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Testosterone and its role in studies from the past to present
The study of testosterone and its possible effects and uses has continued without interruption from the time of its discovery.
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The search for everlasting youth is a myth in fairy tales. However, there was an exciting time in medicine when physicians believed that the isolation and application of certain hormones could help slow the aging process and restore youthful vigor to men.
More than 100 years later, researchers and physicians are still trying to discover all of the potential applications of testosterone.
A theory is hatched
Some of the first experiments involving testosterone, or any hormone, were conducted on chickens. In 1767, John Hunter transplanted testes from roosters into the abdomen of a hen. The testes adhered to the hen’s intestine but produced no noticeable change in the hen.
Years later, in 1849, Arnold A. Berthold conducted an experiment with six chickens to link the effects of castration with the internal secretion of the testes. Two chickens were used as a control group, two were castrated but had their testes transplanted back into their bodies at a distant location, and the remaining two were castrated and left to develop with no testes. Berthold found that the two castrated chickens never developed adult male chicken characteristics. However, the interesting part of this experiment was that the two chickens with the transplanted testes developed into mature adult male chickens. He had evidence that the location of the organ was not crucial to how these internal secretions worked — rather, the secretions traveled freely through the bloodstream.
The field of study involving internal secretions exploded in 1889.
At the age of 72, Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard made a presentation about a series of rejuvenation experiments to the Sociète de Biologie in Paris. He claimed that daily injections of testicular blood, seminal fluid and testicular extract from guinea pigs and dogs had made him feel 30 years younger. He told the audience that with the use of these injections he was able to lift heavier weights than before, work for hours after dinner, and run up and down steps. His presentation had a huge effect on the medical community and sparked interest in a new field involving the internal secretion of organs — organotherapy.
In the decades following these experiments, numerous research teams explored the isolation of sex hormones. Adolf Butenandt first isolated androsterone in 1931 from a large sample of policemen’s urine. However, the testes proved to contain a more powerful androgenic factor.
The name testosterone was coined by Kàroly David, E. Dingemanse, J. Freud and Ernst Laqueur who first isolated the hormonal secretion in 1935; it was synthesized later that year by Leopold Ruzicka and A. Wettstein.
Modern uses, good and bad
The study of testosterone and its possible effects and uses has continued without interruption from the time of its discovery. Some experiments sought to discover if an imbalance of sex hormones led to homosexuality. For a time, testosterone was prescribed as a treatment to “cure” homosexuality. Other studies have been conducted to see if an excess of testosterone leads to highly aggressive or criminal behavior. In recent years, testosterone has been used as a treatment for erectile dysfunction and has been used in men with extremely low natural testosterone levels.
Testosterone was used clinically with the formation of methyltestosterone. Researchers eventually discovered this first, water-soluble, oral formulation was hepatotoxic. Since then, testosterone has been given as an injection, as pellets implanted under the skin, and most recently as transdermal patches and gels.
One of the most well-known uses of synthetic testosterone is as a performance enhancing drug. Brown-Séquard, in his own way, tested testosterone for improving athletic performance in the 1800s. However, the more widespread use of testosterone and steroids for advantage in athletics is thought to have started in Russia during the Cold War.
In 1964, the International Olympic Committee banned the use of anabolic agents; despite this ban, the practice continued to spread. In the 1960s and 1970s many German athletes, both male and female, were thought to be abusing steroids.
After this period, the abuse of steroids seemed to fade into the background for a few years. Although frequently associated with the bodybuilding lifestyle, professional athletics had only a smattering of steroid scandals — until recently. Now, sports organizations and the government are trying to develop systems of detection and regulation of performance-enhancing drugs. However, even as physicians develop more accurate tests for detecting these drugs, the people using steroids develop even better ways of concealing it. – by Leah Lawrence