Testosterone Therapy Takes Off Pounds – Science News

“This definitely offers some insight that we can apply to our clinical practices,” said Vineeth Mohan, a clinical endocrinologist at Cleveland Clinic Florida in Weston.

High testosterone levels have been linked to prostate cancer risk (SN: 10/8/05, p. 238), and a small portion of men taking high doses of it experience mania (SN: 2/19/00, p. 119). But in this study, Saad said, men received testosterone in doses just high enough to bring them back to normal levels. Three men in the test group were diagnosed with prostate cancer during the study, a rate lower than the incidence found in routine screening programs for men that age, he said.

Fat tissue induces the release of cortisone and other chemicals that studies have shown suppress production of testosterone, Saad said. The result is depressed mood, low energy and less activity. “This is a vicious circle that leads to more accumulation of fat mass and [continued] low levels of testosterone,” he said.

This loss is not greatly governed by age. An Australian study also reported at the meeting linked testosterone decline more closely to obesity, diabetes and depression than aging. Study coauthor Gary Wittert, a clinical endocrinologist of the University of Adelaide, reported that age had only a slight effect on testosterone levels in 1,384 men studied over five years, whereas depression had an effect two to three times as great.

That and other data suggest that “testosterone decline is not an inevitable result of aging among men,” Wittert said. Rather, loss is attributable to “a variety of factors such as social demographics, health status, chronic disease, obesity and depression.”