the.com/testosterone
The hormone that built your muscles and your worst decisions in the same breath.
means The primary male sex hormone, produced mainly in the testes, that drives development of male physical traits and plays a role in muscle mass, bone density, libido, and aggression in both sexes.
from A 1930s laboratory coinage, stitched together by chemists from 'testis' (the gland it comes from, Latin for 'witness' — don't ask), 'sterol' (the fatty, cholesterol-related compound class it belongs to), and the '-one' suffix chemists use to flag a ketone molecule. It entered English right around the time biochemists first isolated and synthesized the hormone, so the name is less myth than molecular receipt.
- peak age
- Levels peak around age 19, then slowly decline
- also in women
- Women produce it too, just in smaller amounts
- not just aggression
- Correlates more with status-seeking than pure violence
- named late
- Isolated and named only in 1935