Talk:Testosterone

message: *Serum testosterone has been decreasing over time (in the US), and it's not clear why.
*Different races of people have different average serum testosterone levels.  It is unclear whether this is genetic or environmental.
Where would be good places to incorporate these facts in the article?--Babank (talk) 22:27, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be curious to see a citation for the second datum. Leadwind (talk) 13:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3455741 5.146.135.218 (talk) 10:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two datum worth adding 

message: The article androgen replacement therapy is of very poor quality, despite the polishing I've done today. Additionally, I don't think there's anything in that article that wouldn't be considered relevant here. It would be nice if there were some way to cleanly divide "testosterone the naturally released hormone" and "administered testosterone" into separate articles. However, I think this merge is a reasonable short-term solution because androgen replacement therapy is really trash and improving it just involves duplicating a lot of information from here.
What do people think? Exercisephys (talk) 20:38, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Testosterone is both used as a medication and is a naturally occurring hormone. I guess the question is should we split it into more cleanly into two parts. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:13, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I understand testosterone pretty well. However, are you sure the article divide is worth it, given that it's failed so far? Do you have any alternative way of dividing the subjects? Exercisephys (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I can take a look in a bit. I guess the question is should we have a disambig that lists these two possibilities? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:19, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[androgen replacement therapy]]? 

message: It seems like the article is now primarily about the use of testosterone as a pharmaceutical drug and secondarily only about what it actually is, i.e. an hormone, which is only talked about starting from the 4th section. The RedBurn (ϕ) 13:07, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be Ok with that, first of all it is a chemical molecule. Shocking the reader with biochem at front is probably avoided by having the effects first. Could be guided by other, official chapters or review structures and then adapted. Just some thoughts. BR  17387349L8764 (talk) 15:00, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Testosterone is a medication 

message: In the part about biological use the function as a regulator of 'cognitive energy' is mentioned.  I met many esoteric people recently so I am not sure if there is a clear definition of this term. Energy (psychological) seems to be an article desribing that concept. I found this article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18284031
For better understanding I would appreciate if someone could find a more precise word instead. :)
(I may just not be familiar with that term because I'm German )  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Entinator (talk • contribs) 10:02, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the section, in part because it had no source. The text isn't necessarily wrong, but as you say ambiguous. However, it is quite often overplayed and I would not want it in this article without a strong source. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 10:09, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  cognitive energy 

message: I do not mind the split, but I do mind the 1981 links to disambiguation pages that are now created, including quite a number of templates. Leaving them unfixed, is nothing more than sloppy work. The Banner talk 18:04, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree and I am completely willing to fix this mess, but as explained here, we first have to do an experiment. Boghog (talk) 19:10, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes once we figure out which should be the main article if any we can begin fixing. I will work on a bunch. It will take some time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Operating the patient without knowing what the desired result is and then refraining from stitching up the patient? The Banner talk 00:28, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I have fixed a few hundred of the links. Should not take much longer until it is finished. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

