Men with a lower-than-average level of the male sex hormone testosterone die earlier, a German study has found, but scientists said recently they were not sure why. The study tracked 1,954 German men aged 20 to 79 for seven years, after which 195 had died, said endocrinologist Henri Wallaschofski.
The Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) is managed by the Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine at Greifswald University in the north-east of Germany and focuses on men in the West Pomerania area.
A majority of the men who died had noticeably low testosterone concentrations in their blood at the start of the study. “We don't know if the low testosterone concentration was the cause of early death or merely a kind of bio-marker that something else was out of kilter with their metabolism,” said Wallaschofski.
He said the discovery had to be taken seriously, but also cautioned against men injecting extra testosterone. The study has appeared in the European Heart Journal .
