Anthropologists Study Testosterone Spikes in Non-Competitive Activities
Anthropologists Study Testosterone Spikes in Non-Competitive Activities
Aug. 13, 2013 — The everyday physical activities of an isolated group of forager-farmers in central Bolivia are providing valuable information about how industrialization and its associated modern amenities may impact health and wellness.
Studying short-term spikes in the testosterone levels of Tsimane men, UC Santa Barbara anthropologists Ben Trumble and Michael Gurven have found that the act of chopping down trees -- a physically demanding task that is critical to successful farming and food production -- results in greater increases in testosterone than does a directly competitive activity such as soccer. Their research appears in the early online edition of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
"With the Tsimane, we see an environment that is more like that in which humans evolved, and for which our systems are calibrated," said Trumble, a postdoctoral researcher in anthropology at UCSB and the paper's lead author. The paper was written with Gurven, a UCSB professor of anthropology and co-director of the Tsimane Health and Life History Project, a collaboration between UCSB and the University of New Mexico.
According to Trumble, whose research lies at the intersection of hormones, behavior, and the environment, testosterone levels are closely related to the availability of food energy. When young men skip even a single meal, their testosterone levels can drop as much as 10 percent. Fast for a couple of days, and they decrease to castrate levels.
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