Men with low testosterone die earlier; reasons unclear

Experts say more research is needed to answer the question of whether men should be prescribed the hormone.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Sept. 11, 2006.

Older men with low testosterone levels are likely to die sooner than those who have normal amounts of this hormone, according to a study published last month in the Archives of Internal Medicine. But the authors and other experts say that rather than supporting the increasingly common practice of prescribing this hormone to men as they age, the findings highlight the continuing need to fill in the knowledge gaps.

"There's a lot of controversy over prescribing testosterone. So many more men are using it, and we don't really know the risks and benefits. We really need to do more research," said Molly Shores, MD, lead author and director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Clinic at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle. "This [study] is another piece of the puzzle of trying to understand what role low testosterone plays in older men."

Researchers analyzed retrospectively the medical records of 852 men receiving care at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System from 1994 until 1999. Only about a fifth of those with normal testosterone died during this period. More than a third with low levels did.

Experts expressed caution at interpreting the data as supportive of testosterone supplementation. While this study found an association between low testosterone and death, it did not prove whether the hormone was the cause, whether the low levels indicated that other disease processes were to blame, or whether the presence of other hormones or unmeasured factors possibly led to the mortality.