Testosterone: Hormone of Kings King of Hormones

The hormone testosterone brings us into being. It regulates the sex drive in both men and women, it develops the male sexual characteristics such as dominance, drive, assertiveness, strength, body shape, hairiness, and even odour in the form of sex steroid breakdown products called pheromones, which may turn women on or off. It governs sperm production as well as potency, and therefore has the casting vote on whether or not conception takes place.

Being mainly released by the testes in the male, it is a major factor in deciding, both physically and mentally, whether we develop into a man or a woman, a homosexual or heterosexual, a poet or a boxer, a wimp or a champ. As described in the book "Brain Sex " it even literally shapes our brain, decides our creativity, intellectual skills, thought patterns, and our drive and determination to explore ideas and follow them through. It is an over riding influence in controlling not only our potential, but also the use we make of it. It governs our sexual and social history.

Testosterone also affects our health throughout life how we grow as children whether we thrive and whether we become a muscular Adonis in our teens, or a weed with acne, and even whether we die in a fight or motorcycle accident in our youth. It affects to what extent stress will undermine our health in middle age, how we will die from the premature ageing that testosterone deficiency can cause, especially in the heart, and therefore controls both our vitality and longevity.

It can also be regarded as the "Success Hormone". A study funded by the National Institute of Health in the United States compared testosterone levels with personality type in over 1,700 men. It was found, according to Dr John McKinley the medical statistician who analysed the results, that typically the male with high testosterone "attempts to influence and control other people, who expresses his opinion forcibly and his anger freely, and who dominates social interactions". This made them more aggressive, competitive and sometimes more successful.

These findings closely mirrored those of Professor James Dabbs a psychologist at Georgia State University. He studied 5,000 Vietnam war veterans and found that antisocial "sensation seeking" behaviour more often occurred in high testosterone men with little education and low income jobs. Those with more education and money had opportunities for a wider range of outlets for this type of behaviour. "They can do things that are both exciting and sociably acceptable driving fast cars rather than stealing them, and arguing instead of fighting" said Dabbs. He also found that both men and women in more extrovert and expressive occupations such as actors, entertainers, football players and even women lawyers had high levels of testosterone, while clergymen had low levels. In this way it seems that testosterone affects every aspect of our lives as men.