Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 September 2018 and 10 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ashbuw223, CarrNayeli, Clawsbet.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Two datum worth adding[edit]

Where would be good places to incorporate these facts in the article?--Babank (talk) 22:27, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be curious to see a citation for the second datum. Leadwind (talk) 13:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3455741 5.146.135.218 (talk) 10:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merge androgen replacement therapy?[edit]

The article androgen replacement therapy is of very poor quality, despite the polishing I've done today. Additionally, I don't think there's anything in that article that wouldn't be considered relevant here. It would be nice if there were some way to cleanly divide "testosterone the naturally released hormone" and "administered testosterone" into separate articles. However, I think this merge is a reasonable short-term solution because androgen replacement therapy is really trash and improving it just involves duplicating a lot of information from here.

What do people think? Exercisephys (talk) 20:38, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Testosterone is both used as a medication and is a naturally occurring hormone. I guess the question is should we split it into more cleanly into two parts. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:13, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Doc James: I understand testosterone pretty well. However, are you sure the article divide is worth it, given that it's failed so far? Do you have any alternative way of dividing the subjects? Exercisephys (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can take a look in a bit. I guess the question is should we have a disambig that lists these two possibilities? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:19, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Testosterone is a medication[edit]

It seems like the article is now primarily about the use of testosterone as a pharmaceutical drug and secondarily only about what it actually is, i.e. an hormone, which is only talked about starting from the 4th section. The RedBurn (ϕ) 13:07, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be Ok with that, first of all it is a chemical molecule. Shocking the reader with biochem at front is probably avoided by having the effects first. Could be guided by other, official chapters or review structures and then adapted. Just some thoughts. BR 17387349L8764 (talk) 15:00, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

cognitive energy[edit]

In the part about biological use the function as a regulator of 'cognitive energy' is mentioned. I met many esoteric people recently so I am not sure if there is a clear definition of this term. Energy (psychological) seems to be an article desribing that concept. I found this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18284031

For better understanding I would appreciate if someone could find a more precise word instead. :) (I may just not be familiar with that term because I'm German ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Entinator (talk • contribs) 10:02, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the section, in part because it had no source. The text isn't necessarily wrong, but as you say ambiguous. However, it is quite often overplayed and I would not want it in this article without a strong source. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 10:09, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed split[edit]

