Amerika

Modernity represents the worst of all possible mistakes: something that appears to be succeeding because it is popular, but then suddenly nosedives as it turns out that it is made of contradictions, therefore only when implemented does the disaster it manifests appear.

For example, our agricultural revolution seemed like magic until it turned out that it produces low-nutrition, high-toxicity food while depleting soils. Our medical revolution overprescribed miracle drugs until they became ineffective. Our education revolution over-extended itself and now churns out babbling fools.

In the same way, it turns out that our modern diet of stuff that people like to eat may be turning us into bloated intersex people by depleting testosterone through massive sugar intake:

The study, published in the journal Clinical Endocrinology, shows that 75g of sugar intake causes a 25 per cent drop in testosterone levels for up to two hours after consumption.

In order to investigate the physiological impact of glucose on testosterone levels, researchers randomized 74 men from 19 to 74 years of age.

Upon analysing the results, the researchers noticed that glucose consumption was associated with a 25 per cent decrease in testosterone levels, which remained suppressed at 120 min compared with baseline.

At least 10 of the 66 men with normal circulating testosterone at the start of the experiment experienced a reduction in the sex hormone levels below the hypogonadal range (low testosterone range).

Good luck finding any restaurant or pre-prepared food that is not laced with sugar. You have probably never been more than a mile away from a soft drink your entire life, and even the “health food” that is out there is laden with fruit sugars. Sugar is as much a part of modernity as voting.

Lack of testosterone has secondary consequences. It interferes with reproduction and makes people prone to appeasement and to focus more on making the social group be pacified than getting to results. Our neurotic, conflict-avoidant, and passive-aggressive society could be explained by low levels of testosterone.

It turns out however that like any short-term burst of energy, it produces long-term consequences that are rather icky. It spikes insulin and lower testosterone in the process:

Like eating, glucose intake causes blood glucose (sugar) levels to rise, which stimulates secretion of insulin.

The authors found that the glucose solution decreased blood levels of testosterone by as much as 25 percent, regardless of whether the men had diabetes, prediabetes or normal glucose tolerance.

Two hours after glucose administration, the testosterone level remained much lower than before the test in 73 of the 74 men, a statistically significant difference, the authors reported. Of the 66 men who had normal testosterone levels before the test, 10 (15 percent) became hypogonadal at one or more time points during the test.

It turns out that consistently high insulin levels also correlate with other health problems. Throwing the body into constant overdrive, as it turns out, not only causes immediate fat and plaque deposits, but also appears alongside obesity, diabetes, and cancer which seem to be linked by this sugar cycle:

Higher levels of circulating insulin have been associated with increased cancer risk and progression in epidemiology studies. Elevated circulating insulin is believed to be a major factor linking obesity, diabetes and cancer. With the development of targeted cancer therapies, insulin signalling has emerged as a mechanism of therapeutic resistance.

Compare this to democracy. It seems to give us great power, but then it turns out that democracy keeps expanding and hollows out our society in order to make room for itself. The more we try to beat nature, the more it responds slowly but aggressively in turning that into a weapon pointed right back at us.

Tags: cancer, glucose, insulin, sugar, testosterone