A new study:- Improvement in cardiometabolic risk factors with TRT use
The health benefits of Testosterone Replacement Therapy are well recognised, however there is a lack of long term data proving this. Encouraging results from an 8 year observation time, confirm that optimising testosterone levels in men with Testosterone Deficiency Syndrome improves cardiovascular risk factors and is not associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Here is a summary of the results from a recent publication on our real-life data from registries of hypogonadal men receiving long-term testosterone treatment, performed in two urology offices.
This is a subgroup analysis of patients with a pre-existing cardiovascular disease (CVD, defined as diagnosed coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction and/or stroke). 12.4% of all patients in the registries fulfilled this criterion. During treatment with testosterone with three-monthly depot injections for a duration of up to 8 years, not a single cardiovascular event or death occurred.
All these high-risk patients with a life-threatening disease were monitored and treated for their CVD elsewhere (cardiologists, internists, general practitioners). What the urologists (the investigators of this study) did was treat patients’ hypogonadism with testosterone. Surprisingly, the baseline situation of these patients suggested that they were far from being well managed: they were obese (mean BMI: 37 kg/m2), hypertensive (mean systolic blood pressure: 164 mmHg), dyslipidaemic (mean total cholesterol: 302 mg/dl = 7.8 mmol/L) and had poor glycaemic control (mean fasting glucose: 108 mg/dl = 6 mmol/L, mean HbA1c: 7.6%). 60% of these patients had diabetes.
With testosterone treatment in addition to the standard therapy patients were receiving, every one of the known cardiometabolic risk factors improved in a clinically meaningful, progressive and sustained fashion. The mean weight loss was 20% achieving a mean BMI of 29 kg/m2 and a mean HbA1c of 5.7%, just to name a few of the effects.
The paper is available with open access at https://www.dovepress.com/article_27439.t56011882