The Beef on Crew's Raging Hormones

"Is your Harvard male your basic off-the-rack male? I would say, 'Yes, he is,''' says Dr. Richard G. Bribiescas.

Having proven that they can beat Yale with a fair degree of consistency, the men's crew team is in the process of helping to prove something entirely different.

Bribiescas, who works at nearby Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), is currently using the team as part of a study of testosterone levels in urban males. According to Bribiescas, testosterone levels vary widely among urban males and the level of the hormone may be correlated with energy intake and expenditure.

"We know that non-Western males, particularly in anthropological studies in Africa, Asia and Nepal, who hunt or grow their food for a living, have significantly lower testosterone levels than Western males," says Bribiescas. "We think energy intake has something to do with this."

It's an experimental investigation, and Harvard rowers represent a natural experiment. Bribiescas says that because there are two subsets of rowers: heavyweights who can eat as much as they want and lightweights who must maintain their weight at a certain level, the group forms a perfect data set, one that simply does not occur in the "wild."

"It's difficult to get people into the hospital and basically starve them," Bribiescas says.

To participate in the voluntary study, (which boasts a $200 stipend) rowers must go to MGH for an initial physical and then give periodic fluid samples for the rest of the season.

"You just have to come to practice 20 minutes early three times a week, but it doesn't disrupt the rowing," says David O. M. Ellis '98, a heavyweight rower.

Bribiescas says his choice of the Harvard crew team as a study sample was motivated by logistics.

"I have some friends who were on the crew team in the past, and I did my PhD at Harvard," he says. "Once I gave [the coaches and team] a basic outline of what we wanted to do, and how we would go over to the boathouse and bring the study to them, there seemed to be little resistance. In fact, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the study."

But the fact that Harvard has a prestigious and frequently victorious crew program may also have something to do with it.

"There's certainly going to be a difference between Harvard rowing and Tuft's rowing or [Boston College] rowing because we work harder and have different eating patterns," Ellis says.

David M. Weiss '99, a lightweight rower, takes an appropriately light-hearted view of the matter.

"[The doctors coordinating the study] wanted `elite' athletes, which I find kind of funny," he says. "There are people on the team who could compete physically at the Olympic level, and then there are other people."

Bribiescas was careful to point out that the study falls completely within NCAA regulations and has already been approved by Harvard administrators.

"We're not giving any drugs or any exogenous things," Bribiescas says, "Plus [there is] the fact that these were all volunteers, and we... were in dialogue with the coaches from the very beginning."

Weiss points out, however, that being involved in the study still feels a little strange.

"I do feel kind of weird that someone's paying me to study my body," he says.