginnings and
a cautionary tale about depending on the rhythm method for
birth control. So thanks to everybody who's written into Mom's Stuff.
At Discovery dot com, it's where you can send your letters.
You can also find us on Facebook, Like us there,
(31:43):
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bodies do, you can head to our website, It's stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(32:06):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. H
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And in a follow up to
our last episode on how Estrogen Works, we're gonna talk
about how testosterone works. Yeah, everybody has it. Everybody has
(00:26):
It affects people differently, just like estrogen, and if you're
a man, it gradually declines by about one percent every
year after thirty. Yeah. So men, listeners over over thirty,
you know, there's your testosterone levels are going down as
as we speak. Uh, and testosterone, what exactly is testosterone?
(00:49):
It is part of a class of hormones called gonadotropins
ding ding ding u a k A. Sex hormones that
in men is made in the large amount in the testicles,
and in women it is produced and obviously not not
as great of amounts in our ovarives and and in
(01:09):
all of us it's produced in small amounts by our
adrenal glands. And uh. It helps maintain things like men's
bone density, fat distribution, muscle strength and mass, red blood
cell production, sex drive, and sperm products theone. So those
all sound like good things to control. So what happens though,
(01:34):
if you don't have enough testosterone, well, uh, well you
grow boobs and ovaries and you can have a baby. Nope,
that's not what happens. Hypogonadism is the clinical term for
low testosterone, and this happens when the body is obviously
unable to produce the quote unquote normal amounts of testosterone.
(01:57):
And it estimated two to four million American men suffer
from this. And so with with primary hypogonadism, the ovaries
or the tests themselves don't function properly. It's probably why
you're not getting as much testosterone as you would need. Right.
Central hypogonadism is when the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland
(02:18):
don't function properly. And so the symptoms to look for
when you, as a man do not have enough testosterone
floating around in their breast enlargement, decreased body and facial hair,
muscle loss, and sexual problems. So what what can cause
lowered testosterone in men? We've got tumors on the pituitary gland,
(02:40):
problems with the testicles themselves, injury, infections, and being overweight.
Researchers have found that abdominal fat actually has a greater
capacity to convert testosterone to estrogen than other types of fat.
Who knew, yeah you belly yes, because sausterone was normally
broken down in the body's fat cells. So if you
(03:02):
have a lot of fat, your body breaks down testosterone
extra fast, leading to deficiency. So it sort of sends
that into hyperdrive. And there are also things like alcohol, diet, stress,
and lack of exercise that can affect a man's testosterone
levels as well. And um, one thing though, I will say,
like in in researching this whole low testosterone thing, it
(03:26):
reminds me of commercials that we're now seeing more on
television for medications like specifically testosterone creams to quote unquote
cure low tea as it's often called this, uh, this
low testosterone and some large pharmac pharmaceutical companies are hunting
(03:47):
down a cure for this. And um I was. I
was watching the documentary Orgasm Inc. A couple of weeks ago,
and it's all about the sort of creation and of
a quote unquote disease. It's essentially it was manufactured by
in the large part by a pharmaceutical company called Female
(04:09):
Sexual Dysfunction. And uh, it's this idea that you know,
if a woman doesn't have an orgasm every single time
that she has a sexual intercourse, then that's a dysfunction.
But the there's not very much empirical evidence this is
actually a disease. And a lot of the stuff that
you read about with this new like low TEE that
were suddenly hearing about everywhere, a lot of which is
(04:31):
promoted by pharmaceutical companies. Um I'm skeptical of because you
now see in here pharmaceutical reps speaking of it in
terms of a disease. But in the same way that
female sexual dysfunction doesn't have a lot of uh, empirical
(04:51):
data to back it up, the low tea seems similarly manufactured.
