Social media influencers are convincing healthy young men to test testosterone

A new study reveals how online wellness personalities are reframing normal male experience as medical crisis—and profiting from the confusion.

Researchers analyzing 46 high-impact social media posts about low testosterone found a consistent pattern: influencers and supplement companies are targeting healthy young men with a simple message—that something is wrong with them. Energy dips, mood shifts, normal aging. All framed as signs of deficiency requiring urgent intervention.

"This creates a sense of urgency for solutions, which fuels lucrative markets for pharmaceuticals, supplements and medical devices," says Emma Grundtvig Gram, lead author of the study published in Social Science and Medicine. "It reinforces a narrow, idealised model of masculinity."

The messaging often aligned with "manosphere" communities—online spaces centred on male superiority narratives—where testosterone became the shorthand for dominance, sexual success, and physical power. The ideal was always the same: the "alpha male."

The Medical Reality

Here's what medical guidelines actually say: routine testosterone screening in asymptomatic young men isn't recommended. Testing makes sense when specific symptoms exist—delayed puberty, genuinely reduced libido, persistent fatigue tied to hormonal issues. Not because you're tired on a Tuesday.

Prof Ada Cheung, an endocrinologist, notes the risks are real. Unnecessary treatment can mask underlying conditions and expose men to side effects including infertility, cardiovascular strain, and blood thickening. The cure becomes worse than the non-problem.

Follow the Money

The financial incentive is unmissable. Seventy-two percent of the posts analyzed had direct financial interests—selling tests, treatments, supplements. Two-thirds included promo codes or direct purchase links. Conflicts of interest were rarely disclosed to viewers.

What's troubling, researchers say, is how easily people with minimal health expertise can make unsubstantiated claims online, sell products based on those claims, and face no consequences. The barrier to entry for health misinformation is essentially zero.

This isn't about testosterone itself. It's about how narratives around masculinity—what it should look like, what it requires—are being weaponised to create problems that don't exist. And it's working. Young, healthy men are getting tested and treated for conditions they don't have, driven by ideology and profit margins rather than medicine.