"A retrospective analysis by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) published in The New England Journal of Medicine found no causal relationship between testosterone replacement and prostate cancer or heart disease risk

"We reviewed decades of research and found no compelling evidence that testosterone replacement therapy increases the incidence of prostate cancer or cardiovascular disease," said Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist at BIDMC and associate clinical professor at Harvard Medical School. "Although it would be helpful to have data from long-term, large-scale studies, it must also be recognized that there already exists a substantial body of research on the effects of testosterone in men."

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/...stosterone.html

The British agree.

"The men with lower testosterone levels had an increased risk of dying from any cause, but most particularly of cardiovascular disease," Khaw tells WebMD. "We looked at cancer, too, and found no evidence of a link to cancer with higher testosterone levels."

Nearly 12,000 men enrolled in the long-term study from 1993 to 1997. More than 800 of the men died by 2003; Khaw compared these men's testosterone levels to those of some 1,500 living study participants.

After adjusting for factors that might affect risk of death -- including age, weight, smoking, alcohol use, high blood pressure, diabetes, physical activity, education, and social class -- the link between low testosterone and earlier death remained.

Compared to men with the lowest quartile (25%) of testosterone levels:

Men in the second lowest quartile were 25% less likely to die.
Men in the second highest quartile were 38% less likely to die.
Men in the highest quartile were 41% less likely to die."

http://men.webmd.com/...one-early-death

I request that this be made a sticky. I want all this Testosterone issue resolved before I'm officially 'legal' in this 35 and over forum! :-)

That is the best news in a long time. Not that people haven't been saying that all a long. I sure makes it sweet when evidence is put on the table.

Now we have to see if this info will trickle down in to a few thousand medical brain pans. I hope for the sack of all guy suffering from this. That TRT be made available to all in need.

Maybe someone that knows the technical jargon could draft a letter to be sent to those that need to learn this.

Best of luck guys. I sure hope this gets things moving in the proper direction. So long over due it is pathetic.

Great news.

Can this be stickied, please?

I wish I still had the link to the study that discusses the lowered incidence of Alzheimers' and higher Testosterone levels in older men.

The gist was that higher Testosterone levels in older men (60+)had a lower rate of developing the "plaque" that causes the loss of brain function known as Alzheimers.
Just think, a better QOL, a stronger heart, more flexible (and less potentially plugged) arteries, better brain funtion, and oh yeah, sexual function w/o the little blue pill too!

I'm glad i'm on TRT now, so I have the potential to age gracefully and stay as strong as possible in every way as I age.

I remember life before TRT, and life was barely an existence, where now even though I have some physical issues, I still have the desires of a 17 year old and the ability to carry it out, where before I just wasn't interested...

I had three issues that TRT fixed. All of these problems had Dr's scratching their heads for years.
1. My heart used to lose rhythm for several seconds when doing cardio. After two months of TRT it's fixed. (Dr's told me not to worry about it over the years. Yeah....)

2. I used to have lower ab muscle spasms that would last for weeks at a time. Now they're history.

3. My joints used to hurt. Now no joint pain.
I think I was slowly falling apart and now my body feels fresh. We all know that Dr's never want to fix the root of the problem though. They would rather hand out a pile of pills to treat symptoms.

Someday........

Absence of proof does not mean proof of absence?
Thanks for the link Doc.

Dr. S,

Please do not introduce strawman arguments.

There will and never can be a causative relationship between statistics and conclusions drawn from them. Statistics is not deductive by its very nature.

Science in and of itself is inductive. It only deals with probabilities. Some of the probabilities are so overwhelming that we postulate them as axioms of science. Yet they are not true axioms in the mathematical sense.

When I look at a large study like the British one, I certainly don't think it 'proves' anything. It is not supposed to anyway. Science never 'proves' anything, not being purely deductive.

But just as I no longer smoke cigarettes because of overwhelming statistical evidence that doing so is harmful, I will in the future get my testosterone levels checked and go on TRT when and if the time comes.

It is not clear that higher testosterone levels from supplemental testosterone leads to better health in males. It is more likely that males who are genetically predisposed to higher levels of testosterone (aka: Alpha Males) have physiological advantages (protection from disease) over males with lower levels of testosterone.

It is clear (both in primate and in human studies) that males lower on the totem pole have higher levels of stress and higher levels of disease (specifically heart disease).

Hell, I printing that Harvard study and giving to my doctor. It pretty much says the exact opposite of what he told me. You know the usual - "Too much Test will hurt your prostrate" and so on.

Hell, I'm printing that Harvard study and giving to my doctor. It pretty much says the exact opposite of what he told me. You know the usual - "Too much Test will hurt your prostrate" and so on.

The typical doctor loves to get you just above minimum. That way they get a little CYA and that's about it. I posted these studies for all of us to have ammo if needed. Now to find a doc who'll not just pooh-pooh the studies.

"""
Rises in the levels of the gonadotropins, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), have been associated with Alzheimer's disease [AD], but the clinical effects of reducing their levels remain to be determined.

We hypothesize that androgens, gonadotropin modulators, or perhaps selective androgen receptor modulators may be useful components of therapy aimed at preventing the onset or delaying the progression of AD in male patients.
"""

Gonadotropins increase in response to lost testosterone levels [in cases of primary hypogonadism]. The key factor is the loss of testosterone levels, not the gonadotropins increasing in response.

So there is less AD in secondary hypogonadism where there the gonadotropin levels are low or nil?

Do the high levels of hCG in pregnacy cause AD? Do childless women have less AD than mothers?

I offer that the association should not have been stated any more than to offer an association of AD with lost libido.

To suggest reducing gonadotropin levels is insane. However, one method of doing that effectively is TRT.

This thread is great, and very relevant to my current situation. I had to stop my HRT due to an elevated PSA of 7, which came back to 2.5 after a month of Cipro. Still not as low as pre-HRT, but with a normal digital rectal exam I had the feeling it was prostatis. My first HRT doc had freaked out and made me stop the HRT and the look on her face said cancer.

I went to two urologists, both want me to have biopsies, even though the second one saw the 2.5 and said it probably was just prostatis. I read about biopsies of the prostate, this is not a benign test anymore as they put you under general anesthesis and biopsy 18 sites since it is so hard to find prostate CA. The test itself can lead to erectile dysfunction.

My current "holistic" doctor was the first one to have really read the literature, and knew about studies such as the harvard one in this thread. He convinced me the downside of not using HRT right now in me was far greater than the risk of prostate cancer, and I resumed the HRT. He also put me on pregnenelone which I believe has helped.

I also have wondered about the proper target level of total test...my ED disappears when the levels get above 900 whereas most HRT docs like it a little lower, even this smart one I have now. However ED is also related to many other factors...that's another thread. Doc