Testosterone has nothing to do with age
Older men can rest easy knowing an Australian study has found age does not play a role in the dropping of testosterone levels in healthy older men. Professor and director of the ANZAC Research Institute at the University of Sydney and principal investigator, Dr David Handelsman, and his team, found serum (blood) testosterone levels did not decline with increasing age in older men who reported being in excellent health with no symptoms to complain of.
Older men can rest easy knowing an Australian study has found age does not play a role in the dropping of testosterone levels in healthy older men.
Professor and director of the ANZAC Research Institute at the University of Sydney and principal investigator, Dr David Handelsman, and his team, found serum (blood) testosterone levels did not decline with increasing age in older men who reported being in excellent health with no symptoms to complain of.
“We had originally expected age to have an effect on serum testosterone, so the findings were a bit of a surprise,” Dr Handelsman says.
Some researchers believe an age-related testosterone deficiency contributes to the deteriorating health of older men and causes non-specific symptoms, such as tiredness and loss of libido.
Two study centres in Australia recruited 325 men over the age of 40 (median age, 60) who had self-reported excellent health and no symptom complaints.
To test blood testosterone levels, the researchers took nine blood samples from the men over three months.
Men who took medications that affect testosterone where excluded from the research tests.
The study reveals obesity causes a mild and clinically unimportant lowering of blood testosterone levels, but age has no effect on testosterone levels.
Dr Handelsman says the modest decline in blood testosterone among older men, usually coupled with non-specific symptoms, such as easy fatigue and low sexual desire, may be “due to symptomatic disorders that accumulate during ageing, including obesity and heart disease”.
He suggests older male patients with low testosterone levels do not undertake testosterone therapy unless they have diseases of their pituitary or testes.
The results, presented at the Endocrine Society’s 93rd annual meeting in Boston on Monday, 6 June 2011, are the first findings released from the Healthy Man Study.