Pageviews tool link to all 3 pages involved in this pointless test

In analogy to insulin and insulin (medication), I propose that the medical parts of this article be split out into a new article entitled testosterone (medication). As alluded to above, all humans produce and are affected by testosterone. Only a small fraction of humans take exogenous testosterone for medical purposes. Hence the emphasis of this article should be on the function of naturally produced testosterone whereas the medical article should concentrate on the medical uses. Also there is a conflict between the order of sections recommended by WP:PHARMOS and WP:MCBMOS / WP:CHEMMOS. A clean way of eliminating this conflict is to split this article. Boghog (talk) 21:09, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think both topics are weighted about equally. I agree all people make testosterone, the medical form however gets greater media coverage and I bet more people are interested in that content which would made the drug aspects primary. I guess "testosterone" could go to a disambig page which than likes to Testosterone (medication) and Testosterone (hormone). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:33, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
would support a split--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:18, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support, per recommendation by Boghog. Testosterone as medication is more specific. I would prefer that it be split out to the suggested article called Testosterone (medication). I take the point raised by Doc James, but if we accept that 50:50 ratio, then insertion of a disambiguation page means that 100% of users visiting that page will need to follow a disambiguation link. Why not make that figure 50% of users, those who want the more specific medical information? Trankuility (talk) 12:39, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
People may not realize that both exist and therefore a large portion of may not find the information they are looking for.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:41, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously such a scenario would affect a lot more of Wikipedia than an article on testosterone. Trankuility (talk) 12:46, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support Same molecule, but both are specialized topics. There is enough information to split them. BatteryIncluded (talk) 19:03, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As is done in the insulin article, we could add the following hatnote:
  • This article is about the testosterone hormone. For uses of testosterone in treating diseases, see testosterone (medication).
The testosterone article could also have a abbreviated medical uses section containing the following link at the beginning of the section:
With these links, it is unlikely people will have trouble finding the testosterone medications article. Boghog (talk) 19:08, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That is a very efficient way to handle the split, naming and DABs. BatteryIncluded (talk) 19:17, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support this article is becoming confusing, splitting off testosterone (medication) will make this article clearer and simpler to understand. The links and sections mentioned just above will be useful. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:12, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Given how well the Insulin (medication) article has been implemented. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 00:29, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
the articles has been created. have the experts fill them up.Minimobiler (talk) 21:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Were do you see "Testosterone is not a "medication"!" User:Nwbeeson? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:36, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Doc James: I agree with User:Nwbeeson. Testosterone is first and foremost a sex hormone. Because it is a sex hormone, it is used as a medication, not the other way around. Most readers (i.e., male adolescents) are coming here to understand what hormone is circulating through their circulatory system that is causing profound changes to their bodies. Per primary topic, the lead sentence should be emphasizing what most readers are interested in. Even for people that are taking testosterone as a medication, they probably want to know why they are taking the medication. Hence it is appropriate to first make clear that testosterone is a hormone and then state it is a medication. Boghog (talk) 17:03, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to "only very rarely prescribed". It is actually prescibed to about 3% of males over the age of 40 in the USA.[2]
If you do a google search for the term most of the top hits pertain to testosteron being low and its replacement. It is definitely a medication. Are you seriously claiming User:Boghog that it is not? Similar to claiming insulin is not a medication. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:52, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Huh??? Are you seriously claiming that I am claiming that insulin and testosterone are not used as a medications? Of course I am not. If I were, why would a suggest creating separate medication articles? Boghog (talk) 18:02, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nwbeeson says "Testosterone is not a "medication"!" you respond "I agree with Nwbeeson". Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:06, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK, sorry. I stand corrected. I was agreeing with the underlying sentiment, not literately what Nwbeeson said. I think what Nwbeeson was getting at was the principle of least astonishment. If you are looking for information about hormone, testosterone is a reasonable place to look. If you are looking for information about the medication, testosterone (medication) is a reasonable disambiguation. Boghog (talk) 18:16, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think we would do well to test this hypothesis as I explain below. If more people are looking for the medication use than the hormone use what you propose would be a disservice to our readers. If as you hypothesis more people are looking for the hormone use than I would support your arrangement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:19, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is a disservice to first define what testosterone is and why it is important and then redirect to information about its use as a medication. Most of google testosterone hits first start out with a definition of what testosterone is and then move on to its use as a medication. It is important to keep in mind that Google search results can be skewed towards commercial sites so that Google can monetize clicks. A google search for testosterone definition may be a more appropriate guide to what people are looking for.Boghog (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So if you are confidence, are you supportive in testing it as I explain below? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:25, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Issue of concern – there are many medications which influence testosterone levels but are not themselves testosterone. Injections like Reandron and others contain esters of testosterone which then hydrolyse to testosterone within the body. The medical / pharmaceutical community generally (IMO) does a poor job of distinguishing between whether they mean the actual chemical substance, a salt of it, or a substance which will be bioconverted to the desired substance. The medication article should list these alternatives and make clear that they are not actually testosterone. Renandorn / nuvigil is testosterone undecanoate, for example, and testosterone cypionate is another medically used ester. I would recommend the article "testosterone" be about the hormone and chemical and "testosterone supplementation" be about the medical treatments with either testosterone itself (in gels, for example) and other forms used to alter androgen levels. I suppose abuse of testosterone could fall under that article too. The analogy to insulin is basically valid but has the flaw that actual insulin is used regularly as a medication, and using a single name for a family of closely-related proteins is common in biochemistry. Using the term "testosterone" for the hormone and a bunch of esters and other analogs (like the 17α-alkyl androgens like methyltestosterone may be common practice in medicine and pharmacology, where the true meaning is understood, but I suggest it is inappropriate in a general reference encyclopaedia read by lay people trying to understand a supplement and its link to the hormone testosterone. EdChem (talk) 20:46, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

Pageviews tool link to all 3 pages involved in this pointless test

I propose we created a disambig page at testosterone that says

Testosterone may refer to:

