These are story-excerpts on an uncommon view of testosterone. The New York Times, June 20, 1995, front page. Does Testosterone Equal Aggression ? Maybe Not Washington, June 19 -- Tired of hormone as cultural myth, as shorthand for swagger and machismo, ferocity and obnoxiousness, the bearskin beneath the three-piece suit? Do the ubiquitous references to "testosterone poisoning" and "testosterone shock," to "testosterone-fueled heavy metal" and 'testosterone-crazed oppressors" make you feel a bit, well, testy? Do you think it unfair to blame one lousy little chemical for war, dictatorships, crime, Genghis Khan, Gunga Din, Sly Stallone, the N.R.A., the N.F.L., Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf and the tendency to interrupt in the middle of a sentence? Ready to give the so-called male hormone a break and retire all testosterone cliches with a single pound of Iron John's drum? Retire away. As it turns out, testosterone may not be the dread "hormone of aggression" that researchers and the popular imagination have long had it. It may not be the substance that drives men to behave with quintessential guyness, to posture, push, yelp, belch, punch and play air-guitar. If anything, this most freighted of hormones may be a source of very different sensations: calmness, happiness and friendliness, for example. ... Reporting here last week at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, researchers said that it was a deficiency of testosterone, rather than its excess, that could lead to all the negative behaviors normally associated with the androgen. Studying a group of 54 so-called hypogonadal men, who for a variety of reasons were low in testosterone, Dr. Christina Wang of the University of California at Los Angeles and her colleagues, found that before treatment, the men expressed a surprising suite of negative emotions. They did not feel passive or depressed or timid, as standard ideas of testosterone deficiency might predict. Instead, they described feelings of edginess, anger, irritability. Aggression. ... If testosterone qua testosterone is not the demonic potion of legend, its yangian counterpart, estrogen, may not be so innocent. Reporting last month at the annual meeting of the American Pediatric Society, Dr. Jordan W. Finkelstein, Dr. Howard Kulin and their colleagues at Pennsylvania State University said that they compared the effects of giving estrogen therapy to girls who suffered from delayed onset of puberty with that of giving testosterone to boys who likewise were late in sexually maturing. The girls showed earlier and larger increases in aggression than did the boys, until the boys received the last and highest dose of testosterone. The researchers propose that for both sexes, the cause of the teen-age spike in aggressive and very likely insolent behavior is estrogen. As scientists only lately are beginning to appreciate, most of the effect of testosterone on the brain is paradoxically estrogenic in nature. That is because the brain is rich in the enzyme aromatase, which converts testosterone into estrogen. The newly transformed hormone then acts on the nerve cells of the brain through estrogen receptors, proteins designed specifically to link up with it. ... For those who wish to see the full article (about 14K) and cannot obtain The New York Times we offer a copy by private e-mail. Just send a blank message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with the subject: TES_tub. -- JY <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
