Oddbean new post about login | logout Thought this was interesting: #testosterone levels by country, with Uzbekistan coming in 1st place. Do any of you have an idea as to what’s causing some countries to have men with higher testosterone levels than others? I know they eat quite a bit of lamb and horse (it’s a special kind of horse, not like your show horses) there, but that can’t be the sole reason because Kazakhstan also consumes lamb and horse. 🤷♀️ Also, look how low the USA is 😳 https://testosteronedecline.com/what-country-has-highest-testosterone/ https://image.nostr.build/1d66e6c5d98ea39cd80ccade12e7e065741fae9d46ae4c5527e67b40b79e3414.png
Interesting! And no obvious pattern that I can see...
First thought: Seed oils Second thought: nah, the Dutch eat lots of fried stuff. 🤔
Really hard to understand what’s behind this. Maybe foods with soy?
The Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium have high T, and Australia and Canada really really low. Can't be soy either...
And Japan in the middle, land of tofu and soya sauce...
There's a distinction that people miss with soy: Traditional soy use from soy beans grown without pesticides like glyphosphate are nearly always fermented or processed to make them more healthful. Soy bean oil used to facilitate food processing is drenched in glyphosphate, and the strains used for soy bean oil production are heavily modified to produce more oil, and there is no fermentation going on to break down the plant estrogens that can and do cause femininization and mess with female fertility.
It's likely a correlation between: Amount of processed foods eaten Amount of pesticides on and in foods Amount of environmental synthetic birth control hormones Emphasis on high carb, low protein, low healthy fats consumed Amount of seed oils consumed Lack of running around outside growing up Houses being too well sealed/never experiencing hot and cold extremes Poor sleeping habits Being fat (effects aside from poor eating habits and bad foods, it's really bad for people) Lack of fitness Too much medication Lack of healthy gut biome Not eating traditional fermented foods Too much alcohol Too much cannabis Too little motivation toward actual physical sexual relationships (probably from much too young exposure to porn and all the beauty influencers) Too much social media leading to dopamine addiction Et cetera.
Those were my immediate assumptions too, more or less. I would have also been prepared for more obscure psychosocial explanations - status of men/masculinity, size of social groups, locus of control. But no - look, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are at opposite extremes. WTF...?
Yeah those two (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) are what’s throwing me off… 😵💫
Belarus vs Russia/Ukraine, too.
But I know this famous chocolate from Kazakhstan has a flavor enhancer (I know because I’m allergic to it) so maybe they add that in other foods? Maybe Uzbekistan does not use that?
China LOVES its flavour enhancer 621, but they're upper-middle for T.
@StellaInForest is gonna love this, look at the map: https://testosteronedecline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Testosterone-Levels-Worldwide-full-size.png It correlates with war. Look at the Balkans.
Lifestyle and diet is the main cause. But higher Total testosterone doesn’t mean that person has higher testosterone. Free testosterone is key factor that needs to be checked.
Agriculture. Soil. Depletion of nutrients in varying soil profiles that would otherwise be in our food.
Reading the website has left me none the wiser on potential causal factors, or even correlates. But. Data quality is pretty terrible, its all convenience sampling, many of them wounded young soldiers in wartime. Author has done his best to normalise by age and elevation, but meh... So perhaps we should conclude, in the classic manner, "further research required".
