(Press-News.org) Washington, DC—The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) advising against the use of testosterone therapy in healthy women.
The CPG, entitled "Androgen Therapy in Women: A Reappraisal: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," was published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of the Endocrine Society. The Society updated its 2006 recommendations to address new research concerning testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) therapy in women as well as advances in testosterone testing and measurement techniques.
Androgens are a group of sex hormones that includes testosterone. DHEA is a prohormone that can be converted into testosterone or estradiol, a form of estrogen. While these are often thought of as male hormones, small amounts of androgens also are found in women.
"Although limited research suggests testosterone therapy in menopausal women may be linked to improved sexual function, there are too many unanswered questions to justify prescribing testosterone therapy to otherwise healthy women," said Margaret E. Wierman, MD, of the University of Colorado in Aurora, CO. She also is the Society's Vice President of Clinical Science and chair of the task force that authored the guideline.
"When we reviewed past studies, we found many women who had low testosterone levels measured by older or new techniques did not exhibit any signs or symptoms of concern," Wierman said. "As a result, physicians cannot make a diagnosis of androgen deficiency in women."
This is different from men, who often display specific symptoms of androgen deficiency. In cases where men have both symptoms and low levels of testosterone, they can be diagnosed with hypogonadism, according to the Society's Clinical Practice Guideline on Testosterone Therapy in Adult Men with Androgen Deficiency Syndromes.
For women, the only situation where the Society suggests prescribing testosterone therapy is if a woman has been diagnosed with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD). This condition occurs when a woman has no interest in sex and that lack of interest causes personal distress. In these cases, the CPG suggests a three- to six-month trial of testosterone to see if the therapy improves sexual function.
Some physicians opt to prescribe testosterone therapy to otherwise healthy women on an off-label basis. The CPG recommends that physicians avoid prescribing testosterone to improve sexual dysfunction in women who do not have HSDD. Use of testosterone in women has been linked to changes in cholesterol as well as conditions like acne and hirsutism, the excessive growth of hair, often on the face, back or chest. Long-term risks to the breast or cardiovascular system are unknown.
"Currently, there isn't enough evidence that any benefits outweigh the risks to most women," Wierman said. "More research is needed to determine the long-term safety of testosterone therapy in postmenopausal women."
Review of the use of DHEA therapy showed no significant benefit when given to normal women or those with adrenal insufficiency. As a result, the task force did not recommend treatment of women with DHEA.
Since the publication of the Society's 2006 CPG, there have been significant advances in testosterone testing and measurement. Now more research is needed to reexamine existing theories about the role of testosterone in women and answer ongoing questions about its safety and effectiveness, Wierman said.
To ensure hormone levels are measured accurately, the test must be carefully calibrated. The Society collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and other groups to establish the Partnership for the Accurate Testing of Hormones (PATH) to address the need for better hormone testing.
INFORMATION:
The Hormone Health Network offers additional resources on androgens in women.
Other members of the Endocrine Society task force that developed this CPG include: Wiebke Arlt of the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, U.K.; Rosemary Basson of the University of British Columbia and Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Susan R. Davis of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; Karen K. Miller of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA; Mohammad H. Murad of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN; William Rosner of Columbia University in New York, NY; and Nanette Santoro of the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
The Society established the CPG Program to provide endocrinologists and other clinicians with evidence-based recommendations in the diagnosis and treatment of endocrine-related conditions. Each CPG is created by a task force of topic-related experts in the field. Task forces rely on scientific reviews of the literature in the development of CPG recommendations. The Endocrine Society does not solicit or accept corporate support for its CPGs. All CPGs are supported entirely by Society funds.
The CPG was co-sponsored by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the European Society of Endocrinology and the International Menopause Society.
Founded in 1916, the Endocrine Society is the world's oldest, largest and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and the clinical practice of endocrinology. Today, the Endocrine Society's membership consists of over 17,000 scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in more than 100 countries. Society members represent all basic, applied and clinical interests in endocrinology. The Endocrine Society is based in Washington, DC. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at http://www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/EndoMedia.
