(Press-News.org) San Diego, CA--Men with borderline testosterone levels have higher rates of depression and depressive symptoms than the general population, new research finds. The results will be presented Saturday, March 7, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego.
"Over half of men referred for borderline testosterone levels have depression. This study found that men seeking management for borderline testosterone have a very high rate of depression, depressive symptoms, obesity and physical inactivity," said principal study author Michael S. Irwig, MD, FACE, associate professor of medicine and director of the Center for Andrology in the Division of Endocrinology at George Washington University in Washington, DC. "Clinicians need to be aware of the clinical characteristics of this sample population and manage their comorbidities such as depression and obesity."
The number of men having their testosterone levels checked has increased dramatically. Studies of the possible association between depression and serum testosterone show inconsistent results, and few studies have been published about adult men referred for the management of borderline testosterone.
Dr. Irwig and his colleagues studied 200 adult men between 20 and 77 years of age whose testosterone levels were borderline (between 200 and 350 nanograms per deciliter).
The researchers collected the men's demographic information, medical histories, medication use, and signs and symptoms of hypogonadism.
They remeasured the men's total testosterone and assessed depression from their medical history and depressive symptoms with the validated Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9).
Using a score of 10 or higher on the PHQ-9, 56% of the study participants had significant depressive symptoms, known diagnosis of depression and/or use of an antidepressant. Their rates of depressive symptoms were markedly higher than the 15 to 22% in an ethnically diverse sample of primary care patients and the 5.6% among overweight and obese US adults.
The population also had a high prevalence of overweight (39%), obesity (40%) and physical inactivity; other than walking, 51% of the men did not engage in regular exercise. The most common symptoms reported were erectile dysfunction (78%), low libido (69%) and low energy (52%).
"This study underscores the utility of a validated instrument to screen for depression, especially as some subjects may deny signs and symptoms during the interview. Appropriate referrals should be made for formal evaluation and treatment of depression," Dr. Irwig said.
INFORMATION:
This study was not funded.
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 18,000 scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in 122 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.
San Diego, CA--Menopausal hormone therapy (HT) does not have a significant effect on death, according to a new review of the medical literature published over the past three decades. The results, which included studies with follow-up as long as 18 years, will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
"At present, we do not have evidence that hormone therapy in postmenopausal women increases mortality or protects from death compared with women who never used hormones," said lead investigator Khalid Benkhadra, MD, a research fellow ...
In the absence of food, neurons that normally control appetite initiate complex, repetitive behaviors seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and anorexia nervosa, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers.
The findings are published in the March 5 online issue of the journal Cell.
Neural circuits are responsible for flexible goal-oriented behaviors. The Yale team investigated how a population of neurons in the hypothalamus that control food intake are also involved in other behaviors. Known as Agrp neurons, these cells also control repetitive, ...
Even though the levels of two environmental pollutants have declined over the last 20 years, they may still have adverse effects on children's development, according to a new study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. This is the largest study of environmental pollutants and infant growth to date.
Researchers investigated whether exposure to two persistent organic pollutants before and after birth was associated with rapid growth in infancy, a known risk factor for obesity in later life:
polychlorinated biphenyl 153 (PCB153), a chemical used extensively in ...
The human brain can select relevant objects from a flood of information and edit out what is irrelevant. It also knows which parts belong to a whole. If, for example, we direct our attention to the doors of a house, the brain will preferentially process its windows, but not the neighboring houses. Psychologists from Goethe University Frankfurt have now discovered that this also happens when parts of the objects are merely maintained in our memory.
"Perception and memory have mainly been investigated separately until now", explains Benjamin Peters, doctoral researcher ...
Inflammatory processes occur in the brain in conjunction with stroke and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Researchers from Lund University and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, in close cooperation with a group led by Professor José L. Venero at the University of Seville, have presented new findings about some of the 'key players' in inflammation. In the long term, these findings could lead to new treatments.
One of these key players is a receptor called TLR4. The receptor plays such an important role in the body's innate immune system ...
Children under five living in sub-Saharan Africa are at greater risk than older children of developing a long-term parasitic disease, research suggests.
Infants experience significantly greater exposure to the parasitic worms that cause the chronic disease schistosomiasis, a study shows.
Under-fives are vulnerable because they spend time near rivers and lakes in which parasites that cause the disease live.
Previous studies missed pre-schoolers significant exposure to infected water in rivers close to family homes.
Researchers found that preschool-age children ...
The UK needs to increase its investment in science and engineering research if it is to continue to be a successful nation. This is the overriding message coming from a major conference hosted this week by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The conference, 'Science for a Successful Nation', drew high profile academics, industry and business representatives, and researchers together to examine how science and engineering can make the UK a healthy, prosperous, resilient and connected nation.
Professor Philip Nelson FREng, EPSRC's Chief Executive ...
This news release is available in German. Are leaves and buds developing earlier in the spring? And do leaves stay on the trees longer in autumn? Do steppe ecosystems remaining green longer and are the savannas becoming drier and drier? In fact, over recent decades, the growing seasons have changed everywhere around the world. This was determined by a doctoral candidate at the Goethe University as part of an international collaboration based on satellite data. The results are expected to have consequences for agriculture, interactions between species, the functioning ...
Infection with highly contagious noroviruses, while not usually fatal, can lead to a slew of unpleasant symptoms such as excessive vomiting and diarrhea. Current treatment options are limited to rehydration of the patient. "Additionally, noroviruses come in a variety of constantly evolving strains. This makes the development of an effective vaccine to protect against infection, as well as antiviral therapy to combat already-existing infections, particularly challenging", says Dr. Grant Hansman, a virologist who leads the CHS Research Group on Noroviruses at the German Cancer ...
In the race to miniaturize electronic components, researchers are challenged with a major problem: the smaller or the faster your device, the more challenging it is to cool it down. One solution to improve the cooling is to use materials with very high thermal conductivity, such as graphene, to quickly dissipate heat and thereby cool down the circuits.
At the moment, however, potential applications are facing a fundamental problem: how does heat propagate inside these sheets of materials that are no more than a few atoms thick?
In a study published in Nature Communications, ...
