2026-08-21
27 分钟This is In Conversation from Apple News.
I'm David Green in for Sumitabasu.
Today, the forces behind American men's testosterone obsession.
This summer, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced
that testosterone screenings would be required for service members aged 30 and over,
and that testosterone replacement therapy, or TRT, may be recommended to them.
It was a moment that brought this hormone into the national spotlight after quietly growing in popularity.
Last year, testosterone prescriptions were the highest ever at nearly 12 million.
A 154% increase since 2020. And according to a new survey by Men's Health,
70% of men nationwide say they think their testosterone levels are important.
With telemedicine's recent rise, the hormone is easier to get than ever and being marketed to age groups from boomers
to Gen Z. It's not just for middle-aged men who actually need to restore their depleted testosterone levels.
That's journalist Michael Andor Broder.
He recently wrote about the state of American testosterone for men's health.
He's also the author of the book Swole, The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle.
It's being cast as part of the wellness toolkit,
both in terms of longevity and just in your day-to-day presentation of manhood.
Michael is a bodybuilder himself
and has been thinking about his own relationship with testosterone, also called T, for years.
I wanted to sit down with him to talk about how men in America are using testosterone,