Because there are billions and billions of dollars. It's conspiracy
theory over well. I mean also the fact that it's
just called low T instead of just lower the normal
levels of testosterone, or hypogonadism, like let's create a name
(05:11):
for something that we want to pour money into to
fix quote unquote so that we can get a lot
back on our investment. Right, And that's not to say
that hypogonadism does not exist. That it's time to say
that there aren't some women who like have there is
a physiological problem with uh, you know, their their orgasm functions. Um,
(05:32):
but it's more a thing of manufacturing widespread disease, of
saying like seeing a commercial and saying, well, I feel
I feel tired, I feel fatigued, I don't want to
have sex all the time. I need this right. Well, okay,
so going to our trusty source, Mayo Clinic, testosterone therapy
is not a bad thing. I mean, it's not a
(05:52):
bad thing. If you have lower levels of testosterone and
you need therapy, then by all means, go out and
seek it. It can help proverse effects of hypogonadas gonad
is um. But according to Mayo, it's really unclear whether
such therapy can actually help older men who are otherwise healthy. So, like,
if you're just feeling kind of kind of sleepy and
maybe like you don't want to go out and play
(06:14):
like you know, full contact sports every day or something
that you need all of a sudden start taking testosterone,
that's just not the case. Well, and there's also you know,
the Mayo Clinic would also warn that, Uh, let's consider
the fact that a like we've mentioned test saucer and
levels naturally begin to decline after the age of thirty
and um doctors when they test for testosterone levels. Good
(06:39):
doctors at least will not want to take one blood
sample and say, oh, well, this is your testosterone level,
because those levels changed throughout the day and will vary
day two days, So you want to have that tested
multiple times to establish, you know, an actual and more
accurate view of of where it really is. Right, and
(07:00):
testosterone therapy definitely should I mean it technically should only
be used to raise your testosterone to a normal level,
not to raise it to somewhere because you think you
need to be like Mr Muscleman, like the brawny man
in his plaid shirt. Anyway, So there are a lot
of risks associated with testosterone therapy, so you really need
(07:22):
to talk to your doctor. In two researchers actually halted
a study of testosterone therapy and Alderman because of a
of such an increased rate of cardiovascular problems such as
heart attack. But there are so many other risks that
come with it. It may contribute to sleep apnea. It
could cause your body to make too many red blood cells,
which increases the risk of heart disease. It can cause acne,
(07:44):
and skin reactions stimulate noncancerous growth of the prostate in
large breasts and limit sperm production or cause testical shrinkage. Yeah.
So it's the same kind of thing when you're producing
two little at sausterone and you start to get those
unwanted physical side effects. Same thing happens, can happen when
(08:08):
there's too much of it backfire. Yeah, and we will
see that a lot associated with men who take steroids. Right, So,
there are Christian other therapies out there, natural therapies like
what like the horny goat weed or so to speak. Uh,
scientists are making a case for masturbation if you have
(08:31):
not too low of a level of testosterone, if you're
just looking for a boost. Researchers at the Yerk Center
for Primate Research at em University here in Atlanta said, Hey,
it works for monkeys, let's all do it. So they
found that monkeys that see sexually active female monkeys register
as much as a four dent jump in testosterone. And
(08:54):
they are not the only ones who have noticed things
like this. German researchers found that just having an erection
is enough to spur testosterone levels and there's no difference.
They said, whether the man is watching sex on TV
or having it in real life. So that's interesting. What
comes first? The erection of the testosterone sounds like the
test or the erection, but I guess you would still
need some testosterone to to get that erection going. This
(09:17):
isn't how erections work, but it does. But it is
interesting though, because a lot of times we probably have
that relationship flipped in our brain. Um. Now. Rutgers University
researcher Helen Fisher, who we have referenced on the podcast
many times, also had some advice for men in quote
unquote captivity situations. Oh, Helen, this is what this is
(09:41):
what Helen calls men who are married with children, and
she advises that they just go online and look at
porn as a kind of hormone replacement therapy, because she says,
quote porn drives up dopamine levels, which drives up your testosterone,
while just making out with your wife isn't gonna they're
gonna do much. It actually drives it drives it down. Yeah. Well, Harvard.
