No one ever responds to my science questions but here goes:
When reading a peer-reviewed journal called Pediatrics, I came across this article that shows rapid growth of a 2 year old male’s penis after application of testosterone. What differentiates a child and an adult in a hormonal sense? I mean, a hormone causes rapid penile growth a boy but we’re taught that this same hormone in a man will cause his penis to shrink. Why is this? What would happen if you one were to continue to give the child testosterone in small amounts? Would his penis continue to grow until infinity?
To put it simply, the testosterone caused the boy’s penis to begin early growth into adult size. That is, it made his penis go into early puberty. An adult male’s penis would not respond the same way because it has already been through puberty and is already at adult length.
Supplemental testosterone does not make adult penises shrink. Long term use of testosterone or anabolic steroids may cause testicular shrinkage, however, because the testes produce such hormones naturally and some of their function may not be needed when suplemental hormones are administered.
I’m sorry, there is a nuance here that I am not getting. Is there a “switch” that the body has that says, “Hey, we already went through puberty!” If so, where/what is it? The boy’s penis started to grow into adult size, I get that, but what I don’t understand is why did it revert back to its normal state (I believe thats what it said in the article). Why isn’t the hormone’ s effects permanent? If I give someone a growth hormone for a year and stop it, does the body say, “Ok, we need to shrink the body back down a foot or two”?
Actually, the abstract you linked to says, “Except for penile size, the other signs of virilization diminished several months after the exposure was discontinued.”
The other signs of virilization, presumably the pubic hair and acne, are things that require continuous stimulation by the hormone to be maintained. But once the penis grows to a certain size, there’s no mechanism to make it shrink again once the hormonal stimulation is gone.
