https://www.economist.com/united-states ... stosteroneARE YOU struggling to be the man you were always meant to be? You might have low testosterone. Walk into Gameday Men’s Health clinic and you will find yourself in their “man cave”, a waiting-room decked out with black leather armchairs, televisions and a well-stocked fridge. A nurse practitioner will do a blood test and check if your testosterone levels are normal. If you are indeed deficient—or if you’re technically not but you’re experiencing symptoms of exhaustion, depression or trouble putting on muscle and having stamina during sex—they can inject you with your first dose of testosterone within the hour. Refer a friend for $50 off your next weekly treatment.
The Gameday clinic in the ritzy Buckhead neighbourhood of Atlanta, Georgia, opened in April last year as the company’s 50th franchise. In the 14 months since, another 325 have been launched across the country. This represents a burgeoning American health trend. Between 2019 and 2024 prescriptions for testosterone jumped from 7.3m to 11m. In Texas, the hub for testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT), a medical treatment that artificially increases hormone levels and Gameday’s most popular service, there were more scripts filled in the final quarter of last year than in all of 2021. Because hormone levels naturally fall as people age, middle-aged men inject it at higher rates than anyone else. But the demographic group that is taking to it fastest is men under the age of 35.
Like many wellness fads, the testosterone craze aims to fix a real medical problem. There is some evidence that men today, on average, have lower testosterone levels than men did decades ago, thanks to higher rates of diabetes, obesity, opioid use and more exposure to environmental toxins. That makes them feel lousier than they ought to. According to Mohit Khera of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, 92% of men with low testosterone suffer from depression and a simple blood test can change their lives for the better. Hypogonadism, the condition, too often goes undiagnosed. Injections can dramatically improve mood, sleep and libido and reduce body fat. Clever entrepreneurs, like Casey Burt of Gameday Buckhead, reckon that the market is still partially untapped: doing away with the stigma around sexual health will reveal more patients who genuinely need care.
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