(10:04):
Harvard did a study in two thousand three that found
that men and committed romantic relationships had twenty one lower
testosterone levels. Than men not involved in such relationships. Yeah,
but here's the thing with U. And I went off
on on our tumbler page stuff mom never told you
dont tumbler dot com a while ago about, um, these
(10:27):
testosterone relationship correlates, because a couple of years ago, there
was this finding that was publicized everywhere about how men
with children have lower testosterone than men without kids. How
and and then there was one this past year saying like,
if you have any contact with babies whatsoever, your testosterone
(10:48):
is lower. And that was you know, that sent the
media screaming saying, oh, oh no, the fatherhood is it's
challenging our virility and manhood. What are we gonna do,
whereas the researchers were saying, no, no, no, you didn't
actually read this whull, this whole study because lower tests,
these lower levels of testosterone are actually a good thing
(11:11):
that helped keep men alive longer and maybe mediates aggressive
behavior in a way that could be good for that child.
It's not turning men into just lifeless sandbags, right, No, exactly.
And I think, um, A good transition from that is
(11:32):
to talk about a study that was in the Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology in October two thousand and six.
Because just like we're saying that lower testosterone in a relationship,
it's not like you're becoming less of a man. It's
just that, like, according to these researchers, you're just off
the market. You're not in like prime mate seeking mode.
(11:52):
You know, you're comfortable in your your committed relationship. And
so these researchers in this study found that men in
real relationships who report cheating on their partners or even
who just say they'd consider it, have levels of testosteron
that are about as high as those in single men.
So that ties into the whole thing of like it's
(12:13):
it's more of like the aggressive mate seeking I'm going
to have sex with everybody attitude in your brain. Well
it's interesting though, because if we're talking about testosteron levels
and relationships, uh, these similar studies have found that while
men in relationships will have lower and this is initially
in the relationship, I will have the lower testosterone, women's
(12:36):
testosterone levels tend to rise though once they get into
a relationship. But maybe that also on the flip side,
has to do with um, you know, that initial passion
and lust that eventually wears a way into nights of
sleep pants and falling asleep in front of the couch.
Wait what oh wistful. And I think it's worth noting though, too,
(13:01):
that we can never attribute one hormone to like such
a complex behavior as say, sexual attraction, even with something
like cheating. You know, they're the study indicates that may
maybe a higher level of testosterone leads men to cheat more.
But then that also, you know, that doesn't take into account,
(13:23):
um any kind of like psychological factors or genetic factors
that scientists are looking more into. You know, there there's
we shouldn't pin the blame for positive or negative behavior
on one thing. And speaking of negative behavior, though, I
really wanted to look into the link between testosterone and
aggression because I feel, I feel like when we think
(13:46):
about what does testosterone due to people, specifically to men,
it makes the muscular horny and aggressive. Yeah right, the
perception of men being like super aggressive because of their
testosterone and women being the shrinking violence who you know,
want everybody to be happy all the time. Aggression is
actually pretty equal opportunity as as far as gender is concerned,
(14:08):
and as far as domestic violence for instance, Um, because
men are physically stronger, more women are injured, but women
still fight back with slaps and less visibly injurious forms
of abuse. Yeah, when it comes to domestic violence statistics,
I want to say about forty of victims are actually
(14:33):
men victims of female on male violence, and that's just
talking about physical violence. But there was an article and
Scientific American looking into whether or not testosterone is just
fueling this aggression, and they point out that women and
girls are simply more likely to exact something called relational aggression,
(14:54):
which would involve things like backbiting, social isolation, gossiping, which
might be more of a product of socialization. And that
notion was popularized by books like Odd Girl Out, The
Hidden Culture of Aggression and Girls by Rachel Simmons, which
came out in two thousand two. Um, So it's like,
essentially the aggression happens, but there's more the gender difference
(15:19):
in the manifestation of how how it goes out, because
you know, women are more socialized against physical violence. There
is a gender gap in physical strength, which makes sense
as to why you know, men are a little more
pugilistic whereas women tend to be They take out their
aggression more verbally and emotionally. That's interesting. So do you
(15:40):
think that's saying that like girls are women who actively
try to, you know, gossip and turn people against each
other are just as aggressive as men who get into
bar fights. Like, do you think that some of these
things can be equated? I think that you could make
that argument. Um uh. There There is one one exception
(16:01):
though to this rule of a of aggression like men
in terms of of physical aggression in the Annual Kingdom,
and that is the spotted hyena. The female spotted hyena
is actually more aggressive than her male counterparts, and studies
have found that she does, in fact have higher testosterone
(16:22):
levels than the male highness. Do so watch out if
you are on a safari for hyenas, because that happens
a lot um and Robert M. Stapulski, who wrote in
the essay The Trouble with Testosterone, also points out that
we have the testosteron aggression relationship backwards. He says that
(16:44):
aggression itself actually stimulates the testosterone secretion, not vice versa.
