Hegseth’s dubious low-T screening may flag up to 25 percent of the Army
Medical experts explicitly recommend against blanket screenings.
Medical experts explicitly recommend against blanket screenings.
The short version
- Up to a quarter of active-duty Army members could receive a low testosterone result from mandatory military screening, despite the true prevalence of the condition likely being a tiny fraction of that figure, according to a study published Thursday in JAMA .
- The JAMA study highlights the reasons why testosterone levels are not measured in men without symptoms—and also offers a glimpse of how many Army members could become ensnared in the clinically dubious screenings.
- Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana and the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Massachusetts conducted the study.
What happened
The researchers drew data from a large military health survey, which included members at five US Army installations. The survey data included morning blood draws from fasting military members.
Why it matters
The samples were collected between August 2024 and January 2026.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.