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:53, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – The primary topic is the natural hormone. The secondary topic is the use of the hormone as a medication. Hence it is appropriate to split out the secondary topic as a new article entitled testosterone (medication) Boghog (talk) 17:07, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As already stated above, we can add the hatnote
  • This article is about the testosterone hormone. For uses of testosterone in treating diseases, see testosterone (medication).
and section heading
So that readers that are interested in finding the article about the medication will have no trouble finding it. Boghog (talk) 17:43, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think that is an excellent question, which are our readers most interested in. We can run a simple experiment we start as a disambig and we see which article gets the most pageviews. If they are within lets say 25% of each other we keep it as a disambig. If one gets more than the other than that becomes the primary article. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:57, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – I agree with Boghog, testosterone is fundamentally a hormone and medications / supplements alter the biological levels of it so its hormone nature is the primary topic. Further, many medications contain no testosterone (see above). EdChem (talk) 20:46, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — The 2 articles after the split are best entitled Testosterone, and Testosterone (medication). Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 01:58, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support — I agree with James, we should not assume when we can know. Split them and let it run for a week or so and we can decide then. Distrait cognizance (talk) 10:07, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes in my opinion we should spent a couple of weeks doing the split and than after than look at readership over a couple of weeks. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:03, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Create a new Wikidata item for the drug and move all the drug name labels from d:Q1318776 to the new drug item. The statement for the INN name of testosterone should probably go over to the drug item as well. I know the en.Wiki redirects from drug names have already been retargetted to the medicinal article, but Google is likely picking up its treatment of "Androderm" from Wikidata.
  1. Temporarily use piped links to some less probable titles from this disambiguation page. It'll (temporarliy) make some WP:MOSDAB heads explode, but it's not unprecedented as a test procedure. If the titles are only likely to be clicked through from people landing on the dab page, pageviews will give a more accurate picture of what people visiting the dab page want. I'm going to do this right now. The redirect Testosterone (drug) has no links from article space, nor does free testosterone (which redirects to the hormone). Viewing page views for these redirects over the next few weeks will give a more accurate representation of what readers landing on the dab page are looking for, without being polluted by the ranking of external search engines. Plantdrew (talk)
Agree this will give us better quality data. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:39, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've created a new Wikidata item for the medication d:Q27863114 and moved a few labels over. It really should checked against the item now linked to the hormone (d:Q1318776) by somebody who's better versed in medicine than me, with labels and statements potentially reassigned (the hormone had Sustanone as a label, but there's a separate Wikipedia article and Wikidata item (d:Q6959057) for that). Plantdrew (talk) 04:26, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Protest