It's not that we have you know, there's some flood
of testosterone and men just all of a sudden need
to start breaking beer bottles over people's head, and that
it actually exaggerates the testosteron does the aggression that is
already there. And also there was a two thousand nine
(17:06):
study published in Nature which found that testsaster is more
linked to status seeking behavior rather than aggression due to
human social behavior. Like the researchers who are published in
Nature were making the claim that a lot of our
beliefs about testoster and aggression are focused solely on animal
(17:27):
studies that don't take into account human socialization that would
devalue a barbrawl, like we we wouldn't. We don't think
that that is a good thing. So testosterone and men
might more fuel status seeking rather than punching you in
the face, didn't. Isn't this the study also that mentioned
(17:49):
that women who thought they had been given a testosteron
DOS were acting more aggressive, right, And it's just it's
like the social perception. Yeah. One of the researchers actually
told Time magazine talking about that that specific, uh sort
of placebo effect in women, that it's not the hormone,
but the myths surrounding the hormone that induced aggressiveness. So
(18:13):
it's interesting in how these these preconceived notions that we
have about hormones might temper our emotions as well. Yeah,
because the women who actually did receive the testosterone and
didn't know it, that just fostered more cooperative behavior. And
so that ties into the whole status status seeking, not
status seeking like I'm going to be the most popular
(18:34):
kids in school, but like I'm going to work better
with people, which we could now delve into philosophical being
on we think therefore we are, and then this podcast
will never it, won't it. We'll just keep talking. We'll
use the word headin Norman of a Lot and just yeah,
just keep talking. What about sex, Kristen, what about Well?
(18:55):
I think that some of the researchers pointed out too
that well, obviously, you know, test us room does play
a role in sex drive, it's not the end all
be all, because estrogen also for women, plays a role
in our sex drive. And um, this was another thing
that came up in orgasm Inc. Where researchers were initially
(19:16):
touting um testosterone as secure for women who might have
a lower sex drive, but it's not really the case.
They were talking to Kim Wallan, who's the lead researcher
over at the year Key Center at Emory University, and
he's observed for his entire career relationship sexual relationships between
(19:37):
monkeys and uh. They were interviewing him and asking him
the number one thing he had learned was to pay
more attention to the female because he says that the
role of testosterone and estrogen in whether or not people
are going to have sex is probably overblown, and that
from his observations among these primate populations is that context
(19:59):
is a lot more important than simply hormones. Right, So,
if if the male monkey takes the female monkey to dinner, yeah,
and the female monkey feels pretty Yeah, maybe she's wearing
an ice dress that night. She put a little bow
in her four So okay, So what happens when women
have elevated testosterone? We mentioned polycystic ovarian syndrome in our
(20:22):
last episode on estrogen, but we can get a little
bit more into it now since we're talking about testosterone UM. Basically,
a lot of things can happen when um testosterone is
overproduced in women. It leads to the development of typically
male characteristics. It also can lead to things like changing
(20:44):
body shape, increase in body hair, enlargement of the claturus,
increasing muscle mass, etcetera and UM. But also though this
was from a University of Michigan study UM that found
that heightened levels of testop stone in women also did
not lead to a jacked up sex drive like wanting
(21:07):
to have sex with someone else, but did lead women
to want to masturbate more. So. There was also a
study talking about sex drive and women in particular when
it comes to testosterone. UH. This is the Archives of
Sexual Behavior in may Researchers found that testosterone was linked
with a reduced desire to have sex among women, but
(21:30):
a higher desire to masturbate. So less the ladies want
to have, less sex with partners and more solo sex,
so just a different form of of sexual designs. They're
not as driven to have that like person to person
connection maybe and and they're more just wanting to do
it for pleasure, just maybe just in search of that
(21:51):
of of an orgasm. UM. This was reported on in
Live Science and the study was also telling because not
only did it look at women, but it also looked
at a healthy population and this is important. A healthy