Luis Fernando Velásquez-García's group at MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) develops dense arrays of microscopic cones that harness electrostatic forces to eject streams of ions.
The technology has a range of promising applications: depositing or etching features onto nanoscale mechanical devices; spinning out nanofibers for use in water filters, body armor, and "smart" textiles; or propulsion systems for fist-sized "nanosatellites."
In the latest issue of the IEEE Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Velásquez-García, his graduate students Eric ...
Cincinnati, OH, October 3, 2014 -- Increasing rates of adolescent obesity and the likelihood that obesity will carry forward into adulthood, have led to various preventive initiatives. It has been suggested that family meals, which tend to include fruits, vegetables, calcium, and whole grains, could be protective against obesity. In a new study scheduled for publication in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers studied whether frequent family meals during adolescence were protective for overweight and obesity in adulthood.
Jerica M. Berge, PhD, MPH, LMFT, CFLE, and ...
In the field of medicine there has often been a divide between those who focus on modern medicine and those who prefer alternative practices. But pediatrician Sunita Vohra is a firm believer there should be room for both.
A new study from Vohra, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry's Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta, and a pediatric physician for Clinical Pharmacology with Alberta Health Services, is giving insight into the use of alternative medicines by pediatric cardiac patients and how effective they are seen to be. "We wanted to ...
Tel Aviv — The incidence of type 1 childhood diabetes has been increasing rapidly worldwide. If blood sugar levels aren't well-controlled, juvenile diabetes can affect nearly every organ of a child's body. And while long-term complications of the disease develop gradually, they may become disabling and even life-threatening. The exact cause of juvenile diabetes has eluded scientists, but a new study from Tel Aviv University suggests a likely trigger before birth.
In a recent paper published in Diabetic Medicine, Prof. Zvi Laron, Professor Emeritus of Pediatric Endocrinology ...
A team of researchers, led by the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, has demonstrated a breakthrough technique that offers the first possibility of silicon detectors for telecommunications.
For decades, silicon has been the foundation of the microelectronics revolution and, owing to its excellent optical properties in the near- and mid-infrared range, is now promising to have a similar impact on photonics.
The team's research, reported in the journal Nature Materials, describes engineering the electronic band structure of laser-crystallised ...
A study conducted in more than 100 Mongolian schoolchildren found that daily treatment with a vitamin D supplement significantly reduced the symptoms of winter-related atopic dermatitis, a type of eczema. Led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician, the report in the October issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology supports the results of a preliminary study that showed similar results in a small group of children in Boston.
"While we don't know the exact proportion of patients with atopic dermatitis whose symptoms worsen in the winter, the ...
As global life expectancy increases, adults want to maintain healthy and active lifestyles well into retirement. In fact, research shows that adults think, feel and behave five to ten years younger than their actual age.1-2 But new findings from a review paper published in Age and Ageing show that approximately one out of three adults age 50 and older suffer from sarcopenia, a condition that could interfere with aging adults' ability to live a full and active life.3
Sarcopenia, as it is known in the medical field, is a condition when a person has progressive loss of ...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass--When someone crumples a sheet of paper, that usually means it's about to be thrown away. But researchers have now found that crumpling a piece of graphene "paper" — a material formed by bonding together layers of the two-dimensional form of carbon — can actually yield new properties that could be useful for creating extremely stretchable supercapacitors to store energy for flexible electronic devices.
The finding is reported in the journal Scientific Reports by MIT's Xuanhe Zhao, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental ...
October 3, 2014 – Children who require long-term parenteral nutrition are at risk of a potentially devastating complication called intestinal failure-associated liver disease (IAFLD). The diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of IAFLD are discussed in a new position paper in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, official journal of the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams ...
TORONTO, October 3, 2014 – Ache, agony, distress and pain draw more attention than non-pain related words when it comes to people who suffer from chronic pain, a York University research using state-of-the-art eye-tracking technology has found.
"People suffering from chronic pain pay more frequent and longer attention to pain-related words than individuals who are pain-free," says Samantha Fashler, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health and the lead author of the study. "Our eye movements — the things we look at — generally reflect what we attend to, and knowing how ...
