Low testosterone can be a touchy subject when it comes to men’s health. To some, it’s a loss of masculinity, or what society perceives as being a “man.” Low T, as it’s called, can cause a host of problems, not only in the bedroom, but with depression and other health issues. However, this isn’t just a problem for older men – at least not according to the social media influencers pushing to have younger guys check their testosterone levels and supplement to increase them.
The Push for Testosterone Testing and Treatments
As liberals struggle to define what a woman is, online influencers are busy associating testosterone with manliness. “Social media content portrays low testosterone as a crisis of masculinity,” according to a study by Social Science & Medicine. Researchers analyzed 46 posts about Low T and testing across TikTok and Instagram accounts with a combined following of nearly 7 million.
Emma Grundtvig Gram, the lead author of the study and a public health researcher at the University of Copenhagen, said the social influencers promoted routine screening and often “framed normal variations in energy, mood, libido or ageing ‘as signs of pathology,’” The Guardian explained. Because of this, “men may come to perceive themselves as inherently deficient or in need of medical intervention,” she wrote. “This creates a sense of urgency for solutions, which in turn fuels lucrative markets for pharmaceuticals, supplements and medical devices, even in the absence of clear clinical benefit. More broadly, this contributes to the medicalisation of masculinity itself. It reinforces a narrow, idealised model of masculinity, while marginalising non-traditional or diverse expressions of gender.”
The posts usually targeted younger, fit men who likely don’t need a testosterone adjustment. “Within this narrative, so-called ‘alpha men’ are promoted as dominant, sexually successful and physically powerful, and our study found testosterone was positioned as the key to achieving this status,” Gram said. “This connection is important because it shows that testosterone marketing is not just about health, but is embedded in wider cultural and ideological narratives about gender and power, and the manosphere is not simply an ideology, but also an industry.”
Facts of the Male Hormone
Testosterone is typically at its highest during puberty and early adulthood, helping boys to develop masculine features such as body and facial hair, muscle strength, and a deeper voice. As males get older, the levels of the hormone naturally decrease. According to the Urology Care Foundation, about 2.1% (about 2 men in every 100) may have Testosterone Deficiency Syndrome (TD). “As few as 1% of younger men may have TD, while as many as 50% of men over 80 years old may have TD.”
While aging is one factor of Low T, there are others to take into consideration as well. Injuries and diseases can impact the hormone levels and TD is more common in men who have diabetes or who are overweight. Urology Care Foundation noted that “30% of overweight men had Low-T, compared to only 6.4% of those with normal weight.”
