| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a lifetime of unnecessary and costly injections of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Take a look at your right hand. Is your ring finger slightly longer than your index finger? If you answered yes, congrats! A man who goes by @bodybuilding_guru says you're "genetically predisposed" to more testosterone. Never mind that multiple scientists have debunked that idea. Or that TikTok is the worst possible place to get health advice. Those who are interested in "looksmaxxing" will stop at nothing to get swole, including, incredibly, never touching grocery store receipts. Young men have an entire lexicon to fight their current crisis of masculinity: They're mogging at the gym. They're mewing in class. They're chugging raw eggs for breakfast. They're bulking to reach a new PR. And a growing subset of them are "testosterone-maxxing" with TRT, a sex hormone replacement therapy they believe will enhance their sexual, physical and mental well-being: Chris Bryant says we're living in a "Wild West" of testosterone. While plenty of people have a valid reason for treatment — perhaps they have a hemoglobin deficiency or they suffer from osteoporosis or they're in need of gender-affirming care — bad actors are all too eager to take advantage of Joe Rogan sycophants who religiously monitor their T-levels. "Championed by buff podcasters, Hollywood actors, fitness influencers and even former US presidential candidates, testosterone consumption is booming," he writes. But blasting yourself with 500 mg of "test" isn't a TikTok experiment, nor is it "akin to taking a multivitamin." It's reckless, plain and simple. The widespread acceptance of TRT has created an aura of casualness that's frankly unwarranted, Chris writes. "There's a danger that opting for TRT as a cure-all means health issues such as obesity aren't appropriately addressed, while young men risk impaired fertility and a lifetime of unnecessary and costly injections." In the UK, for instance, Adrian Wooldridge says adolescents are increasingly at risk of being overweight: "More than a fifth of 10-to–11-year-olds are classified as obese," he writes. "The 2022 NHS mental health survey of 6-to–17-year-olds showed that 17% had symptoms of mental disorder, a 50% increase from 2017." Britain clearly needs a strategy to get healthier, but testosterone hacking to transform into the Hulk shouldn't be one of them. In fact, "cruising" on a persistently high dose of testosterone could make your heath exponentially worse: "Administering testosterone without medical supervision and at levels far greater than normally found in the body increases the possibility of side effects such as hair loss, male breast growth, mental health and cardiovascular problems," Chris writes. Read the whole thing. And please don't worry about your fingers, I'm sure they're a perfectly fine length. Bonus Health Fad Reading: 23andMe is just "Me" now. — Matt Levine Elsewhere in risky health experiments, there is the state of Oregon, which tried to decriminalize drugs to ostensibly disastrous effects. "Many would argue that it showed us what not to do," Lisa Jarvis writes. "But an honest assessment of what happened in Oregon paints a more complex picture." When Measure 110 — which decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs — went into effect in mid-2021, Oregon had an extremely high rate of addiction. It also lacked the clinics and workers to help those in need. "Without near-perfect execution, the experiment seemed destined to fail. And a failure is what many would call it," Lisa writes. "Homelessness, crime and addiction all rose, straining public spaces," and drug overdose deaths spiked as well. Given the timing of all that, the cause seems obvious: It had to be decriminalization. But a recent paper found an entirely different culprit: fentanyl. "The results of their analysis, which compared Oregon with states that lacked decriminalization, stunned even the study authors, says Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor at Brown University, who led the work. The rise in deaths was entirely due to fentanyl. All of it," Lisa writes. Obviously, Oregon will never be the poster child for drug decriminalization. But it'd be a real shame if the state's botched experiment doomed future efforts to steer public-health conversations away from punishment. The transportation industry has a lot of shiny new toys these days. Cybertrucks. High-speed rail. Robo-taxis. Old-fashioned railroads, in comparison, seem boring. But Thomas Black says they "are at a pivotal moment in their almost 200-year history." Although trains are contributing less and less to the US economy, they still offer customers a lot of advantages: "Moving goods by train is slower but roughly 15% cheaper than by truck, especially for long hauls and for bulky goods. Railroads are much safer than trucks and are up to four times as fuel efficient."  For the first time in a long time, Chinese President Xi Jinping is choosing to put pragmatism before politics: "Beijing's decision to raise the retirement age shows that it's falling in line with other countries," Karishma Vaswani writes. China's "triple whammy of having among the world's lowest retirement ages, declining birth figures, and rising life expectancy is weighing heavily on finances," she writes. So much for Chinese exceptionalism! Big banks are still too fragile. Blame the regulators. — Bloomberg's editorial board Salesforce is a dark horse in the artificial intelligence race. — Parmy Olson Kim Jong Un's message for Harris and Trump may already be in the mail. — Andreas Kluth Commerzbank still isn't the right fit for Deutsche Bank. — Paul J. Davies The worst-performing British supermarket needs a radical turnaround. — Andrea Felsted Markets decided to treat the Fed's mega cut as a disappointment. — John Authers If states should decide abortion, why can't residents weigh in? — Mary Ellen Klas Mark Robinson left disturbing comments on a porn forum. Vance and Walz held dueling meetings with CEOs. Warren Buffett's front yard might matter in November. A man was charged with threatening to kill six Supreme Court justices. Don't fall for the fake pandas. Sabrina Carpenter is coming for Santa. Giant invasive spiders are spreading. Uncrustables launched its first new flavor in a decade. The Bloody Mary breaks free from brunch. Notes: Please send Hail Caesars and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Threads, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. | 
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