Before one can say anything about "testosterone --> smoking", many other things
must be resolved, including the "periodicity" which you cite.
The main thing that's of interest to me is that, throughout the course of
History, there's been a periodicty associated with the sons of those who've gone
to War, themselves, going off to War.
Currently, the international Financial situation is "reeling" be-cause the sons
of those who "gave" us the Great Depression have been "in charge" of
things-Financial for long enough to have reiterated their Father's "giving"...
be-cause the stuff of the "giving" is what was Learned in the families in which
the Children were raised.
It's "just" one more way in which ubiquitous Prejudice toward that which is
merely-Familiar ("PTOFA"), left not-Understood, Blindly Ravages folks.
Why I'm getting into this, here, is to show that the Q you've raised is a =Big=
one, and you've got to address a =lot= of other stuff before anything can be
said with respect to your Q (and to state the case, =In-General=, because Qs,
similar to yours, which are inherently-irresolvable-without-a-lot-of-other-Work,
routinely "pass" for "Science-having-been-'Accomplished'"... which is an
Awesome-Sorrow.) ken collins
James Howard wrote:
> This explanation of increasing smoking in youth in our society was
> published, April 24, 1998, page A4, in the “Northwest Arkansas Times.” It
> explains the increase in youth smoking as well as increased smoking in our
> colleges just reported (Journal of the American Medical Association 1998;
> 280: 1673).
>> James Michael Howard
> Fayetteville, Arkansas, U.S.A.
>> “My work suggests human evolution is driven by increased testosterone in our
> species. Male and female humans produce more testosterone than male and
> female chimpanzees. Over time, testosterone will periodically increase in
> populations. This will produce what is called the “secular trend,” which is
> an increase in overall size and earlier onset of puberty. This is currently
> occurring rapidly in the United States.
>> Therefore, puberty, triggered by testosterone in boys and girls, should
> increase the tendency to smoke. It has been determined that “social and
> psychological variables are used to explain why young people become
> cigarette smokers, whereas biological factors have been virtually ignored as
> possible determinants of that behavior. In this study, salivary
> testosterone was positively associated with cigarette smoking among 201
> subjects 12-14 years of age.” (J Behav Med 1989; 12: 425-433). Since my
> work suggests that testosterone is increasing in this country, this may
> explain national news service reports (April 3) of increasing tobacco use by
> our youth, despite expensive, concerted attempts to reduce smoking.”
