Bonjour,
I’m in Paris for the month, doing pilates the French way. If you’re in town hmu, let’s grab a verre de vin.
ily,
This month on Too Online we're covering Hot Girl Science, the trends taking over the timeline and moving markets. A viral post from daddy of biohacking and chronic oversharer, Bryan Johnson, walking through his girlfriend's suspected endometriosis diagnosis got mostly praised online for doing more for women's health research than most of the medical establishment has in years.
Fortunately or unfortunately for you, this meant it was time to spend a week looking at some of biohacking's biggest trends and asking the question: okay, but what are the women up to?
For this newsletter, the trend that felt most appropriate to cover was the uptick in cisgender women taking testosterone. A note here: T treatment for gender affirmation is not discussed in this overview.
There are three different use cases for testosterone that are freshly taking up the timeline: men's side, menopause side, and a third, more elusive side.
The only FDA-approved T treatment atm is for men diagnosed with hypogonadism (low natural testosterone). They get a real prescription that helps regulate their libido, prevents unwanted weight gain, and fixes fatigue. Then there's the manosphere side, which the dudes refer to as testmaxxing. These men are mostly taking it for their physique, but others are chasing a feeling of masculinity, with some brands marketing it like this:
What's interesting is that out of this manosphere trend, whole legitimate and not-so-legitimate markets have spun up around it. Hims just launched injectable testosterone.
While Jordan Peterson is out here pushing a telehealth hormone company launched by fitness influencer Derek MPMD (Derek from More Plates More Dates).
Meanwhile, off-label prescriptions for T in women are up nearly 50% in the last decade. Most of these women are in their 40s and 50s, and the recent uptick was accelerated by a few things: (1) Halle Berry credited testosterone for reviving her sex drive, (2) HRT (hormone replacement therapy) itself is having a massive comeback after decades of women being told it was unsafe, and (3) menopausal women seem to love TikTok content (for example, one woman posted her testosterone therapy story and the video got 9 million views overnight).
However, while there are over 30 FDA-approved products for men, dating back to the 1950s, there's no FDA-approved testosterone product for women. Doctors get around it by prescribing a tiny fraction of the male dose, or sending it to a compounding pharmacy to custom mix. The New York Times did an incredible piece featuring women describing T as life changing, better sex, more energy, etc.
But to my surprise, it's not just men and perimenopausal women using it. There's a third use case showing up at med spas across the country, testosterone pellets, marketed to women specifically to counteract the muscle loss that comes with GLP-1 drugs. I first came across this in a Reddit thread, then found med spas across America offering it, with no standardized dosing, no long-term data on the combination, just a pellet and a prayer, patching a side effect of a completely different drug.
Anyway, crazy stuff happening in the world of T. If you want an overview on the gender gap on lower-stakes trends like intermittent fasting and cold plunging, plus a deep-cut lore drop on my grandma, head over to IG.