I do not mind the split, but I do mind the 1981 links to disambiguation pages that are now created, including quite a number of templates. Leaving them unfixed, is nothing more than sloppy work. The Banner talk 18:04, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree and I am completely willing to fix this mess, but as explained here, we first have to do an experiment. Boghog (talk) 19:10, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes once we figure out which should be the main article if any we can begin fixing. I will work on a bunch. It will take some time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Operating the patient without knowing what the desired result is and then refraining from stitching up the patient? The Banner talk 00:28, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed a few hundred of the links. Should not take much longer until it is finished. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was (and still am) opposed to the original proposal (which implied that the disambiguation would be permanent). However the proposal was then reformulated (see Looie496's comment above) as a time limited experiment. Furthermore I think this live experiment is the only way to definitively settle which is the primary topic. Once we get the statistics, we can move one of the two articles back to the primary topic and convert the current testosterone disambiguation to an "other uses" testosterone (disambiguation) page. Creating the disambiguation page also served to highlight the incoming links so that they could be disambiguated to the most appropriate subtopic. This needed to be done anyway. Boghog (talk) 12:31, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I saw Looie's comment, but the fact remains that consensus was against creating the disambiguation page at testosterone, such as the consensus was for the very short time the proposal had been open. More than that, I disagree entirely with the methodology here. It may well be that a page on testosterone as a medication is the more popular page. That does not change the primary meaning of testosterone as being, well, testosterone. Testosterone as a medication is a page about a use of testosterone. Presenting this as a disambiguation issue is an entirely false way of approaching it. The two thousand odd articles that have been changed should be rolled back en masse. SpinningSpark 13:08, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you 100% that the primary topic is the hormone and I am optimistic that the traffic statistics will support this. The relevant guideline is WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY and lists traffic statistics as one of several valid criteria that can be applied with caution for determining the primary topic. Ultimately the primary topic is decided by consensus and I think common sense arguments about what topic is more fundamental should also be taken into account. Boghog (talk) 13:30, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Article traffic statistics are a valid criterion for different subjects with the same name. I am arguing that that is not the case here; "testosterone used as a medicine" is not the same name as "testosterone". Just about every other criterion on that page either supports testosterone (hormone) as the primary topic or else is irrelevant. SpinningSpark 15:14, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the argument for using page view statistics is a pragmatic one, simply to determine which topic are readers more interested in. For this purpose, the page view statistics are relevant. As most of the incoming links have already been disambiguated, I don't think there is any great harm in letting the experiment run a few days. I think non-patients will be primarily interested in the hormone whereas patients will be interested in both. For that reason, I believe the page views will be strongly skewed toward the hormone. Boghog (talk) 16:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are not addressing my objection (for the third time, and if you still do not get it after this I will stop replying to you). I don't object to using pageviews per se for determining primary topic. I am arguing that we do not actually have two topics. For instance, I could right now create an article called iron (bridgebuilding) and put forward a case that the bridgebuilding article will get more pageviews than iron (element). That would be a false argument, regardless of which page actually got the most pageviews because the first article is on the topic of bridgebuilding (or a part thereof) and the second is actually on the topic of iron. Naming the articles with a bracketed disambiguation would be a poor choice of name because it is implying two separate topics, and thus incorrectly calling for disambiguation. Likewise testosterone (medication) is on the topic of medicine (or a part thereof) whereas it is the testosterone (hormone) article that is actually on the topic of testosterone. In any case my fundamental objection remains that there was no consensus for running this test (and by the way tests are against policy). SpinningSpark 16:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do understand the two points you that you have made, namely (1) the hormone is by definition the main topic and (2) we should not be experimenting. However, at worst, the test has only made it slightly harder to find the hormone page and this will be resolved in a few days. So I really don't see this as a major issue. And of course, I will continue to strenuously argue that the main topic is the hormone. Boghog (talk) 18:27, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Boghog re "this will be resolved in a few days. So I really don't see this as a major issue". One major issue is that at the moment the two thousand odd pages that have had their links redirected can be reverted using rollback because they are the latest edit. As time goes by, more and more of those pages will accumulate later edits making the task much more onerous. Are those responsible for this mess going to volunteer to undo their handiwork themselves if consensus goes them, as it looks like it will? SpinningSpark 00:21, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
These two pages are likely to stay split, so the pages that contain piped links to testosterone (medication) and testosterone (hormone) should remain as is. The only issue is that one of those pages is going to be moved back to testosterone, which will receive all those incoming links via a redirect. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:34, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh no, leaving thousands of pages unnecessarily going to an article through a redirect is not acceptable. As I understand it, the vast majority of the links have been redirected to testosterone (hormone) and that page is likely to be moved back to testosterone. That coding clutter will be left on thousands of pages that always had the right link in the first place. SpinningSpark 00:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A good proportion were to testosterone (medicine), probably about 25% as the sports related articles are about taking the medication. So all these redirected needed to be gone through regardless. And we have bots that fix double redirects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:08, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see why the split of the medication from this article was done any differently than it was at dopamine, norepinephrine, or insulin. Those are all highly trafficked pages on biomolecules and each of them has a corresponding medication page at dopamine (medication), norepinephrine (medication), and insulin (medication). @Doc James: Why was this page implemented any differently? Those articles didn't run a test and, like this page, the primary topic is obvious: it's the parent article, which is testosterone (hormone) in this case. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:06, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The way this split was implemented is terrible. If either one becomes the primary topic, a huge chunk of material on the other aspect of the substance, either the medication or its functions as a hormone, will be completely missing from the article lead and body. At the moment, both pages are written as a WP:CONTENTFORKed topic instead of a parent article, so a large revision will have to take place on the page that is selected as the primary topic to fix this. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:09, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In the above section, there was broad consensus to split the two articles. Because of conflicts between WP:PHARMOS and WP:MCBMOS and no consensus on which should take precedence, the parent article had become a complete mess. The split IMHO opinion was the best was to resolve the conflict and I think the resulting daughter articles prove that. The testosterone (hormone) article already contains an abbreviated medical uses section and a brief mention of the medical uses in the lead so it is already written in a way that could serve as the parent article. Boghog (talk) 03:33, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Boghog: I'm not suggesting that you did a bad job with splitting the article. What I meant was that the decision to split the articles in a way that neither was adequately written as a parent article in order to run this test wasn't a good idea; it's not your fault for splitting it the way that was agreed upon. It's worse for our readers if we create content forked topics on a single subject than if we create a parent article with summary-style coverage of a subtopic and then link to that subtopic in a section that covers it. When this article eventually is selected as the primary topic, the medical uses section will probably need to be expanded by several paragraphs to adequately summarize the medication article (e.g., compare Testosterone (hormone)#Medical uses to dopamine#Medical uses). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:31, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Seppi333: I agree 100% that the which ever article is selected as the parent, it will need to be edited to provide a good summary of the daughter article while at the same time minimize unnecessary overlap. So far, the page views and the consensus on this talk page are overwhelmingly in favor of the hormone being the parent article. Boghog (talk) 19:08, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I just saw that Doc James was dabbing "testosterone" because it is now a disambiguation page, and then I saw this. I agree with Seppi333 that this is a horrible move. It completely goes against the WP:Primary topic guideline. The hormone is quite clearly the primary topic. This move should have also gone through an official move request, per WP:Requested moves. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:07, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Meh. I think we all agree the split is a decent idea. We give it a couple of weeks and look at the pageviews. Than we move the one with the greater page-views to Testosterone. A bot takes care of the double re directs. It does not go against the policy you mention. All the links should have be gone through regardless of how the slit went and how it ends up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:10, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Doc James, I don't think this is the way things are supposed to be done. And how does this not go against the primary topic guideline when the hormone is quite clearly the primary topic? I'm going to ask people at WP:Disambiguation to weigh in on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:15, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It says "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And why is a bot not going to take care of the double redirects? I am sure that I can get it done. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:05, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Because it is not a double redirect as understood by the bot. A double redirect is a redirect that redirects to another redirect. That is not the case here. Assuming that testosterone (hormone) gets restored to testosterone we will have a pipe to a redirect. Pipe > redirect > article is not the same as pipe > pipe > article. Bots don't fix those. Nor should they, as they can sometimes serve a useful purpose. SpinningSpark 13:17, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and that applies to the hormone, as other editors above agree. The hormone aspect also wins with regard to the "long-term significance" aspect. If I search "testosterone" in the literature, the overwhelming majority of sources will be about the hormone. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That the hormone is the primary topic is also indicative by the fact that the vast majority of the dab links as a result of the move have been added to redirect readers to the Testosterone (hormone) page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:56, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Doc James: No, a bot is not going to be taking care of double redirects here. What some people are objecting to is all the piped links of testosterone, where, if the hormone goes back to being the primary topic, the text displayed will be "testosterone", which will be piped to the "testosterone (hormone)" redirect which will be targeting "testosterone", needlessly piping away from the displayed text to get back to an article at the title that was the text displayed in the first place. The bot that fixes double redirects can't simplify these links. It is a pretty ugly link situation, but I don't think it's the end of the world; an extensive move discussion earlier this year led to a massive number of links to New York (displayed text "New York" piped through "New York (state)" and redirected back to the "New York" article), and there are way more "New York (state)" links than "testosterone (hormone)" links. Plantdrew (talk) 02:55, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc James: As of tomorrow, we will have a full week of pageview data for this test. Barring a marked convergence in today's pageviews for the two articles (i.e., a convergence to a 3-fold difference or less), in which case the test should probably continue, are you willing to move this article to Testosterone tomorrow? I really don't see the point in running the test for longer than a week considering that there has been little variation in pageviews for each article over the past 6 days and that there has been a large (~4–10 times greater, depending on the day) reader preference for this article (~1800–2400 daily pageviews) over testosterone (medication) (~200–600 daily pageviews) during that time. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:07, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agree will move tomorrow. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:06, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Moved Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:24, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So is someone now going to deal with the thousands of incoming links that have unnecessarily been pointed at testosterone (hormone)? SpinningSpark 01:38, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yup that someone will be me. Give me a few weeks. It was the simplest way to go through all the links and make sure that the 25% that should be directed to the medication page are. So it was needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Scopolamine

