Women’s hormone cycles are famous, of course, but the hubbub is that men have them too. It’s not a subject I have any knowledge of, but I’ve heard conflicting versions of this rumor, so I wonder if anyone here has The Straight Dope. What is the nature of the male hormone cycle, and what is the period of that cycle?
My ‘time of the month’ is payday.
Women’s hormone cycles are related to their fertility but men are apparently at a high point in their fertility cycle 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If there is a male hormone cycle it is probably measured in years, peaking at around eighteen years old.
“and dats what I tink” - Andrew Dice Clay
Still… I’ve been feeling a little bloated lately.
I AM NOT FAT!
Men’s testosterone cycle is weekly. It either goes up on Friday nights at single bars or goes up on Sunday afternoons watching professional sports on TV – sometimes both. You can tell when the male’s hormone’s have been spiked – he can be heard ‘wooping’ and butting into the other males.
I just saw a show yesterday where they were discussing hormones as they relate to the frequency of your sex life, and while it doesn’t seem that men have the notoriously wild fluctuations of hormones that we women do, testosterone does gradully decreases with age. More of a gentle, downhill slide I guess 
It’s intersting though, that frequent sex not only burns calories, tones pelvic muscles and improves the cardio-vascular system, but it also increases testosterone in both men and women righ after sex (the more ya get, the more ya want, lol) increases dopamine (the natural pain killer) seratonin (a natural relaxant, which explains why sex is the best sleeping pill) and DHEA, which is now known to increase your life span and slow the aging process. In women, it increases estrogen, which prevents osteoperosis among other things.
There were other hormones (horny-mones?) and health benefits that I can’t recall, but in all it’s a convincing sell, don’t you think?
You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.
Do these jeans make my butt look big?
Hormones? Im a guy I’d say they fluctuate depending on how fast the women are around me at the time.
‘It’s intersting though, that frequent sex not only burns calories, tones
pelvic muscles and improves the cardio-vascular system, but it also
increases testosterone in both men and women righ after sex (the
more ya get, the more ya want, lol) increases dopamine (the natural
pain killer) seratonin (a natural relaxant, which explains why sex is
the best sleeping pill) and DHEA’
Where did you get this? Cosmo magazine?
Sex burns very few calories. Also no mention of endorphins, which of course, is one benefit. Of course there are other side effects, loss of ability to bear children, STD’s, child support for 18 years, etc.
it’s really funny, but my cycle seems to coinside with my girlfriends.
when she has her cycle, i become really irritable and mope alot.
oh, wait. maybe that’s the cause of it.
No way, Dice! You look fabulous, boyfriend!
::turning to other posters::
A butt only the Cow God could love.
No Handy, it wasn’t Cosmo. Christ, gimme a break - I haven’t read that crap since I was 21 and too young to know any better.
I saw it on a TV show called CityLine which comes out of Toronto. I don’t know the woman’s name with all the hormone info, a sex doc or some kind. Proof, proof I know. I’ll be sure to write down the name next time.
BTW, sex burns something like 240 calories an hour…if you do it right. My question is, where do I find a one-hour man? Even an egg takes 3 minutes!
You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.
I’m a little drunk after Friday Happy-Hour–so bear with me, but (as a very general observation) the reason females [Human, which I think is what you are asking about, but also regarding other species] have dramatic hormone cycles and human males don’t [this is regard to leutinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, prolactin, and progesterone] is that the female ovulates once a month in expectation of pregnancy.
Males, obviously, don’t need to be receptive to impregnation-females do need to be receptive-after all, that’s where a baby will develop [in mammals]. Why females have to be this way is something that you can blame on evolution. These hormones also have effects in males, but in males all you need to be able to do [basically] is to produce sperm; which is available on demand.
In the female, these hormones regulate the “impregnability” of the female.
A lot of other hormones also exhibit cyclical/pusatile/circadian expression in both males and females but these are not really involved in reproduction (at least with regard to the OP). The female human menstrual cycle is what, I think, what you’re referring to.
As an aside, Birds also produce Prolactin–a hormone named for pro (for) lactin (lactation)-lactation as in mammals, but birds lay eggs and don’t suckle their young. But, it’s the same hormone. Why do birds have the same hormone? Hormone mechanisms are as complex as you want to make 'em. (For birds, prolactin is involved with nesting and maternal behavior-equivalent as mammalian nursing?)
