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.
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
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
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"
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”.
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.
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.
Option three: “Three in four American men have a partial vasectomy now: Thanks, obesity!”
Poor headline writing around obesity is no excuse for deflective headline writing away from obesity :)
Or if you prefer a different market’s take: “Corrupted food is feminizing men” and then diving into how Big Ag has a secret agenda to poison men everywhere and both political parties are in on it, as a way to introduce the issues of artificial sweeteners (HFCS, splenda, monkfruit, and others) would be stunningly effective. Yeah, it’s kinda exploitative, but when in Rome applies.
“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.”
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."
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.
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.
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.
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%.
Snow might have some effect on the height a mountain, but most people believe geological activity is more important than weather.
The relevant question isn’t whether something or another might have “some effect” it is how to reduce the main factors which we already know damage men’s sexual health. And spending time on the long tail of factors which may or may not be relevant is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room for addressing the factors we already know are most of the problem.
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.
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 ?
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.
“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.
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.
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
> Obesity was also not controlled for, which is known to be strongly correlated with low testosterone.
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
My takeaway from this is that obesity... is the cure for baldness? xd
Baldness is caused by dht
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...
Really makes the study completely pointless when the last 50 years has also seen the rise of the global obesity epidemic.
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.
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"
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”.
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.
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.
Option three: “Three in four American men have a partial vasectomy now: Thanks, obesity!”
Poor headline writing around obesity is no excuse for deflective headline writing away from obesity :)
Or if you prefer a different market’s take: “Corrupted food is feminizing men” and then diving into how Big Ag has a secret agenda to poison men everywhere and both political parties are in on it, as a way to introduce the issues of artificial sweeteners (HFCS, splenda, monkfruit, and others) would be stunningly effective. Yeah, it’s kinda exploitative, but when in Rome applies.
“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…
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."
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.
High cortisol lowers testosterone - some adaptogens like ashwagandha modulate the HPA axis and lower cortisol release, increasing T levels
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.
less bold? what do you mean?
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 :)
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.
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.
Or the negatives (toxic femininity)
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 reasonable estimate but it would not surprise me if it was higher than 0%.
> might have some effect
Snow might have some effect on the height a mountain, but most people believe geological activity is more important than weather.
The relevant question isn’t whether something or another might have “some effect” it is how to reduce the main factors which we already know damage men’s sexual health. And spending time on the long tail of factors which may or may not be relevant is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room for addressing the factors we already know are most of the problem.
> testosterone is linked to social status and mental well being
As well as a zillion other things. And "linked" in which direction?
Could this be a possible factor in the reduction in violent crime (at least in some countries)?
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.
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 ?
Half way to utopia.
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.
“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.
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.
It's just our shitty food system and sedentary lifestyle but everyone is projecting their weird hangups on it
Endocrine disrupting compounds.
Or rising obesity and poor overall health
Agreed. A lot more men are just fat and sedentary compared to the past.
These are all items in the same feedback loop.
Microplastics.