Moved to Talk:Hyoscine hydrobromide § Page name
 – Boghog (talk) 08:23, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Order of lead sentence: hormone vs. medication[edit]

I propose that the lead sentence be changed from:

back to:

From the very first version of this article until September of 2016, the lead sentence of this article defined testosterone as a steroid hormone and this emphasis was essentially unchanged until this year. This edit on 3 September 2016 added to the lead sentence that testosterone is also a medication. This edit on 5 September 2016 changed the order in the lead sentence. I don't have any objection to stating that testosterone is a medication in the lead sentence, however I believe that we should first state it is a natural hormone which then makes understandable why it is used as a medication. Thoughts? Boghog (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"used to alter the amount of it in the body" includes a lot of medications. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:37, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Doc James, I am sure you know vastly more than I on the medical end, and so can better decide if my suggestion is over-broad. What I was going for was a formulation that included gel formulations which directly provide testosterone, other formulations like the testosterone undecanoate injections which hydrolyse to testosterone, and to allow for medications which cause the body to increase its own testosterone production (say by stimulating FSH, which should work in theory but I don't know if there are any meds that do this). I put "alter" rather than increase as I don't know if excessive testosterone levels in something like hypergonadism lead to providing any medication to reduce levels. What would you suggest? EdChem (talk) 01:34, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Both choices sound retarded to me. IMO, the 1st lead sentence of a decent drug article should be written like "[Drug name] is a [biological/pharmacological or chemical classification] that is used as a medication for the treatment of [medical condition(s)]". It's clear, flows well, and adequately/succinctly covers both its classification and medical uses. This format is even more relevant for articles on an endogenous biomolecule which is also a pharmaceutical drug. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:03, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of something similar:
While there are other endogenous androgenic hormones (e.g., dihydrotestosterone) and other medications (e.g., testosterone esters) that can be used to treat androgen deficiency, I think we need to keep the focus of this article specifically on testosterone (one compound, one infobox, one article). Boghog (talk) 06:16, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might be easier to resolve this one the articles are separated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:21, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As Seppi suggested above, this wording would also be appropriate for a drug article. Most readers would be interested in why they are taking a drug, Boghog (talk) 06:27, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Need a parent article for this topic[edit]