Majormd-are you out there?–(some professional medical expertise needed).
I am not aware of any proven cyclic pattern to testosterone in men; this doesn’t mean there isn’t one, it just means a) I don’t know about it & b) it is not “medically” significant.
In the past, when the only option for testosterone injections was intramuscualar injections given evry two weeks, these men DID experience significant variations in testosterone levels - often as much as a two-fold difference between levels measured immediately before & shortly after an injection. Still, fewer than 5% of these men had swings in libido, aggressiveness, or other symptom siginificant to justify in their mind taking weekly shots of half the usual dose.
Men who produce normal amounts of testosterone do not experience anything resembling this, so I am left to conclude that any variation in testosterone levels is not to such a degree as to be noticeable.
An truism I learned long before attending med school:
In response to men complaining about women getting “hormonal” (read irritable, whiny, demanding, junk-food craving) pre-menstrually, I simply point out that men are that way all the time…
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
Clarification to above post:
In the past, when the only option for testosterone injections
should read:
In the past, when the only option for testosterone replacement
- sorry! Testosterone is also available in skin patches now.
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
A hormone is simply a molecule. It’s actions depend entirely upon which cells have receptors for that hormone, and what intracellular processes are triggered when that a hormone molecule binds to the receptor.
In humans, breast tissue has the most prolactin receptors/cell and so is the most responsive tissue to prolactin, which stimulates growth of clusters of milk producing cells, and production of milk. Men make prolactin too; some men have tumors that make several times the amount of prolactin secreted by nursing women, but they don’t usually make milk. Why? Because the circulating levels of estrogen are much lower in men, and estrogen is needed to cause breast cells to make significant amounts of prolactin receptor. So all that prolactin is floating around, but causes no milk production in men because their breast tissue doesn’t have significant numbers of prolactin receptors.
Since birds don’t have breast tissue, they can’t respond to prolactin in the same way that mammals do. I don’t know what cells they might have that do express prolactin receptors; since your source suggests it modulates behavior, nerve cells in the brain would be my guess.
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
647 -
I forgot to add:
<font size=6>Please take your bird to an Avian Endocrinologist with special qualifications in prolactin secretion for personal medical issues; do not rely on information provided on this or any other message board for definitive diagnosis or treatment.</font>
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
Darn - that was supposed to come out as fine print…
majormd-the appeal of being anonymous on this MB, not withstanding-I am in the lab of one of the top avian endocrinologists in the USA. Feel free to email me if you if you want to debate anything I’ve said. What do you want to know? I have to sit through two current journal articles a week on the subject of endo. You make some definite statemements and M.D. or not–do you want to bust me on the fine points of animal science (monkeys, rats, mice, chickens, etc.) endocrinology? I invite discusion.
647 -
I am confused. I don’t think I disputed anything you said; I have no desire to “bust you on the fine points of animal science (monkeys, rats, mice, chickens, etc.) endocrinology” since my training barely extends to human pediatric endocrinology. It really was not my intent to argue with you.
The large typed message (which was supposed to come out as small print) was a joke referring to a totally unrelated thread in which 3 moderators felt the need to tell the original poster to ask his own doctor, when the OP had clearly stated the his doc wasn’t answering the question to his satisfaction. I did answered the question, did not attempt to diagnose or treat anyone over the message board, and so was somewhat perplexed by the number of responses and the snideness of one of those responses. (See “For Sue in El Paso” in General Questions if you’re interested)
I didn’t know you worked in an avian endocrinologist’s lab (I guess I never thought of one existing); my comment about taking your bird to an avian endocrinoloist with expertise in prolactin secretion was really directed more at certain moderators than at you.
Despite my lack of specific knowledge of avian endocrinology, however, the basic concepts of hormone physiology remain constant across species. Identical molecules can have vastly different effects depending upon the nature of their receptor(s), which tissue(s) express the receptor,
and what internal pathway(s) that receptor triggers. It is not surprising, then, to find that prolactin has different effects in mammals & in birds. Or it may be that prolactin does promote similar behaviors in humans in addition to the more easily observed lactation.
I accept your invitation for discussion!
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
majormd-sorry if I seemed belligerent; it was after Happy-Hour. The USDA funds a lot of poultry research; better food production, etc. We do embryonic endocrine regulation. The advantage of avian embryos (no moral debate invited)–no maternal effects. I’d be away for a while, sorry I didn’t get the CAPS thing.