Weight Loss May Diminish Male Hormones, Study Shows

Initial results from a pilot study involving the Harvard wrestling team have shown that the wrestlers' testosterone level declined slightly during the season.

Dr. Peter Ellison, head of the research team and a member of the Anthropology Department explained that the results only confirm a previously held notion that rapid weight loss and intense physical exertion may lead to short team suppressive effects of the reproductive functions.

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Because wrestlers lose a great deal of weight to make their weight class--between 20 and 40 pounds during the course of the season. Ellison said, wrestlers were targeted as the ideal subjects for the study.

Previous studies among women have shown that starvation and large amounts of exercise may lower estrogen levels. While estrogen is a slightly different end product from testosterone, the metabolic processes that lead to the production of such sex hormones are essentially the same for men and women.

"Maybe a parallel disruption of reproductive functions may occur in males," said Ellison.

The crucial question that researchers hope to answer. Ellison said, is whether a person has to be starving before any significant disruption of the reproductive functions occur. However, the investigators will have to wait until the post-season tests are analyzed sometime in early April before the question is answered, he added.

The study also tested a new way of collecting samples Members of the research group collected saliva instead of blood samples for the tests Ellison explained that saliva "was an easier medium and subjects are much more willing to cooperate."

Test results may reveal next to nothing in terms of human sexual activity. However, Ellison said the results helpful in showing the effects of certain dieting regimens and rapid weight loss, an obsession with much of the health-conscious American public.

Junior Dan Medalie, a wrestler who participated in the study, agreed that such information may be helpful, particularly to athletes, in gauging the limitations of their bodies.