@Boghog: The only alternative to doing this is to move this page back to testosterone (hormone) and then create an entirely new article at testosterone that covers BOTH testosterone (hormone) and testosterone (medication) in the WP:SUMMARY STYLE format; an article on testosterone which is located at this page title is necessarily the parent article of all other articles on testosterone. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 22:46, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Seppi333: The consensus that was developed above was to create two new, linked articles for related material which is permitted per WP:CONTENTFORK. This is a much cleaner way of handling it. There is no policy that states we must use a summary style. Boghog (talk) 01:13, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:RELAR, it is perfectly proper to have separate articles for each different definition of a term. That is precisely the situation we have here. The primary reasons for the content split was to (1) avoid awkward language in the lead that didn't do either topic justice and (2) to avoid conflicts about the order of the sections. Both of these problems were cleanly eliminated by the content fork. Boghog (talk) 01:32, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What you are proposing was essentially already discussed above in Talk:Testosterone#Proposal, and there were more votes against than in favor. A summary style parent article would make sense if the traffic to the two daughter articles were roughly equal, but the test showed that the hormone article was attracting roughly 5 times as many hits as the medication article. These statistics provided strong evidence that the hormone is the primary subject. Boghog (talk) 01:50, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CONTENTFORK isn't an alternative to WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. They're both accepted content guidelines, so they necessarily mustn't contradict one another. WP:CONTENTFORK literally dedicates an entire section on how to create forked subtopics when splitting content from an article - WP:CONTENTFORK#Article spinoffs: "Summary style" meta-articles and summary sections - so that the resulting pages conform to WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. There's also nothing on the content fork guideline page which suggests that it's okay to create forked content on a single topic which doesn't satisfy WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. Splitting an article like that without covering all the subtopics in a single article results in a WP:POVFORK, as described in the first paragraph of that section.
With that in mind, it's perfectly fine to have this article and the drug article completely separate and not cover one another. If that approach is desired, then this article can't be located at testosterone because this page name needs to contain the parent article on testosterone that summarizes all of the forked subtopics - including this article - in order to conform to WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. Per these two guidelines, you literally cannot select a subtopic as the "primary topic" among content forks without turning it into the parent article for the other forked subtopics. I've been saying this since I first posted about the split on this page: If either one becomes the primary topic, a huge chunk of material on the other aspect of the substance, either the medication or its functions as a hormone, will be completely missing from the article lead and body. At the moment, both pages are written as a WP:CONTENTFORKed topic instead of a parent article, so a large revision will have to take place on the page that is selected as the primary topic to fix this.
The only thing this article actually needs in order to conform to WP:SUMMARYSTYLE is to include a summary of the medication page in the "Medical uses" subsection. The simplest way of accomplishing this is to copy the lead of the medication article and paste it into that section, since the lead of that article IS a summary of the body of that article. The lead of this article would also need to state that testosterone is a medication and indicate the conditions for which it's used, just like it did prior to the split. This doesn't need to be included in the very first sentence, but it would need to be in the lead.
In any event, I really don't feel like arguing about this any longer; if we can't decide on whether or not WP:SUMMARYSTYLE should apply to the testosterone content forks, then I think we should just create an RFC and ask the broader community. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:58, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We have already been through this before and the consensus is that the article be split and that the hormone is the primary subject. Boghog (talk) 04:41, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not disputing that; I actually support having this article located at this page title. This article needs to be revised slightly so that it includes a short summary of the medication article if it's going to stay here though; that's all I'm saying. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 04:46, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK. The fourth paragraph of the lead already states that testosterone is used as a medication. This can be moved up, but including it in the first paragraph would recreate the same mess as we had before the split. Boghog (talk) 04:52, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That seems fine to me. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 04:56, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've finished revising this article as needed to make it the parent article of testosterone (medication). If you think it needs revision, I'm open to moving/rephrasing the content that I've added. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 14:51, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great! Thanks for expanding the medical uses section. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 20:41, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Animals other than mammals[edit]

Why does this article say "In humans and other mammals" when referring to the production of testosterone? Birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish... Lots of animals produce testosterone in their testes, not just mammals. MeegsC (talk) 15:59, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One needs to distinguish between producing the testosterone and using testosterone as a hormone (see for example PMID 11331759). Fish apparently don't produce/use testosterone, but rather 11-ketotestosterone (see Testosterone#Other_animals). It is not true that all animals (e.g., fish) use testosterone as a hormone. I have not been able to locate a source that discusses testosterone species distribution in depth, but I am reasonably certain that most if not all mammals use testosterone as the male sex hormone. Many but not all vertebrates produce/use testosterone as the male sex hormone. Hence it is safer to state "In humans and other mammals" than "In humans and other animals". We need a better source that discusses the species distribution and if you can find one, that would be great. Boghog (talk) 18:15, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, forget fish. Certainly all birds (male and female) produce testosterone. Here are some links; I can certainly find more:
If not all vertebrates, how would you word it? Most vertebrates? Mammals and birds? Boghog (talk) 13:52, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I found two reviews (PMID 17931674, 19456336) that state that testosterone and the androgen receptor first appeared in gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates). Agnathans (jawless vertebrates) such as lampreys don't tproduce testosterone but instead appear to use androstenedione as a male sex hormone. Boghog (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed (I hope) in these edits. As always, please feel free to edit further. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 17:22, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Boghog! MeegsC (talk) 12:54, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another datum perhaps worth adding.[edit]

