Testosterone and spicy food

[vesal_mas (imported)]

Today I crossed this link:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/testosteron ... ste-314472

( text below )

In short: men with high testosterone do like spicy food.

Hence a logic question about that correlation (and inverse correlation) on this forum.

Are there eunuchs who did see a change in appetite ?

Other remarks ?

Testosterone Levels Higher In Men Who Eat Spicy Foods: Taking Risks With Taste

Dec 15, 2014 05:44 PM

It’s easy to see why people avoid spicy foods. They’re uncomfortable, even painful to eat. Why would someone put themselves through such a thing? Food is meant to be enjoyed; the flavors should be savored on our tongues. You can’t do that with spicy food unless you purposely want to harm the inside of your mouth. But there’s something appealing in spicy foods. Eating them is like biting into a rollercoaster ride. Can I get through this? If you’re a guy and your answer is yes, there’s a good chance you have higher levels of testosterone, a new study finds.

That’s what a new study, from researchers at France’s University of Grenoble, found in their new study titled “Some Like It Hot.” To test this correlation, they recruited 114 men aged 18 to 44 and asked them whether they preferred spicy food or not, then they gave the men a meal of mashed potatoes and provided them with either a spicy pepper sauce or regular table salt (a control seasoning). The men were then asked to report how spicy they felt their meals were, and the researchers measured levels of testosterone in their saliva. Men with the most testosterone were also the ones who liked the spicier potatoes.

“These results are in line with a lot of research showing a link between testosterone and financial, sexual, and behavioral risk-taking,” Laurent Begue, an author of the study, told The Telegraph. “In this case, it applies to risk-taking in taste.”

Testosterone is a steroid hormone produced in abundance in men, and is responsible for their muscle mass, strength, bone density; the maturation of sex organs, deepening of the voice, and basically everything else that men go through during puberty.

The research team also speculated that spicy foods could have a reinforcing effect, in which they boost testosterone, and thus, more testosterone increases a person’s liking of spicy food — they said, however, this effect had only been seen so far in rats. It’s likely that’s not the case, however. The researchers noted that there could have been two other reasons for the findings: the men with higher testosterone could have been attracted to the hot sauce, with its aggressive red color (studies have found links between these) or maybe they just grew up eating spicy food. But all these show is that spicy food doesn’t cause testosterone levels to jump, even if there’s a correlation.

Source: Begue L, Bricout V, Boudesseul J, Shankland R, Duke A. Some like it hot: Testosterone predicts laboratory eating behavior of spicy food. Physiology & Behavior. 2014.

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

I saw this study, and I'm no authority on it, I'm just going by my own experience, but I've yet to see it play out in real life where dropping someone's testosterone levels made them like spicy food less.

I have two trans female friends specifically who I'm thinking of... one of them set the record at a local Thai restaurant for eating spice-level-11 red curry. The other one has a hot sauce obsession, to the point that she's eaten ghost chilis and scorpion peppers, and constantly makes habanero sauce. (Plus spice-level-10 red curry at that same Thai restaurant is a staple of her diet. And for comparison, I tried spice-level-4 red curry there and it was still too hot for me.) One of my MtF trans roommates has an obsession with Tabasco sauce, and the other has an obsession with Sriracha.

So yeah, seeing as how all four of them have been on HRT for several years, and one is even post-SRS, methinks testosterone isn't playing a part for them. So I don't know about this study's conclusions. It might be interesting to see if the same holds true for people who lose those high levels of testosterone later in life. And if losing those testosterone levels does change one's spice preference, how long it takes.

[Frida G Cavic (imported)]

I have never liked spicy food, either normal or low T my apetite is the same, although I think I like more carbohydrates

I´m not so sure but testosterone could be linked with an increased appetite for meat. I´ve seen commonly big men devoring steaks, while women prefer less meat and more carbohydrates and vegetables

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

I´m not so sure but testosterone could be linked with an increased appetite for meat. I´ve seen commonly big men devoring steaks, while women prefer less meat and more carbohydrates and vegetables

Eh, that's really getting into gender stereotypes there. From a young age men are taught that eating big steaks is manly, while women are taught that it's unfeminine. Men are taught to value a big appetite, big muscles, and thus devouring things with a lot of protein is more common. Women are taught that muscle is unfeminine, that eating too much is unfeminine, that the most important things are staying thin and following the "rules" by eating healthy, and society stigmatizes saturated fat and red meat as unhealthy.

A lot of that is social conditioning rather than biology... men eating meat because they believe meat is manly in the first place, and thus they use it to reinforce their sense of masculinity, and women eating salads because they believe salads are feminine in the first place, and thus eat them to reinforce their sense of femininity.

[Frida G Cavic (imported)]

Not necessarily is a social or educational matter I suposse. Biologically and evolutionarily testosterone is par excellence the anabolic hormone, wich means that metabolism and appetite will be increased and muscles will do too. , T promote muscular growing and they will need high sources of protein , so a man will need eating more meat than a woman as she will not develop much muscles because of her genetics.

[Milkman (imported)]

Does T promote healing after injury?

[SplitDik (imported)]

From a young age men are taught that eating big steaks is manly,

Once after a successful customer visit in Dallas my sales representative took me to a celebratory meal at a steak house. The problem was (a) I had promised myself to eat carefully as I was traveling a lot at that time (b) I'd already had a hamburger for lunch. So the guy comes out with a bunch of raw meat on a cart and is describing all the cuts and how they'd be prepared. When it came my turn to order, I chose the smallest thing which was still quite large -- a skewer of meat that was a foot long with huge cubes of steak on it. The waiter suggested that "I might want something else" but I said I'd have the skewer, and he asked again if I wouldn't want something else and so I kinda lost patience and said "is there something wrong with that meat?". He said "no sir, but I thought a big guy like you would like more meat." Yeah, eating meat is sort of an obligation if you're a big guy in our society.

[Paolo]

Personally, I love spicy food and meat. And spicy meat.

I'm not a larger person,as most of the staff can attest, and not overly packed with T. either.

[devi (imported)]

Spiced meat and eggs is much more easier to digest particular with capsicum (chile). But if it comes with vinegar, the vinegar itself can be hard on the stomach. For this reason women often with slower metabolisms also prefer spiced foods.

[Frida G Cavic (imported)]

Yeah, eating meat is sort of an obligation if you're a big guy in our society.

We live in a world of stereotypes