population of men as well, with normal levels of testosterone
and these University of Michigan behavioral neuroendocrinologists UH positive that
(22:15):
their findings debunked the link between testosterone and sex drive
because they found that in the men in the healthy range,
when they gave them an extra shot of testosterone, it
did not seem to influence any interest in having sex,
and from that they they drew the conclusion that the
(22:38):
idea that testosterone fuel sex drive is an idea based
on animal studies and studies of men who produce extreme
or abnormally low levels of testosterone, and speaking to Life Science,
one of the lead researchers said, quote, in this regular,
healthy range of testosterone, it's high enough that the variations
aren't what's driving any changes. So again we find that
(23:00):
sex drive, like all of these behavioral aspects that we're
talking about, is multifaceted, and while testosterone is certainly an ingredient,
it is not the entire dish, right right. It's nice
metaphor you okay. So we talked about how elevated testosterone
in women can lead them to, you know, stray away
(23:24):
from sex with a partner, you know, raises but still
masturbating exactly, yes, So what else does it do? We
also touched on polycystic ovarian syndrome in our last episode
on estrogen, So what does what happens? Basically, when a
woman has elevated testosterone, it has several effects, not only
(23:46):
internally but externally, things like the body shape changes. There's
an increase in body hair, enlargement of the torus, increase
in muscle mass. Women can even experience male pattern balding. Yeah,
and if you want to learn more about PICOS in depth,
we do have an entire episode. It's a little bit
back in our archives, but we do have an entire
(24:07):
episode dedicated to that. Because PICOS is a problem for
a lot of women. We had a lot of listeners
right in about that episode because it can be extremely
hard to diagnose because a lot of the symptoms doctors
initially think are attributed to other things and not necessarily
levels of testosterone. So it's good to learn more about that,
(24:29):
educate educate yourself about picos as well. Yeah. Well, so,
something that I found really interesting when when we were
studying for this episode was the whole thing with sex hormones,
sex traits and athletes, because this really came up in
the summer Olympics. It was the I O. C. The
(24:50):
International Olympic Committee's planned to prevent from competing women who
tested in the male range for testosterone and whose body
has responded to the hormone. So why did they want
to do this? Back in two thousand nine, at the
World Championships, South African runner Castor Semenya's sex was questioned
and she wasn't allowed to compete for a year, after
which time she was reinstated. Yeah, and it raised this
(25:12):
whole question that is really worth talking about in these
episodes on how testosterone and how estrogen work, of how
we associate the levels of these hormones with gender, gender identification,
and biological sex to point out not only you know,
the fluidity of gender, yes, but also the fluidity of
(25:34):
biological sex, because the IOC wanted to essentially use testosterone
levels of a benchmark level of that to say well,
if you're above this, then guess what, you're a guy,
and if you're below this, then you are a woman,
which you really cannot do at all, because even if
(25:57):
you take physical characteristics of uh say second very sex
traits like your genitalia into account, even then with the
hormone levels combined, you can't necessarily say well, this is
what you know, exactly what a man is, and this
is exactly what a woman is because of things like say,
(26:17):
congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Right, that's a condition that causes what
they call ambiguous genitalia, including in large plutorus is that
may look like small penises. And they point out that
women with this disorder might fail an exam for sex
even though she has ovaries and a uterus. Yeah, and
then you also have things like complete androgen and sensitivity syndrome,
(26:39):
where chromosomally you have the the X Y, so the
normal makeup for a man, but their bodies aren't responsive
to testosterone. So despite having an x Y chromosome, these
people will develop female genitalia and breast but they have
tests and not ovaries, and so they would fail a
(27:00):
test of femaleness based on chromosomes, though they generally people
with complete androgen insensitive use syndrome tend to live their
lives as women. Yeah, and so Christian was talking about
how you can't just simply say that if your testosterone
level is here, you can compete as a man or
a woman, you know, and vice versa. If it's not,
you can't um British into chronologist Peter Song since two thousand.
