3. Testosterone goes down the Drain
Chapter 3 of "Castrated in the womb - every man a guinea pig"
Although the level of the male sex hormone testosterone is hereditary [13], it is also declining in the available long-term studies, namely in Denmark [14], Finland [15], the USA [16-18], Israel [19] and Brazil [20]. Only one long-term study found no decline, but other hormonal abnormalities [21]. The decline is more patchily documented than with sperm, but has been present since the 1970s and, as Prof. Swan calculates, also amounts to around one percent per year. This results in a decline of around 50 percent, similar to that of sperm.
In addition to the long-term studies mentioned above, there are a large number of one-time studies from various collectives in many countries. A compilation can be found on the website Testosteronedecline.com [22]: Higher values are found in subsaharan Africa, Russia and Central Asia, lower values in Western Europe and the USA. And a comparison of such individual results over the decades also shows a downward trend, drastically in the Midwest of the USA, for example, with almost a halving in just thirty years. Look for some seconds at the animated graphics below - before 1985 all red testosterone-hot, and after 2007 almost everywhere pale and detestosteronised:
Due to the intensive agricultural use of this Midwestern “breadbasket of the nation”, pesticides are among the main suspects. In fact, a variety of chemical pollutants appear to be involved in the decline in sperm and testosterone, in addition to pesticides, especially pollutants that get into food from plastic.
In order not to lose the overview, we will first focus on sperm and testosterone, as well as on the toxic class of phthalates. We will come back to other hormones and chemicals as well as the situation with women.
In the next chapter 4 we will meet my grandmother and some cognitive taboos. And this link takes you to the start of the book.
The German edition of this book can be ordered e.g. here.
___________________________________________
13. Travison, T.G., et al., The heritability of circulating testosterone, oestradiol, oestrone and sex hormone binding globulin concentrations in men: the Framingham Heart Study. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf), 2014. 80.(2): p. 277-82. https://doi.org/10.1111/cen.12260.
14. Andersson, A.M., et al., Secular decline in male testosterone and sex hormone binding globulin serum levels in Danish population surveys. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 2007. 92.(12): p. 4696-705. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2006-2633.
15. Perheentupa, A., et al., A cohort effect on serum testosterone levels in Finnish men. Eur J Endocrinol, 2013. 168.(2): p. 227-33. https://doi.org/10.1530/EJE-12-0288.
16. Travison, T.G., et al., A population-level decline in serum testosterone levels in American men. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 2007. 92.(1): p. 196-202. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2006-1375.
17. Travison, T.G., et al., Temporal trends in testosterone levels and treatment in older men. Curr Opin Endocrinol Diabetes Obes, 2009. 16.(3): p. 211-7. https://doi.org/10.1097/med.0b013e32832b6348.
18. Lokeshwar, S.D., et al., Decline in Serum Testosterone Levels Among Adolescent and Young Adult Men in the USA. European Urology Focus, 2021. 7.(4): p. 886-889. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euf.2020.02.006.
19. Chodick, G., S. Epstein, and V. Shalev, Secular trends in testosterone- findings from a large state-mandate care provider. Reprod Biol Endocrinol, 2020. 18.(1): p. 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12958-020-00575-2.
20. Laranja, W.W., et al., Age-independent secular testosterone populational trends among Brazilian males. Int Urol Nephrol, 2020. 52.(7): p. 1199-1202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11255-020-02425-x.
21. Nyante, S.J., et al., Trends in sex hormone concentrations in US males: 1988-1991 to 1999-2004. Int J Androl, 2012. 35.(3): p. 456-66. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2605.2011.01230.x.
22. Testosteronedecline.com, What Country has the highest Testosterone? 2023. https://testosteronedecline.com/what-country-has-highest-testosterone/