Black Males and Testosterone: Evolution and

Perspectives

by Robert Lindsay

Development of agriculture in modern Blacks also seems to have led

to high testosterone levels. Groups with the highest testosterone in
the world today are primitive agriculturalists.

Hunter-gatherers tend to have lower testosterone. This is because in

hunter-gatherer society, women need men to survive. So they grab
one pretty quickly and get married.

In primitive agricultural societies, women do not need men, since they

can farm on their own. So they can afford to be choosy. These
societies have tended to develop in a polygynous way, where a few
high-ranking males monopolize most of the females, and the rest of
the men get few or none.

Sub-Saharan Blacks are highly polygynous, and this resulted in

intense competition for fewer women and selection for very robust
male body types. SS Blacks are more robust than Whites on all
variables. In Namibia, the polygynous Kavango have much higher
testosterone than the much less polygynous !Kung.

Broadly speaking, lifetime exposure to testosterone is reflected in the

incidence of prostate cancer, with the world’s highest incidences being
among African-American men (Brawley & Kramer, 1996). It was once
thought that lower incidences prevail among Black West Indians and
sub-Saharan Africans, but this apparent exception is now ascribed to
underreporting (Glover et al., 1998; Ogunbiyi & Shittu, 1999; Osegbe,
1997).

This picture has been confirmed by a recent American study:

From the 1970's to the current statistical analysis of the

National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End
Results program, African-American men have continued to
 have a significantly higher incidence and mortality rate of
prostate cancer than European-American men. Autopsy
studies show a similar prevalence of early small subclinical
prostate cancers but a higher prevalence of high grade
prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia.

Clinical studies show a similarity in prostate cancer outcome

when pathological stage is organ-confined but a worse
outcome when disease is locally advanced and metastatic in
African-American vs European-American men. There is
increasing genetic evidence that suggest that prostate cancer
in African-American vs European-American men may be more
aggressive, especially in young men.

It was also confirmed by a recent British study (prostate cancer rates

are somewhat lower in Black British men because a higher proportion
of them have one White parent):
Black men in the United Kingdom have substantially greater
risk of developing prostate cancer compared with White men,
although this risk is lower than that of Black men in the
United States. The similar rates in Black Caribbean and Black
African men suggest a common genetic etiology, although
migration may be associated with an increased risk
attributable to a gene–environment interaction (Ben-Shlomo
et al 2008).

We are only just beginning to identify the actual genes that account
for the White/Black difference in prostate cancer risk. The most recent
study was Benson 2014.

The 2:1 black-to-white ratio in prostate cancer rates is already

apparent at age 45 years, the age at which the earliest prostate
cancer cases occur.

This finding suggests that the factor(s) responsible for the difference
in rates occurs, or first occurs, early in life. Black males are exposed
to higher testosterone levels from the very start.

In a study of women in early pregnancy, Ross found that testosterone

levels were 50% higher in Black women than in White women
(MacIntosh 1997). Ross speculates that exposure to such high levels
in utero might reset the “gonadostat feedback loop” which regulates
testosterone secretion to a higher level. According to Ross, his
findings are “very consistent with the role of androgens in prostate
carcinogenesis and in explaining the racial/ethnic variations in risk”
(MacIntosh 1997).

Testosterone has been hypothesized to play a role in the etiology of

prostate cancer because testosterone and its metabolite,
dihydrotestosterone, are the principal trophic hormones that regulate
growth and function of epithelial prostate tissue.

Many studies have shown that young Black men have higher
testosterone than young White men (Ellis & Nyborg 1992; Ross et al.
1992; Tsai et al. 2006).

With respect to the Black/White difference in testosterone level,

African Americans have a clear testosterone advantage over Euro-
Americans only from puberty to about 24 years of age (Abdelrahaman
et al., 2005; Ross et al., 1986; Winters et al., 2001). This advantage
then shrinks and eventually disappears at some point during the 30's
(Gapstur et al., 2002). The pattern then seems to reverse at older
ages. In later years, White men have higher testosterone than Black
men (Nyborg, 1994).

This makes it very difficult if not impossible to explain differing

behavioral variables, including higher rates of crime and aggression,
in Black males over the age of 33 on the basis of elevated
testosterone levels.

