Men who go through testosterone therapy may have a higher risk of dying from heart attack or stroke.
The study participants were given a coronary angiography and had a low serum testosterone level, an American Medical Association (AMA) news release reported.
"Rates of testosterone therapy prescription have increased markedly in the United States over the past decade. Annual prescriptions for testosterone increased by more than [five-fold] from 2000 to 2011, reaching 5.3 million prescriptions and a market of $1.6 billion in 2011. Professional society guidelines recommend testosterone therapy for patients with symptomatic testosterone deficiency," the new article on the subject stated.
"Treatment with testosterone has been shown to improve lipid profiles and insulin resistance and increase the time to ST depression (a finding on an electrocardiogram suggesting benefit) during stress testing," according to the study.
The team found that three years after the angiography 19.9 percent of the group that did not go through hormone therapy experienced events, while 25.7 of the hormone therapy group had health issues. Even when other risk factors were taken into account, those who underwent hormone therapy were more likely to have a medical emergency.
"These findings raise concerns about the potential safety of testosterone therapy," the authors wrote. "Future studies including randomized controlled trials are needed to properly characterize the potential risks of testosterone therapy in men with comorbidities."
The likelihood of a testosterone therapy user experiencing a heart event was not believed to be related to differences in risk factors or secondary medication use because all of the participants had similar blood pressure, lipid and low-density lipoprotein, and medication use.
"Are the benefits-real or perceived-for these groups of men worth any increase in risk? These populations represent a sizable group of testosterone users, and there is only anecdotal evidence that testosterone is safe for these men," Anne R. Cappola, M.D., Sc.M., of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia wrote in an accompanying editorial.
