Thursday, June 23, 2011

Testosterone vs Heart Disease

A nice review & meta-analysis was published this month regarding the association between testosterone and heart disease.  While the authors found (only) 19 studies to analyze, they had to search as far back as 1966 all the way up to 2009.  The implication is that we haven't looked closely enough at this linkage and certainly not with adequate statistical discipline.

In fact, studies published prior to 2007 found no association whereas those published afterwards did.  Clearly this raises concern for bias, although it would be difficult, if not impossible, to organize a conspiracy from such a diverse group of researchers.

On the other hand, age appeared to make a difference, as those younger than 70 years of age demonstrated no linkage between heart disease & testosterone.  However, testosterone appears to make a slight difference for those men older than 70.  This then brings up again the possibility that low testosterone reflects poor health which increases one's risk for heart disease, rather than the more recent excitement that low testosterone in some way directly increased one's risk for heart disease.  

The take home point for now is to avoid starting testosterone in hopes of gaining some supposed heart benefit.  Testosterone to treat symptomatic hypogonadism is reasonable but not to overtly prevent & treat heart disease (which hasn't yet been proven).

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