text:  I was (and still am) opposed to the original proposal (which implied that the disambiguation would be permanent).  However the proposal was then reformulated (see Looie496's comment above) as a time limited experiment. Furthermore I think this live experiment is the only way to definitively settle which is the primary topic.  Once we get the statistics, we can move one of the two articles back to the primary topic and convert the current testosterone disambiguation to an "other uses" testosterone (disambiguation) page. Creating the disambiguation page also served to highlight the incoming links so that they could be disambiguated to the most appropriate subtopic.   This needed to be done anyway. Boghog (talk) 12:31, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I saw Looie's comment, but the fact remains that consensus was against creating the disambiguation page at testosterone, such as the consensus was for the very short time the proposal had been open.  More than that, I disagree entirely with the methodology here.  It may well be that a page on testosterone as a medication is the more popular page.  That does not change the primary meaning of testosterone as being, well, testosterone.  Testosterone as a medication is a page about a use of testosterone.  Presenting this as a disambiguation issue is an entirely false way of approaching it.  The two thousand odd articles that have been changed should be rolled back en masse. SpinningSpark 13:08, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with you 100% that the primary topic is the hormone and I am optimistic that the traffic statistics will support this.  The relevant guideline is WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY and lists traffic statistics as one of several valid criteria that can be applied with caution for determining the primary topic. Ultimately the primary topic is decided by consensus and I think common sense arguments about what topic is more fundamental should also be taken into account. Boghog (talk) 13:30, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Article traffic statistics are a valid criterion for different subjects with the same name.  I am arguing that that is not the case here; "testosterone used as a medicine" is not the same name as "testosterone".  Just about every other criterion on that page either supports testosterone (hormone) as the primary topic or else is irrelevant. SpinningSpark 15:14, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the argument for using page view statistics is a pragmatic one, simply to determine which topic are readers more interested in.  For this purpose, the page view statistics are relevant.  As most of the incoming links have already been disambiguated, I don't think there is any great harm in letting the experiment run a few days.  I think non-patients will be primarily interested in the hormone whereas patients will be interested in both.  For that reason, I believe the page views will be strongly skewed toward the hormone. Boghog (talk) 16:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are not addressing my objection (for the third time, and if you still do not get it after this I will stop replying to you).  I don't object to using pageviews per se for determining primary topic.  I am arguing that we do not actually have two topics.  For instance, I could right now create an article called iron (bridgebuilding) and put forward a case that the bridgebuilding article will get more pageviews than iron (element).  That would be a false argument, regardless of which page actually got the most pageviews because the first article is on the topic of bridgebuilding (or a part thereof) and the second is actually on the topic of iron.  Naming the articles with a bracketed disambiguation would be a poor choice of name because it is implying two separate topics, and thus incorrectly calling for disambiguation.  Likewise testosterone (medication) is on the topic of medicine (or a part thereof) whereas it is the testosterone (hormone) article that is actually on the topic of testosterone. In any case my fundamental objection remains that there was no consensus for running this test (and by the way tests are against policy). SpinningSpark 16:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do understand the two points you that you have made, namely (1) the hormone is by definition the main topic and (2) we should not be experimenting. However, at worst, the test has only made it slightly harder to find the hormone page and this will be resolved in a few days. So I really don't see this as a major issue. And of course, I will continue to strenuously argue that the main topic is the hormone. Boghog (talk) 18:27, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: @Boghog re "this will be resolved in a few days. So I really don't see this as a major issue". One major issue is that at the moment the two thousand odd pages that have had their links redirected can be reverted using rollback because they are the latest edit.  As time goes by, more and more of those pages will accumulate later edits making the task much more onerous.  Are those responsible for this mess going to volunteer to undo their handiwork themselves if consensus goes them, as it looks like it will? SpinningSpark 00:21, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: These two pages are likely to stay split, so the pages that contain piped links to testosterone (medication) and testosterone (hormone) should remain as is.  The only issue is that one of those pages is going to be moved back to testosterone, which will receive all those incoming links via a redirect. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:34, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh no, leaving thousands of pages unnecessarily going to an article through a redirect is not acceptable.  As I understand it, the vast majority of the links have been redirected to testosterone (hormone) and that page is likely to be moved back to testosterone.  That coding clutter will be left on thousands of pages that always had the right link in the first place. SpinningSpark 00:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: A good proportion were to testosterone (medicine), probably about 25% as the sports related articles are about taking the medication. So all these redirected needed to be gone through regardless. And we have bots that fix double redirects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:08, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