I understand that natural testosterone levels change throughout the day. I would be interested in a section that covers this, even if only in a general manner.Olan7allen (talk) 04:28, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Recent edits[edit]

@Ashbuw223: Thanks for your contribution. Unfortunately I needed to revert them because the sources that you have added (PMID 22238103, 30144459, 30405373) are all primary. Per WP:MEDRS, secondary sources (review articles) are strongly preferred to support biomedical claims. The reason for this is that an astonishingly high percentage of original research results cannot be repeated. These results need to be reviewed by independent third parties before they can be considered reliable. Boghog (talk) 20:46, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:40, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Edits under nutrients[edit]

In regards to Whittaker's 2021 paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960076021000716).

The standardized mean differences show very consistent effect sizes across markers of androgen status (-0.38; -0.37; -0.38; -0.30), and all are statistically significant, the majority highly so. This would typically be phrased as there is strong evidence of an effect (please see the Cochrane Handbook for interpretation - https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/current/chapter-15. Moreover, these effects of notable size (0.2 = small effect; 0.5 = medium effect; 0.8 = large effect).

Also, the included studies show very low heterogeneity, besides 1 outlining sample in the total testosterone meta-analysis, likely due to the ethnicity of that sample.

Tha authors state in their first highlight that 'Low-fat diets decrease testosterone levels in men', which intended to be the complete summary of the research. They do state that further randomized controlled trials are needed, but likely in an effort to direct future research, as their results are very strong. In the discussion section of the article the authors state 'To summarise, our findings indicate that endogenous T production decreased on LF diets, leading to lower FT and TT.'

The words 'limited evidence' do not accurately reflect the content of this review. I suggest rephrasing to 'Low-fat diets may reduce total and free testosterone levels in men.'

The current wording 'There is limited evidence that Low-fat diets may reduce total and free testosterone levels in men' contains 2 qualifliers ('limited' and 'may') which is unesscessary.

I have made the above edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nutritionandhealtheditor (talk • contribs) 17:59, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The source contains two qualifiers: that this is only an appearance of effect and that it is not confirmed by research. Note this POV-pushing is also happening at Low-fat diet. Alexbrn (talk) 18:03, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ambigous sentence. Is testosterone produced by other organs in males?[edit]

This phrase is confusing:

"testosterone is secreted primarily by the testicles of males and, to a lesser extent, the ovaries of females"

I came to this article to find out where is testosterone produced in males. I.e. Is it only produced in the testes, or also other organs?

The phrase says it is produced primarily by the testicles, which would led one to believe there are other organs also involved in testosterone production. However, the ending of the phrase "and, to a lesser extent, the ovaries of females" puts into question the meaning of the word "primarily" (i.e. is this word implying that, even in males, other organs are involved, or just stating the well known fact that males produce more testosterone than females?)

I'm not a health expert and honestly have no idea about the answer. I found that Adrenal gland is involved in testosterone production, but apparently it only produces precursors and other androgens and doesn't directly produce testosterone itself.

Robert1dB (talk) 11:31, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a parenthetical to point readers to the 'biosynthesis' section of the article, where this is described in greater detail. Perhaps not an ideal solution however. Anastrophe (talk) 19:26, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That females have testosterone[edit]

Hello,

My edit was underlined below in the paragraph:

Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. Yet, females also have higher levels of testosterone than estrogen (compare 15-70 ng/dl to merely 15-350 pg/dl) In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristics such as increased muscle and bone mass, and the growth of body hair. In addition, testosterone in both sexes is involved in health and well-being, including moods, behaviour, and in the prevention of osteoporosis. Insufficient levels of testosterone in men may lead to abnormalities including frailty and bone loss.

another member responded:

"there is already in the lead. This sort of juxtaposition doesn't clarify things, and simply stating that there is more testosterone than estrogen can be misleading as the function is important. Please stick to WP:MEDRS. undothank Tag: Manual revert"

that's a great, incorrect opinion. My edit was reversed on no actual factual ground. There is nothing in that paragraph about females and testosterone until I added it. There is nothing wrong with the source I used, and the levels reported are verifiable facts you can get anywhere, but I did get them from a reliable source. There is nothing misleading about the fact I posted. As a woman, I am not only not misleading other women I am informing them of their own bodies. Men do not "own" this hormone. The levels are a fact. DO not erase my edit. If you prefer that I add more details, I can surely do that. However, what I wrote was relevant, informative and the truth. Opinions are not part of Wikipedia. if you have actual proof that what I stated is not a fact, I will gladly accept that my revision was reversed. Until then, I will battle to the end because as a woman, I believe it's critical for women to understand their level of testosterone. if you would like to suggest some rewording of the sentence, i will be happy to consider that. TheRightofHerWay (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

and also, this page should be ashamed of itself for not reporting more facts on women. Do you think that testosterone is not as equally important in women? Do women not have this adrogen? are women not of "man"? Why do you only care about testosterone in men?

