Ads have been popping up in recent years, which urge middle-aged men to seek testosterone drugs to enhance their energy, strength, and libido. As a result, prescriptions for testosterone replacement have increased by 500% in the past decade.
A new study suggests that such treatments also enhance the risks of heart disease and related death, as reported in MedPageToday.
“Testosterone therapy was associated with a higher risk of adverse outcomes in male veterans undergoing coronary angiography, a study showed.
“After adjustment for the presence of coronary artery disease, testosterone therapy was associated with a greater risk of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, and ischemic stroke 3 years after angiography (25.7% versus 19.9%; HR 1.29, 95% CI 1.04-1.58), according to P. Michael Ho, MD, PhD, of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Eastern Colorado Health Care System in Denver, and colleagues.
“The relationship remained consistent among those with and without coronary artery disease, they reported in the Nov. 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“These results differ from a previous retrospective VA study of testosterone therapy that found a 39% reduction in mortality risk among patients given testosterone. But that study included a cohort with a lower incidence of heart disease, and used an analysis that didn’t account for differences in time from study cohort entry to the initiation of testosterone therapy, the authors wrote.
Steven Nissen, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, characterized the study results as a red flag that demands “attention not just from physicians but also from regulators.”
Nissen, who was not involved the study, noted that he is among a group of physicians who “have been worried about testosterone replacement therapy, which is increasingly commonly prescribed and largely fueled by direct-to-consumer advertising that’s urging men to get tested for low testosterone and then to seek replacement.” Continue reading “Testosterone replacement kills”