text: The way this split was implemented is terrible.  If either one becomes the primary topic, a huge chunk of material on the other aspect of the substance, either the medication or its functions as a hormone, will be completely missing from the article lead and body.  At the moment, both pages are written as a WP:CONTENTFORKed topic instead of a parent article, so a large revision will have to take place on the page that is selected as the primary topic to fix this. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:09, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  In the above section, there was broad consensus to split the two articles. Because of conflicts between WP:PHARMOS and WP:MCBMOS and no consensus on which should take precedence, the parent article had become a complete mess. The split IMHO opinion was the best was to resolve the conflict and I think the resulting daughter articles prove that. The testosterone (hormone) article already contains an abbreviated medical uses section and a brief mention of the medical uses in the lead so it is already written in a way that could serve as the parent article. Boghog (talk) 03:33, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not suggesting that you did a bad job with splitting the article. What I meant was that the decision to split the articles in a way that neither was adequately written as a parent article in order to run this test wasn't a good idea; it's not your fault for splitting it the way that was agreed upon.  It's worse for our readers if we create content forked topics on a single subject than if we create a parent article with summary-style coverage of a subtopic and then link to that subtopic in a section that covers it.  When this article eventually is selected as the primary topic, the medical uses section will probably need to be expanded by several paragraphs to adequately summarize the medication article (e.g., compare Testosterone (hormone)#Medical uses to dopamine#Medical uses). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:31, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:   I agree 100% that the which ever article is selected as the parent, it will need to be edited to provide a good summary of the daughter article while at the same time minimize unnecessary overlap. So far, the  page views and the consensus on this talk page are overwhelmingly in favor of the hormone being the parent article. Boghog (talk) 19:08, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text: I just saw that Doc James was dabbing "testosterone" because it is now a disambiguation page, and then I saw this. I agree with Seppi333 that this is a horrible move. It completely goes against the WP:Primary topic guideline. The hormone is quite clearly the primary topic. This move should have also gone through an official move request, per WP:Requested moves. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:07, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh. I think we all agree the split is a decent idea. We give it a couple of weeks and look at the pageviews. Than we move the one with the greater page-views to Testosterone. A bot takes care of the double re directs. It does not go against the policy you mention. All the links should have be gone through regardless of how the slit went and how it ends up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:10, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Doc James, I don't think this is the way things are supposed to be done. And how does this not go against the primary topic guideline when the hormone is quite clearly the primary topic? I'm going to ask people at WP:Disambiguation to weigh in on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:15, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It says "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text: And why is a bot not going to take care of the double redirects? I am sure that I can get it done. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:05, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Because it is not a double redirect as understood by the bot.  A double redirect is a redirect that redirects to another redirect.  That is not the case here. Assuming that testosterone (hormone) gets restored to testosterone we will have a pipe to a redirect.  Pipe > redirect > article is not the same as pipe > pipe > article.  Bots don't fix those.  Nor should they, as they can sometimes serve a useful purpose. SpinningSpark 13:17, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text: Yes, and that applies to the hormone, as other editors above agree. The hormone aspect also wins with regard to the "long-term significance" aspect. If I search "testosterone" in the literature, the overwhelming majority of sources will be about the hormone. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text: That the hormone is the primary topic is also indicative by the fact that the vast majority of the dab links as a result of the move have been added to redirect readers to the Testosterone (hormone) page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:56, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text:  No, a bot is not going to be taking care of double redirects here. What some people are objecting to is all the piped links of testosterone, where, if the hormone goes back to being the primary topic, the text displayed will be "testosterone", which will be piped to the "testosterone (hormone)" redirect which will be targeting "testosterone", needlessly piping away from the displayed text to get back to an article at the title that was the text displayed in the first place. The bot that fixes double redirects can't simplify these links. It is a pretty ugly link situation, but I don't think it's the end of the world; an extensive move discussion earlier this year led to a massive number of links to New York (displayed text "New York" piped through "New York (state)" and redirected back to the "New York" article), and there are way more "New York (state)" links than "testosterone (hormone)" links. Plantdrew (talk) 02:55, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

text: Agree will move tomorrow. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:06, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:24, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: So is someone now going to deal with the thousands of incoming links that have unnecessarily been pointed at testosterone (hormone)? SpinningSpark 01:38, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup that someone will be me. Give me a few weeks. It was the simplest way to go through all the links and make sure that the 25% that should be directed to the medication page are. So it was needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Protest

message: I understand that natural testosterone levels change throughout the day. I would be interested in a section that covers this, even if only in a general manner.Olan7allen (talk) 04:28, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another datum perhaps worth adding. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Thanks for your contribution.  Unfortunately I needed to revert them because the sources that you have added () are all primary. Per WP:MEDRS, secondary sources (review articles) are strongly preferred to support biomedical claims.  The reason for this is that an astonishingly high percentage of original research results cannot be repeated.  These results need to be reviewed by independent third parties before they can be considered reliable. Boghog (talk) 20:46, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:40, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: In regards to Whittaker's 2021 paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960076021000716).
The standardized mean differences show very consistent effect sizes across markers of androgen status (-0.38; -0.37; -0.38; -0.30), and all are statistically significant, the majority highly so. This would typically be phrased as there is strong evidence of an effect (please see the Cochrane Handbook for interpretation - https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/current/chapter-15. Moreover, these effects of notable size (0.2 = small effect; 0.5 = medium effect; 0.8 = large effect).
Also, the included studies show very low heterogeneity, besides 1 outlining sample in the total testosterone meta-analysis, likely due to the ethnicity of that sample.
Tha authors state in their first highlight that 'Low-fat diets decrease testosterone levels in men', which intended to be the complete summary of the research. They do state that further randomized controlled trials are needed, but likely in an effort to direct future research, as their results are very strong. In the discussion section of the article the authors state 'To summarise, our findings indicate that endogenous T production decreased on LF diets, leading to lower FT and TT.'
The words 'limited evidence' do not accurately reflect the content of this review. I suggest rephrasing to 'Low-fat diets may reduce total and free testosterone levels in men.'
The current wording 'There is limited evidence that Low-fat diets may reduce total and free testosterone levels in men' contains 2 qualifliers ('limited' and 'may') which is unesscessary.
I have made the above edits.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nutritionandhealtheditor (talk • contribs) 17:59, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The source contains two qualifiers: that this is only an appearance of effect and that it is not confirmed by research. Note this POV-pushing is also happening at Low-fat diet. Alexbrn (talk) 18:03, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits under nutrients 

