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PhotographyThere are two contradictory research findings regarding the association between testosterone and depression in men:
- Medial research: in depressed male patients who do not respond properly to antidepressant treatment, testosterone has a positive effect on mood and well-being.
Note: these patients might be men with below-average testosterone. - Social Science: high testosterone is positively associated with risk factors for depression (health risk behavior, anti-social behavior, being umarried, unemployment).
Note: talking about men with high testosterone, this correlation might only be true for men with above-average testosterone.
A conclusion might therefor be: testosterone correlates negatively with depression in men with below-average testosterone, and correlates positively in men with above-average testosterone. And this is exactly what was found in a study (with extremely high statistical quality) done by Booth et al. (1999).
Another very interesting fact: the correlation between testosterone and depression in men with above-average testosterone disappears if you control for antisocial and risk behavior as well as marriage and unemployment – however, the benefits of testosterone in preventing depression among those with average or below-average levels are unaffected by these behavioral and social factors.
July 31st, 2009 at 10:26
Without the last paragraph, I would have congratulated the researchers for having published one of the first articles in psychology with a square function regression… or whatever the correct term might be in English.
August 6th, 2009 at 14:38
Yapp. It’s very interesting to see that there are hundreds of studies, all with different results. My guess is that they are working without understanding specific sub-populations of men, since I’d argue that there is a specific form of depression (after losing hierarchical struggles) decreasing T and causing depression.
I’ll show them :) !