I don’t know much about this except that I know perfectly normal or even jacked men with lower than expected testosterone. I suspect messing with hormones based on the results of a test and no actual problems can unnecessarily alter mood.
So my theory—based mostly on conjecture—is that these tests selected people they didn’t expect and the treatments would do more harm than good.
There's also the relevant details that we don't live at a time in which being extremely muscular and full of aggressiveness (which is what the testosterone policy was meant to cause) makes one a good soldier. Being healthy and able to exert a lot of physical effort is absolutely needed, but beyond that not much is gained.
To put it mildly, no matter how pumped up with hormones one is, one cannot outrun an explosion (much less a thermobaric one), a sniper firing from hundreds of meters away or, for that matter, a drone swarm. For those kinds of challenge other traits are needed.
And these required traits are dismissed as unimportant, just witness all the extremely competent military personal, including medal recipients, who were dismissed or made to "voluntarily" resign due to stuff that had no bearing whatsoever on whether they were good soldiers or not.
Note: I'm not American and, from the perspective of my country's own national interests, which tend to be at odds with the US's more often than not, it's a good thing the US is doing all of this, since it's making itself weaker. But from a personal perspective, that I find it quite sad, I do. I have too many American friends for me not to worry about what this will cause them on the long run.
This is also why I'd reform all types of US Military basic training. It's shocking to see how different the treatment is between standard basic training for US grunts vs for example, the UK.
In the UK, the things valued and required of their soldiers are far less focused on "breaking them down and building them up again", there's an order of magnitude less yelling, there's more liberty, and there's less of an "ethos to kill".
Yet the Royal Marines, having gone through this kind of training, can still regularly mog our own special forces troops and has proven that in the Fakland wars, a war they may very well be having a rd 2 in soon.
I'd challenge that its goal was aggressiveness. Testosterone is positively correlated with many extremely good things - energy, mood, better health, and much more. And it's inversely correlated similarly with depression, other forms of mental illness, persistent fatigue, and so on. Basically what men turn into as they age is, in large part, caused by testosterone reduction which naturally goes down as we age.
If there was some way to ensure the military had a higher end level of testosterone it would almost certainly be a very good idea. But the problem is that testosterone can't be supplemented like other things. When supplemented, your own body's production of t simply shuts down and doesn't necessarily return once the supplements end. So it creates a life-long dependency on testosterone injections, that are fairly expensive, at least in the US.
I think that aspect of it is why they most likely rolled this back. Not only do you have the issue of an army that's now dependent upon supplements for basic functioning, but you're going to have military retirees, who are already often left in a shit situation, now also dependent upon a relatively expensive treatment, forever.
You're giving them too much credit. It's pure incompetence/malfeasance like everything the regime does in the name of "culture wars". Somewhere, some testosterone lab with connections got paid.
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't understand that testosterone can't be 'supplemented' in the normal sense because of how it operates. If somebody gets a testosterone supplement, your own body will stop producing testosterone. And if you ever stop taking the supplement, your own natural production may never return. So it's often a one-way trip. If you're on t-replacement, you're on t-replacement for life.
An army that would fall to pieces without a constant supply of testosterone supplements is probably not going to be the most effective fighting force.
Shorter lives due to cardiovascular damage, and shrinking testicles as their body fails to regulate the self-inflicted hormone imbalance... Also irrational mood swings... A million piece puzzle was just solved.
Real athletes never touch the stuff for good reason, and sport organizers tend to test the 40lb overweight dude keeping pace as obviously more suspicious. =3
Just like ADHD medications were repurposed as pseudo Nootropics in healthy people, Sildenafil is no longer primarily used for heart medication, and GLP-1 drugs are not primarily sold to diabetics anymore.
Hormone therapies are often popular with wealthy geriatric men naively hoping to preserve their physical prowess after their prime. A test is unnecessary, as anyone can look at just their age to know with a fair degree of certainty what is happening biologically. The gamble is the long term side effects won't bring up their expiration date sooner.
"Testing" under these contexts is often just a euphemism for ethically dubious medical interventions. Could also just get outside for a brisk walk everyday, eat healthy, and enjoy a fun life. =3
Is there even a US-based testosterone supply chain? Or was the idea to inject all their service members with a product from overseas that could have supply problems or subtle strategic "impurities"?
It depends. It may be that more testosterone when you already produce "enough" - which is individual-dependent - won't give much additional strength if you aren't training specifically to take advantage of it. Additionally, hormones are complicated. The body will downregulate its own production when given "too much". I'm aware that bodybuilders have to follow certain treatment regimens and add other drugs to restart the body's production if they stop supplementing it at times.
I think it still depends. More test can also result in more estrogen. There is selection bias in athletes who dope because they're the ones who happen to respond positively to it.
There must be a graveyard atheletes who tried doping and it made them worse lol.
Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? That's exactly what testosterone does, including the "more manly" part. Literally the reason it's gender-affirming care for female-to-male transitioners and aging men. "Robust" is the only word there that's questionable, and even then, I'd say science says "probably". You can give it to a horse, and it will make the horse notably stronger and more “manly”.
it absolutely does make you stronger, I was training for powerlifting when I started it and my lifts went up a LOT with no change in my routine or diet, both of which I was tracking.
I mean, sure, it would probably be embarrassing to have to say "because this was extremely stupid and nonsensical and entirely due to the weird hangups of the present guy in charge."
Perhaps the explanation is: to make space for other incoherent self-defeating policies like threatening the Fed that they'll increase tariffs if rates aren't lowered?
They're not weird at all given his worldview. It's Nazism. From his book to his public statements and actions, he consistently expresses this. The only thing he does not do is use the literal language that is not accepted. But the meaning and actions are the same. People are in denial.
