Maybe you’re experiencing the seemingly ubiquitous symptoms of modern life. Or, if you’re a man, you may have been told by countless uncredentialed online influencers that you’re probably suffering from “low T”. For decades, testosterone has been marketed to men as a means to maximise virility.
But in recent years, social media has fuelled the “T-maxxing” trend, in which men are encouraged to maximise their testosterone levels through either natural or artificial means. Low testosterone is being blamed in the rightwing manosphere for a crisis of masculinity; global search interest in the term is up 60% from last year. Popular podcasters such as Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman openly talk about taking testosterone, as has the 72-year-old Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has said he uses testosterone replacement therapy as part of an “anti-ageing protocol”.
Elsewhere in the Trump administration, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, announced in July that soldiers 30 and over would be tested annually to ensure they have the “right testosterone levels”. Social media is awash with testimonies from men on testosterone replacement therapy who say they have lost weight and regained energy, motivation and libido. Prescriptions for testosterone in the UK and US have risen sharply in recent years.
But the fixation on T-maxxing ignores hard evidence: very few men actually have clinically low levels of the sex hormone, and taking exogenous testosterone – through injections or gels – comes with serious and potentially irreversible health risks, especially when treatment is unwarranted. Testosterone is a steroid hormone we all produce, but is naturally found at higher levels in men. Testosterone levels fluctuate throughout the lifetime, says Prof Ada Cheung, an endocrinologist at the University of Melbourne.
Population-based studies show that testosterone rises rapidly during male puberty and that over time “it does tend to decline a bit with age”, she says. Experts, Cheung included, believe the trend may be at least partly explained by lifestyle habits, stress, chronic disease and rising obesity. Clinically low testosterone – also known as male hypogonadism – is “actually pretty uncommon”, Cheung says.
Far more commonly, she points out, these issues are caused by other factors, such as stress, depression, obesity, and iron or thyroid issues. But these symptoms are frequently used to promote testosterone screening and treatments on social media, says Dr Brooke Nickel, a senior research fellow at the University of Sydney’s school of public health. Research she co-authored, published in January in the journal Social Science & Medicine, found that young men are being aggressively marketed to by testosterone influencers and wellness companies.
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