Effects of Testosterone [T] treatment on bone strength.
Hitherto, osteoporosis has been seen as a female issue as all women lose sex hormone production and suffer continuing bone loss from age 50: it is equally important in the 50% of older men who lose their testosterone output in their 50’s and 60’s and also lose bone progressively.
A new 2 year study from Spain has shown the benefit of T treatment on bone density in men with low T. The 50 men were between 50 and 65 years old and all had low T levels on measurement. They took either T gel transdermally or oral T undecanoate. The study showed that symptoms were much improved, there were no safety issues and bone density improved over the period of study. Specifically bone density increased an average of 4.5% in the lumbar spine and 3.2 % in the trochanteric region of the hip where fracture occurs. This is an important finding because of the risk of osteoporotic fracture in men with low T. Osteoporosis [bone-thinning] occurs following T depletion and as the bones become increasingly thinned the fracture risk increases proportionally. Fractures in the spine cause pain and height loss/ spinal curvature, fractures in the hip lead to death in around 20% of older men and disability or loss of independence of a larger number. In conclusion: T treatment can augment bone mass and reduce fracture risk in T deficient men.
Reference: Andrology. 2013 May 20. doi: 10.1111/j.2047-2927.2013.00090.x. [Epub ahead of print]