message: This phrase is confusing:
"testosterone is secreted primarily by the testicles of males and, to a lesser extent, the ovaries of females"
I came to this article to find out where is testosterone produced in males. I.e. Is it only produced in the testes, or also other organs?
The phrase says it is produced primarily by the testicles, which would led one to believe there are other organs also involved in testosterone production. However, the ending of the phrase "and, to a lesser extent, the ovaries of females" puts into question the meaning of the word "primarily" (i.e. is this word implying that, even in males, other organs are involved, or just stating the well known fact that males produce more testosterone than females?)
I'm not a health expert and honestly have no idea about the answer. I found that Adrenal gland is involved in testosterone production, but apparently it only produces precursors and other androgens and doesn't directly produce testosterone itself.
Robert1dB (talk) 11:31, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a parenthetical to point readers to the 'biosynthesis' section of the article, where this is described in greater detail. Perhaps not an ideal solution however. Anastrophe (talk) 19:26, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambigous sentence. Is testosterone produced by other organs in males? 

message: Sometimes, gender identity words are used, sometimes biological sex words are used. And it's often not consistent. I see alot of times the use of "women" and "men" words when the article actually talks about, respectively, females and males.
Some men are assigned female at birth, thus naturally producing more estrogen than other men, as some women are assigned males at birth, thus naturally producing more testosterone than other women. I'm not even talking about intersex people, for whom the binary representation of biological sex is not relevant.
This kind of confusion is not acceptable scientifically talking, neither ethically talking, as it does not respect trans existences. Talking about women and men is talking about gender, which is not natural, socially constructed and not based on biology (even if a lot of people pretend the opposite), and talking about males and females is talking about biological sex, which is based on biological criterias.
I'm not comfortable enough in English, neither to talk about sexual hormones in humans to do the corrections, but it clearly needs a review specifically about the correct use of the words woman, man, males and females. Eleaudit (talk) 22:19, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing use of terms 

message: I have removed 'and moderate evidence that short-term, very high protein diets (≥35% protein) decrease total testosterone levels in men (133).'
This finding is controversial and has been widely misquoted, without sufficient context. There is an associated commentary article explaining this further: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10114259/
I do not think this is suitable for a public facing encyclopaedia, as it is likely to cause further confusion.
I am the author of both of these articles, you may verify this by contacting the email address listed for the corresponding authors for these articles.
I apologise if this appears high-handed, I do not intend it to be so. Joseph Whittaker 123 (talk) 09:43, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of finding that very high protein diets may decrease testosterone 

message: In the second line of the very first paragraph is written: "It is associated with increased aggression, violence, and criminal behavior...". 
The reference(Armstrong TA, Boisvert DL, Wells J, Lewis RH, Cooke EM, Woeckener M, et al. (November 2022). "Testosterone, cortisol, and criminal behavior in men and women". Hormones and Behavior. 146: 105260.) is an article of more than 3000 words and does conclude that "Collectively, work in this area points to a positive direct association between testosterone and criminal behavior.." but it is not explained in wikipedia how these studies were conducted.
The said conclusion in put up in the 1st paragraph of wikipedia as mentioned above is taken out of context and is extremely misleading. 
Kindly modify or take it down. Vedolian2003 (talk) 07:12, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead summarizes the body, per WP:LEAD. There is a section in the article going into much greater detail on this. Crossroads -talk- 23:49, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

text: It's a primary source and so unreliable for this (see WP:MEDRS). Bon courage (talk) 03:26, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Does that also apply to the twenty-five-plus (I lost count) sources within the section on aggression?  cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 05:04, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: From a quick look, this article needs a major filleting. Bon courage (talk) 08:02, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading - Testosterone's association with criminal behaviour 

message: I traced back the original edit adding this claim and found it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Testosterone&diff=prev&oldid=194982218. Given that the edit did not add a separate source, and the other change it made ("forty to sixty times") directly conflicts with the information previously cited from that same source, I would like to be able to consider this claim unsourced without checking the entire cited work, and perhaps think about removing it. Thoughts? Petifet (talk) 13:47, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sourcing of "Females are also more sensitive to the hormone."