Critics say that more recent studies done since the early 2000's have
shown no differences between Black and White testosterone levels.
Perhaps they are referring to recent studies that show lower
testosterone levels in adult Blacks than in adult Whites. This was the
conclusion of one recent study (Alvergne et al. 2009) which found
lower T levels in Senegalese men than in Western men. But these
Senegalese men were 38.3 years old on average.

These critics may also be referring to various studies by Sabine

Rohrmann which show no significance difference in T levels between
Black and White Americans (Rohrmann et al. 2007; Rohrmann et al.
2009; Lopez et al. 2013). Age is poorly controlled for in her studies.

More seriously however, she used serum samples that the National
Center for Health Statistics had earlier collected as part of its Third
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III). Only
1,479 samples were still available out of an initial total of 1,998, i.e.,
one quarter were missing. An earlier study had used the same serum
bank for research on a sexually transmitted disease: Herpes Simplex
virus type 2 (HSV-2).

That study found that more than 25% of the samples for adults
between 30 and 39 years were positive for HSV-2. It is likely that
those positive samples had been set aside, thus depleting the serum
bank of male donors who were not only more polygamous but also
more likely to have high T levels. This sample bias was probably
worse for African American participants than for Euro-American
participants.

In addition, Rohrmann has now stated in a letter to a journal that

after adjusting for multivariate analysis, her studies that showed
lower testosterone in Blacks actually show elevated testosterone in
Blacks (Rohrmann and Platz 2014).

Young Black males have higher levels of active testosterone than

European and Asian males. Asian levels are about the same as
Whites, but a study in Japan with young Japanese men suggested
that the Japanese had lower activity of 5-alpha reductase than did
U.S. Whites and Blacks (Ross et al 1992). This enzyme metabolizes
testosterone into dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, which is at least eight
to 10 times more potent than testosterone. So effectively, Asians
have the lower testosterone levels than Blacks and Whites. In
addition, androgen receptor sensitivity is highest in Black men,
intermediate in Whites and lowest in Asians.

Let us look at one study (Ross et al 1986) to see what the findings of
a typical study looking for testosterone differences between races
shows us. This study gives the results of assays of circulating steroid
hormone levels in white and black college students in Los Angeles,
CA. Mean testosterone levels in Blacks were 19% higher than in
Whites, and free testosterone levels were 21% higher. Both these
differences were statistically significant.

Adjustment by analysis of covariance for time of sampling, age,

weight, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and use of prescription drugs
somewhat reduced the differences. After these adjustments were
made, Blacks had a 15% higher testosterone level and a 13% higher
free testosterone level. A 15% difference in circulating testosterone
levels could readily explain a twofold difference in prostate cancer
risk.

Higher testosterone levels are linked to violent behavior.

James Dabbs, Jr., studied 4,462 men in 1990 and found that "the
overall picture among the high-testosterone men is one of
delinquency, substance abuse and a tendency toward excess." These
men, he added, "have more trouble with people like teachers while
they are growing up, have more sexual partners, are more likely to
have gone AWOL in the service and to have used hard drugs,"
particularly if they had poor educations and low incomes.

A separate study by Dabbs of young male prison inmates found that

high testosterone levels were associated with more violent crimes,
parole board decisions against release, and more prison rule
violations. Even in women, Dabbs found, high testosterone levels
were related to crimes of unprovoked violence, increased numbers of
prior charges, and decisions against parole.

The latest study by Dabbs et al., which pooled data from two groups
of prisoners, measured testosterone levels in the saliva of 692 adult
male prisoners. The researchers found that inmates who committed
crimes of sex and violence had higher testosterone levels than
inmates who were incarcerated for property crimes or drug abuse. In
addition, they say, "inmates with higher testosterone levels... violated
more rules in prison, especially rules involving overt confrontation”
(Dabbs 1995).
Studies suggest that high testosterone lowers IQ (Ostatnikova et al
2007). Other findings suggest that increased androgen receptor
sensitivity and higher sperm counts (markers for increased
testosterone) are negatively correlated with intelligence when
measured by speed of neuronal transmission and hence general
intelligence (g) in a tradeoff fashion (Manning 2007).

Black females have higher IQ's than Black males. Black female IQ is
2.4 points higher than Black male IQ. There are twice as many Black
females as males with IQ's over 120 and five times as many females
as males with IQ's over 140.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Dr. Peter Frost for his

invaluable help in writing this paper.

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