{"id":552620,"date":"2026-07-16T12:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552620\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T12:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:01:08","slug":"hegseth-plans-testosterone-screening-for-us-troops-including-women-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552620\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth plans testosterone screening for US troops, including women \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> has announced a mandatory screening programme to test all service members over the age of 30, including women, for testosterone deficiency annually.<\/p>\n

Hormone treatment for troops with low testosterone will be voluntary.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual war fighter,\u201d Hegseth said in a video from his Pentagon office. \u201cWe have a sacred duty to maintain that advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal, he said in a social media message accompanying the video, was a \u201cHigh-T department of war,\u201d Hegseth\u2019s preferred name for the defence department.<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s focus on testosterone levels as US forces increase attacks in Iran is unorthodox. Defence secretaries typically focus on larger strategic questions, involving alliances, war and weapons production.<\/p>\n

But Hegseth, a former army National Guard officer and Iraq War veteran, has not shied away from getting involved in the minutiae of service members\u2019 lives, such as mandating new grooming standards for troops who, because of skin conditions, had previously been permitted to grow beards.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo more beardos,\u201d he proclaimed.<\/p>\n

Troops under 30 can volunteer to be screened, and anyone with low hormone levels will have the option to receive testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). \u201cIt\u2019s about restoring and optimising your natural capability,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

The aim, he said, is to better prepare service members for a modern battlefield that Hegseth described as \u201cbrutal and unrelenting\u201d.<\/p>\n

A clinically low level of testosterone in men can cause muscle loss, fatigue, obesity and sexual dysfunction, and is linked to other serious health problems, including diabetes, osteoporosis and depression.<\/p>\n

Stress, poor sleep and head injuries, which are part of military life, can also cause lower hormone levels. Recent studies have identified a condition called \u201coperator syndrome,\u201d in which troops who have served long stretches in special operations units are more likely to report medical problems including decreased testosterone.<\/p>\n

Use of the hormone comes with health risks, most notably to fertility, shutting down sperm production. It can increase the risk of blood clots, and often causes acne and hair loss.<\/p>\n

Because of ongoing stigma, many service members avoid screenings for low testosterone or seek out hormone therapy from direct-to-consumer or illicit sources, Dr Theodore Crisostomo-Wynne, a urologist at the Madigan Army Medical Center, said at a Food and Drug Administration panel in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are service members who work their entire careers to get these special duty statuses that are very highly sought after,\u201d Crisostomo-Wynne said. \u201cAnd they worry that if they get seen for this disease and treated for it, that they may lose that status.\u201d<\/p>\n

While women also produce testosterone, men produce it at 10 to 20 times higher levels. There is no FDA-approved testosterone treatment for women.<\/p>\n

Though TRT has legitimate medical use, the hormone has also grown sharply in popularity in the United States as a lifestyle drug to build muscle mass. Demand has grown from fewer than one million prescriptions in 2000 to nearly 12 million in 2025.<\/p>\n

Low testosterone most often affects men as they age. But TRT use is rising most rapidly among younger men, many of whom do not have clinically low testosterone levels. Popular influencers including Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman have spoken publicly about their own use of TRT, as has Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n

Hegseth, as defence secretary, has sought to cultivate an image as a \u201cmanosphere-friendly\u201d leader. He regularly exercises with troops. He has overseen a ban on transgender service members and has questioned whether women are a detriment to ground combat units. The defence secretary has repeatedly blocked the promotions of women to general and admiral rank, even after they were selected by boards made up of senior officers.<\/p>\n

He has also embraced the manosphere\u2019s vaccine scepticism. Earlier this year, he ordered an end to mandatory annual flu vaccines, calling the policy an \u201cabsurd, overreaching\u201d mandate. Two months later, after a flu outbreak at Air Force basic training that sickened hundreds and killed one trainee, the military reversed course and began requiring flu vaccines for all troops and trainees at initial entry units.<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s order could have implications for the order that he and US president Donald Trump<\/a> issued last year banning transgender troops from serving in the military. The ban, which is being challenged in federal courts, is partially rooted in the Pentagon\u2019s insistence that transgender troops might not be able to access hormone therapy in a war zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Armed Forces must adhere to high mental and physical health standards to ensure our military can deploy, fight, and win, including in austere conditions and without the benefit of routine medical treatment or special provisions,\u201d the Trump administration\u2019s January 2025 ban states.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon has not said why providing hormone therapy would be a problem for transgender troops, but not the rest of the force, though the executive order instituting the ban said that \u201cradical gender ideology\u201d was harmful to troop cohesion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Hegseth\u2019s recommendation that male service members take testosterone makes crystal clear that the policy banning transgender troops for taking the same medication is pure bias,\u201d said Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. \u201cThis is a blatant double standard and underscores the irrationality of the ban.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s move is in line with a recent push by Kennedy to expand access to TRT among American men. Studies in several countries have shown that testosterone levels, which decrease slowly with age, are lower among younger generations of men than historical averages.<\/p>\n

While many researchers have argued that the trend is being driven by rising obesity and increasingly sedentary lifestyles, Kennedy has called declining testosterone an \u201cexistential\u201d threat to humanity. – This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has announced a mandatory screening programme to test all service members over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,43,26574,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-552620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}