Testosterone is really cool. It improves concentration, energy, strength, and libido. Both men and women experience enhanced performance with higher testosterone levels. The problem is that testosterone tends to decline with age. Also, testosterone-blocking therapy to treat prostate cancer can have lingering effects, even after the treatment is stopped. For women, testosterone levels often decline sharply after menopause.
Low testosterone causes many undesirable effects including muscle atrophy, weight gain, tiredness, osteoporosis, low libido and impotence. Absent testosterone in women* is usually a secondary effect of menopause, so it usually occurs in conjunction with low estrogen. In women the loss of estrogen and testosterone causes weight gain, tiredness, osteoporosis vaginal atrophy and low libido.
Judicious administration of testosterone in men and a combination of estrogen and testosterone in women, can dramatically improve quality of life. Bioidentical hormone therapy is the term often used by the doctors who specialize in this area. The idea is to restore hormone levels back to normal.
Risks of Testosterone Therapy
As might be expected, like any powerful tool, misuse of testosterone can be dangerous. Administering testosterone in men with prostate cancer is controversial (see below). However, there are also risks even in men without prostate cancer. One reason is that when testosterone is administered to men estrogen levels also rise. Higher estrogen in men may increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Therefore, estrogen levels should be monitored and compensatory treatment with Femara®, an estrogen blocking pill, may be necessary in some cases.
In men, testosterone may also cause an excessive increase in the red blood cell count (RBC). Overly high RBC levels have also been linked to higher risks of heart attack or stroke. The RBC count, therefore, needs to be monitored by measuring the hematocrit, a component of the complete blood count (CBC). If the hematocrit rises above 50% men should consider lowering their testosterone dosage or undergoing a phlebotomy (donating a unit of blood). In women, excessive amounts of testosterone can cause masculinization. Estrogen replacement also slightly increases the risk of breast and uterine cancer. Obviously a full discussion of all the risks and benefits is essential before starting treatment.
Administering bioidentical hormones is as much an art as a science. The hormones themselves are delivered in the form of creams, pills or shots. Studies show that the measurement of hormone levels in the blood stream or in saliva is moderately helpful for guiding the selection of an appropriate dosage. A better indication of proper dosage, however, is the subjective sense of well-being reported by the person receiving the treatment. Therefore, starting hormone therapy should proceed slowly with an incremental escalation of dose while closely observing for the appearance of side effects.
Giving Testosterone to Men with Prostate Cancer
Denying every man with a history of prostate cancer from receiving testosterone is ridiculous. Studies clearly show that about half the men in their 50s and almost all men in their 80s harbor minor forms of prostate cancer; most is low-grade and harmless. Almost all of these men have substantial testosterone coursing through their blood (from their testicles). They seem to do just fine. As long as men are regularly screened to ensure the absence of clinically significant prostate cancer, the risks of restoring low levels of testosterone back to normal should be quite low.
Living Longer and Living Better
Just in our lifetimes we are observing a dramatic enhancement of human longevity. When I was in oncology training at USC just twenty-five years ago, the attitude toward a patient’s death while in his in early 70s would have been, “He lived a full life.” That attitude is no longer accepted. Now men and women are not only living longer, they are retaining substantial youthfulness into their 80s. As part of an overall health program that includes diet, exercise and appropriate healthcare, restoring sex hormone levels back to normal can be transformational. Since giving small amounts of testosterone to females is a foreign idea to many people, in my next blog I will elaborate on this concept further.
* Premenopausal women normally have testosterone in their blood, albeit at much lower levels than men.
2 comments:
"As long as men are regularly screened to ensure the absence of clinically significant prostate cancer"
What if they have clinically significant cancer?
Anyone in the PCa age demographic that has been on testosterone for a long time has probably lost the ability to make their own (which is why they were on it in the first place). Their own production isn't zero, however, so the question is if their own low endogenous level is enough to enable PCa to continue growing? If so, then there is (probably) no difference in PCa growth rate between men with a T level of 100 (or less?) and a T level of 500.
So we take someone off Testosterone and their levels drop to a level that still enables the cancer to grow, but they still feel bad. They get the worst of both worlds.
I guess the answer depends on why we think PCa develops a resistance to TIP (or ADV). If we think it's because it's adapted (evolved) to the low T environment, then would you spend that bullet early, or would you continue TRT until you decided you wanted to do TIP and not languish in the low T middle ground?
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