Women need men on Wikipedia to start to think about women and not just men. There is only a minority of women editors, and its a huge a problem. Instead of deleting my facts, which are in fact facts... boister them and help me by adding some relevant information to the point/fact I use. I won't allow you to erase facts regarding women. I will however, appreciate, admire and be grateful for any/all help in boistering my contributions for women. So will all women. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheRightofHerWay (talk • contribs) 21:00, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How we write our articles involves a lot more than just 'it is a fact so it must go here'. It still has to be organized in a logical way. Plopping 'females have more testosterone than estrogen' right in the middle of that paragraph tells the reader nothing about what this means in women's wider biology and implies wrongly that it plays a similar role in women as in men or somehow overrules estrogen. Women are already mentioned in the 3rd sentence and the subsequent paragraphs. More could be added if something is missing, but simply comparing levels without explanation isn't that informative. Also, please avoid primary sources on medical topics - as explained here. Crossroads -talk- 23:54, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have to mention that you both used the words women and men when you actually mean females and males. That's totally different. It is a confusion between gender identity biological sex. Not only it's ambiguous and it's technically incorrect, it also makes the assumption that trans people don't exist. Eleaudit (talk)

Confusing use of terms[edit]

Sometimes, gender identity words are used, sometimes biological sex words are used. And it's often not consistent. I see alot of times the use of "women" and "men" words when the article actually talks about, respectively, females and males.

Some men are assigned female at birth, thus naturally producing more estrogen than other men, as some women are assigned males at birth, thus naturally producing more testosterone than other women. I'm not even talking about intersex people, for whom the binary representation of biological sex is not relevant.

This kind of confusion is not acceptable scientifically talking, neither ethically talking, as it does not respect trans existences. Talking about women and men is talking about gender, which is not natural, socially constructed and not based on biology (even if a lot of people pretend the opposite), and talking about males and females is talking about biological sex, which is based on biological criterias.

I'm not comfortable enough in English, neither to talk about sexual hormones in humans to do the corrections, but it clearly needs a review specifically about the correct use of the words woman, man, males and females. Eleaudit (talk) 22:19, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of finding that very high protein diets may decrease testosterone[edit]

I have removed 'and moderate evidence that short-term, very high protein diets (≥35% protein) decrease total testosterone levels in men (133).'

This finding is controversial and has been widely misquoted, without sufficient context. There is an associated commentary article explaining this further: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10114259/

I do not think this is suitable for a public facing encyclopaedia, as it is likely to cause further confusion.

I am the author of both of these articles, you may verify this by contacting the email address listed for the corresponding authors for these articles.

I apologise if this appears high-handed, I do not intend it to be so. Joseph Whittaker 123 (talk) 09:43, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading - Testosterone's association with criminal behaviour[edit]

In the second line of the very first paragraph is written: "It is associated with increased aggression, violence, and criminal behavior...".

The reference(Armstrong TA, Boisvert DL, Wells J, Lewis RH, Cooke EM, Woeckener M, et al. (November 2022). "Testosterone, cortisol, and criminal behavior in men and women". Hormones and Behavior. 146: 105260.) is an article of more than 3000 words and does conclude that "Collectively, work in this area points to a positive direct association between testosterone and criminal behavior.." but it is not explained in wikipedia how these studies were conducted.

The said conclusion in put up in the 1st paragraph of wikipedia as mentioned above is taken out of context and is extremely misleading.

Kindly modify or take it down. Vedolian2003 (talk) 07:12, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The lead summarizes the body, per WP:LEAD. There is a section in the article going into much greater detail on this. Crossroads -talk- 23:49, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a primary source and so unreliable for this (see WP:MEDRS). Bon courage (talk) 03:26, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Does that also apply to the twenty-five-plus (I lost count) sources within the section on aggression? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 05:04, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
From a quick look, this article needs a major filleting. Bon courage (talk) 08:02, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing of "Females are also more sensitive to the hormone."[edit]

I traced back the original edit adding this claim and found it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Testosterone&diff=prev&oldid=194982218. Given that the edit did not add a separate source, and the other change it made ("forty to sixty times") directly conflicts with the information previously cited from that same source, I would like to be able to consider this claim unsourced without checking the entire cited work, and perhaps think about removing it. Thoughts? Petifet (talk) 13:47, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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