That's some kind of urban joke on 4chan yet the far more objectively cruel act of mass male circumcision at birth happens daily and hardly anyone bats an eye at it.
Why have horror movies when real life is all I need? Unironically!
First impressions will stick with people so just the announcement of things is seen as positive by supporters who do not seem inclined to peek behind the curtain and do work on following up on what actually happened. A lot of low information voters can be swayed by this. It doesn’t work on people who are paying attention but it’s not meant for them.
What’s next, force the troops to drink as much whiskey as the SecDef does on a daily basis? Most of them would die on the first day, after their BAC hits .3% at 3 PM.
So, was this some kind of trans witch hunt to weed out people who were transitioning? Or was it just a misguided attempt to name and shame men who weren’t “manly” enough?
It’s hard to imagine it was actually an ill conceived measure aimed at supporting healthy testosterone levels, but I guess it isn’t impossible.
I feel like maybe it was a cartoon inspired measure to create a super army of aggressive super soldiers? It’s got what plants crave? SMH
Why would it require explanation? It was stupid beyond belief to begin with. It would be like rescinding a policy profiling soldiers using phrenology or waving some scientology wand over them or something.
The fact that people think there's anything even worthy of discussion on this is alarming to me.
Not that anyone needs any validation of how dumb this all is/was, but high testosterone levels don't necessarily mean you're going to be a burly muscly macho man. https://youtu.be/1162ouPHH3Q?si=ZAy5vo3loo0EfYbu&t=84
'the Pentagon said that the document, titled “Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization,” had been temporarily rescinded on September 3 to allow for updates.'
They never cared about the policy at all. It was just something to get a bump in the Fox News cycle for a day. Leadership knew that, and quietly let it go.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 11.3 ms ] threadSo my theory—based mostly on conjecture—is that these tests selected people they didn’t expect and the treatments would do more harm than good.
Once you're on it it's very hard to come off it, and the side effects are significant.
To put it mildly, no matter how pumped up with hormones one is, one cannot outrun an explosion (much less a thermobaric one), a sniper firing from hundreds of meters away or, for that matter, a drone swarm. For those kinds of challenge other traits are needed.
And these required traits are dismissed as unimportant, just witness all the extremely competent military personal, including medal recipients, who were dismissed or made to "voluntarily" resign due to stuff that had no bearing whatsoever on whether they were good soldiers or not.
Note: I'm not American and, from the perspective of my country's own national interests, which tend to be at odds with the US's more often than not, it's a good thing the US is doing all of this, since it's making itself weaker. But from a personal perspective, that I find it quite sad, I do. I have too many American friends for me not to worry about what this will cause them on the long run.
In the UK, the things valued and required of their soldiers are far less focused on "breaking them down and building them up again", there's an order of magnitude less yelling, there's more liberty, and there's less of an "ethos to kill".
Yet the Royal Marines, having gone through this kind of training, can still regularly mog our own special forces troops and has proven that in the Fakland wars, a war they may very well be having a rd 2 in soon.
For context, US Marine basic training
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjDHoNcH5o4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9gnRQaXH38
Compare this to Royal Marine (officer) basic training:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv-pxrUNhmw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ime0t2I_eKE
If there was some way to ensure the military had a higher end level of testosterone it would almost certainly be a very good idea. But the problem is that testosterone can't be supplemented like other things. When supplemented, your own body's production of t simply shuts down and doesn't necessarily return once the supplements end. So it creates a life-long dependency on testosterone injections, that are fairly expensive, at least in the US.
I think that aspect of it is why they most likely rolled this back. Not only do you have the issue of an army that's now dependent upon supplements for basic functioning, but you're going to have military retirees, who are already often left in a shit situation, now also dependent upon a relatively expensive treatment, forever.
An army that would fall to pieces without a constant supply of testosterone supplements is probably not going to be the most effective fighting force.
Real athletes never touch the stuff for good reason, and sport organizers tend to test the 40lb overweight dude keeping pace as obviously more suspicious. =3
Hormone therapies are often popular with wealthy geriatric men naively hoping to preserve their physical prowess after their prime. A test is unnecessary, as anyone can look at just their age to know with a fair degree of certainty what is happening biologically. The gamble is the long term side effects won't bring up their expiration date sooner.
"Testing" under these contexts is often just a euphemism for ethically dubious medical interventions. Could also just get outside for a brisk walk everyday, eat healthy, and enjoy a fun life. =3
That is not true. People routinely do things that are likely to shorten their life because they decide the upside is worth it.
It will make you stronger. Perhaps not at certain therapeutic ranges, but there is a reason this would get you kicked out of the Olympic Games.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8637535/
Fuck the US medical system and specifically fuck medical ethics researchers who make the american medical system so morally bankrupt.
There must be a graveyard atheletes who tried doping and it made them worse lol.
There are side effects, problems, long-term consequences...
But testosteron blood levels absolutely do regulate muscle growth.
Do you also brag about using ChatGPT to cheat on your homework too?
I mean, sure, it would probably be embarrassing to have to say "because this was extremely stupid and nonsensical and entirely due to the weird hangups of the present guy in charge."
It seems to edge us closer to the dystopian ‘super soldier gone wrong’ trope.
Why have horror movies when real life is all I need? Unironically!
I guess your theory does make sense.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12230349/
It’s hard to imagine it was actually an ill conceived measure aimed at supporting healthy testosterone levels, but I guess it isn’t impossible.
I feel like maybe it was a cartoon inspired measure to create a super army of aggressive super soldiers? It’s got what plants crave? SMH
The fact that people think there's anything even worthy of discussion on this is alarming to me.
'the Pentagon said that the document, titled “Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization,” had been temporarily rescinded on September 3 to allow for updates.'