2 However, only a minority of USA clinicians prescribing testosterone therapy are members of the Endocrine Society, possibly explaining the explosion of testosterone prescribing that has occurred in North America since the ready availability of transdermal preparations.29 Our USA colleagues advise us anecdotally that something very similar may be happening in respect of testosterone prescribing in obesity and/or type 2 diabetes. At the end we agree with Prof Jones’ statement in a recent find protocol publication: ‘A
number of short-term studies support the notion that testosterone therapy improves independent cardiovascular risk factors, but there is no clear answer as to whether testosterone treatment reduces mortality.’30 The data from association studies and small-scale intervention studies look promising, but it would be imprudent to proceed to mass screening of men with type 2 diabetes in order to detect functional hypogonadism of chronic disease in the absence of data from large RCTs. Nevertheless, we should remember that the prevalence of endocrine disturbance in the typical diabetes clinic may be of an order of magnitude Doxorubicin manufacturer greater than in the general population, specifically including patients
with organic hypogonadism related to Cushing’s disease, acromegaly, Klinefelter’s syndrome and haemochromatosis. In the end, there is no substitute for careful case ascertainment arising from talking to and examining our patients with type 2 diabetes. It would be reasonable to measure a morning serum testosterone level in any patient with osteoporosis or other feature of hypogonadism, or in whom erectile acetylcholine dysfunction failed to respond to standard therapy with PDE-5 inhibitors. The authors have received no funding for the preparation of this article. Over the past five years, RQ has received various small honoraria, unrestricted educational donations and consulting fees from all of the companies presently marketing testosterone
replacement therapies in the UK, amounting to a total sum of under £2000. References are available online at www.practicaldiabetesinternational.com. Professor T Hugh Jones Consultant Physician & Endocrinologist, Robert Hague Centre for Diabetes and Endocrinology, Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; and Hon. Professor of Andrology, Academic Unit of Diabetes Endocrinology and Metabolism, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Sheffield, UK 1. Wu FC, et al. Identification of late-onset hypogonadism in middle-aged and elderly men. N Engl J Med 2010; 363: 123–35. 2. Kapoor D, et al. Erectile dysfunction is associated with low bioactive testosterone levels and visceral adiposity in men with type 2 diabetes. Int J Androl 2007; 30: 500–7. 3. NICE. Type 2 diabetes – newer agents (partial update of CG66).