Study Looks at Testosterone and Artery Health

Older men whose low testosterone is restored to normal through gels, patches, or injections have a lower risk of heart attack, stroke, or death from any cause, compared to men who are not treated, scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have found.

Testosterone might not rev up males’s intercourse lives as a lot as they anticipate it to: Older males with barely low testosterone ranges didn’t expertise enchancment of their want or intimacy after they took testosterone dietary supplements, in accordance with a brand new research. By all accounts, the testosterone replacement drug business has grown substantially over the past decade and will likely continue to do so as the population ages.

Larger studies are needed to determine whether taking testosterone increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes or other cardiovascular events. The study was published online August 6, 2015, in the European Heart Journal.

They defined having low testosterone as the lower limit of normal that was reported on lab tests in order to avoid a cutoff and lower disparities in ranges used by a number of different reporting units.

Last month, Medical News Today ran a Spotlight feature on the debate surrounding testosterone therapy, with clinicians in conflict on when such treatment is appropriate and what its risks and benefits are.

The study, however, found that testosterone did not affect the rate of hardening of the arteries.

Sales of testosterone amounted to around $20 million a year in the early 1990s, but by 2012 it had grown into a $2 billion industry, he said.

This study is more prone to catch the attention of people as this size is huge and has a follow-up as long as about 6 years or even more in some cases.

“That was the surprising thing”, said senior study author Dr. Shalender Bhasin, director of the Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Similarly, men with normalized testosterone levels (group 1) fared better than those who took TRT but failed to see normalization of testosterone (group 2).

The mechanisms underlying these effects “remain speculative”, the investigators noted. They suggest that potential factors include body fat, insulin sensitivity, blood platelets, lipids and inflammation. The truth is that it helps in the prevention of these cardiovascular-related problems. The groups receiving TRT with split into two treatment goals; treatment of the first group focused on restoring testosterone to normal levels, where the second group’s treatment merely focused on increasing levels (though not necessarily up to to normal levels).