(27:25):
Year two thousand analysis of six hundred and fifty Olympic
athletes found that five percent of women tested in the
male range for testosterone and more than six percent of
men tested in the female range. So if all of
a sudden we're drawing a line in the sand, that
that really affects a whole lot of athletes. Well. And
(27:45):
also think about when we were talking in how estrogen
works about how lower levels of extremely low levels of
body fat and women tends to lower the level of
testoster or estrogen being reduced, and so that could also
you know, if you're thinking about elite athletes, I'm sure
they have very low body fat percentages, so they might
(28:07):
have lower estrogen than the typical female population. So they
are all of these variations when it comes to estrogen,
testosterone and their behavioral, physiological and biological effects on our bodies.
Hormones are wonky people. They do all sorts of things.
(28:29):
But saying that testosterone makes you a man and estrogen
makes you a woman is not the case, because we
make some of both, and some people make more of
each than others, and some people are completely insensitive to uh,
some hormones compared to others and who and we're all different.
(28:49):
Let's just hammer out home one more time. Everybody is
a little bit different. Yeah, so I think that that
covers testosterone estrogen. Who. Yeah, I'm used taking each other
on date. That's right, monkey dates. I feel more enlightened.
I hope that you feel more enlighted as well. If
there's anything on your mind about testosterone estrogen hormones in
(29:14):
general that you would like to chat with us about,
you can always send us some email mom stuff at
Discovery dot com, or hit us up on Facebook and
like us there while you're at it. But before we
get to a couple of letters to share with you,
all right, Well, the first letter I've got here is
(29:34):
from Debbie, and this is in response to our episode
about empty nest syndrome. She says, I'm the younger of
two daughters. So that first Saturday after I left for
college was the date it really hit my parents that
the nest was empty. Unsure what to do, they ended
up watching some infomercials and bought a Showtime rotisserie oven.
(29:55):
The next Saturday, they purchased the entire line of Orange
Glow products, and a Saturday after that, they decided to
go out to breakfast because it would be cheaper. Thirteen
years later, they still go to breakfast at that same
local restaurant nearly every Saturday morning. Also, I moved back
in with my parents a few months after I graduated college,
and I would join them some saturdays. So, in a
(30:16):
weird twist, the daughter that returned to the nest was
participating also in the empty nest coping strategy. And the
restaurant has these made amazing potato cheese bacon things called
not So Fries that I have to order when I'm
visiting my parents, even though it's breakfast because I get
to go so rarely. Yum yum. Indeed, yeah, I like that.
(30:38):
They purchased the entire line of Orange Globe products, and
I assume like set out to furiously clean the house,
after which they were like, well, what do we do now?
They'll just look at each other. Hope. Two and a
half Minazon, Sally, and Chad, We're looking at you. Okay.
Here's a letter from Michelle about our Rhythm Method podcast.
(30:59):
She's d My mom was using the Rhythm Method when
she got pregnant with me. She was actually planning on
joining the military and had gone off to basic training
before she was discovered she was pregnant. Once she realized
what was going on, she decided to stay, hoping she
could get away with finishing the training. She was discovered
two weeks from the end of training, and her options
were to leave or get an abortion. She ended up
(31:22):
leaving and never did join the military since she would
have to start basic training all over again. I think
it's sort of a funny story about my beginnings and
a cautionary tale about depending on the rhythm method for
birth control. So thanks to everybody who's written into Mom's Stuff.
At Discovery dot com, it's where you can send your letters.
You can also find us on Facebook, Like us there,
(31:43):
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and you
can check us out on Tumbler as well. You can
tumble with us that stuff Mom Never told You dot
tumbler dot com. And if you'd like to learn more
about testosterone hormones and all the crazy things that our
bodies do, you can head to our website, It's stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(32:06):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. H
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