Bad news guys

[phikappa]

Declining testosterone levels have nothing to do with age.

Or, is this good news?

A study by Australian scientists has found that age does not play a role in the dropping of testosterone levels in healthy older men.

The results are the first findings released from the Healthy Man Study, according to principal investigator David Handelsman, MD, PhD, professor and director of the ANZAC Research Institute at the University of Sydney. Some researchers believe that 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," he said.

Handelsman and his team, however, found that 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," Handelsman said.

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 blood samples from the men nine times over three months. They excluded men from the study who took medications that affect testosterone. Obesity caused a mild and clinically unimportant lowering of blood testosterone levels, the investigators reported. Age had no effect on testosterone level.

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 aging, including obesity and heart disease," he said. It does not appear to be a hormone deficiency state," he stated,

The message for patients and their doctors, Handelsman said, is "older men with low testosterone levels do not need testosterone therapy unless they have diseases of their pituitary or testes".

http://health.usnews.com/health-news...terone-to-fall

[KeithTheSnake]

So, what's the bad news?

[phikappa]

So, what's the bad news?

No more bitching.

[camau71]

To bad the test doesn't differentiate between bound and free testosterone levels. If testosterone is bound it cannot be used by the body as it is already bound to another molecoule and cannot fit into a receptor site and be activated. Free testosterone floats in the bloodstream and can be loaded into a receptor, activated and used.

Standard bloodtesting may show normal levels of test, but because they combine both numbers the results may be misleading.

[AKMass]

Worthless study.

[Bo_Flecks]

This chart and corresponding source information has been posted on here a few times. You can match up the findings with the OP and take it for what it's worth.

[Karl_Hungus]

^^ As the chart shows ... Total test doesn't decrease for awhile ... and even appears to increase. But, SHBG also appears to increase meaning that free test is actually lower.

[Rdez]

The test says that obesity and heart disease may be the real 'cause' of decreased libido?

Did the study include men who were obese or had early heart disease as a control?

[buaidh]

This doesn't exactly sound like a random sample. Everyone knows Australian men have higher than normal testosterone levels, especially ones self-reporting as having "excellent health".

Seriously, though, if true, it's good news on both fronts. For one, we don't have to worry about testosterone automatically declining as we age. But if you do end up with this problem, you don't have to put up with it being excused by your doctor as being a "normal" part of getting older.

[ChimarraoMate]

Nothing to do with Age???? Ok, maybe you ment Age is not the root cause? I will agree that age is less of the cause than lifestyle changes are, but statistically, age is the most relavent factor. One problem with your study that makes it worthless is the timespan it was run for. Hell, it takes more than 3 months to see any real change from agressive actions. Three months of aging would have less of an impact on blood hormonal levels than one meal does.

[DaddyR]

So men without any symptoms of test deficiency didn't have any test deficiency. Who would've guessed that?

Better would have been to take a random sample of older men and done statstics to determine association of test levels with various factors to prove whether there are specific factors other than age that are associated with declining test levels. But I guess that may have required a much larger sample to achieve the necessary statistical power to sort out all of the potential factors.

As it is, yes it looks like it's not very helpful from a scientific standpoint, but it does make for good popular magazine sales.