Most of us may be aware that motherhood brings with it an array of biological changes, but not much is spoken about fatherhood. Well, as per scientists from the Northwestern University, human males are biologically regulated to heed to their child and their testosterone levels apparently drop as they become fathers.
This influence is also seen in other species where males are known to take care of the dependent child. Testosterone apparently triggers actions and attributes that help a male in the mating process. As they successfully become fathers in the due course, behaviors related to mating may be replaced by obligations of fatherhood, thus making it beneficial for the body to lower the creation of this hormone.
“Humans are unusual among mammals in that our offspring are dependent upon older individuals for feeding and protection for more than a decade. He also is a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern. Raising human offspring is such an effort that it is cooperative by necessity, and our study shows that human fathers are biologically wired to help with the job,†specified Christopher W. Kuzawa, co-author of the study and associate professor of anthropology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
The outcomes essentially showed that men with high testosterone supposedly face higher chances of fatherhood, but as soon as they reach that stage, the testosterone levels significantly drop. This was implicated specifically in fathers who were very much engrossed in child care.
The revelations show that when fathers first bring home their new born infant, they seem to face a short-term and substantial decline in testosterone levels. Being a father leads to many emotional, psychological and physical regulations. This analysis unfolds that a man’s biological clock presumably alters to adhere to these requirements.
Kuzawa says that this is apparently one of the reasons why bachelors have poorer health than those married. Fathers appear to have lower testosterone levels that help in building resistance against diseases with growing age. The study included 624 males in the age-group 21.5 to 26 years and they were under inspection for a span of 4.5 years.
The study namely, ‘Longitudinal Evidence That Fatherhood Decreases Testosterone in Human Males’ is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.