Tuesday, October 26, 2010
dementia
October 18, 2010 — The serum level of bioavailable testosterone (BT) can predict risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) in older men, new research suggests.
Although low levels of BT were associated with the onset of AD, higher levels may offer protective value against the disease, report the researchers, led by Leung-Wing Chu, MD, chief of geriatric medicine at Queen Mary Hospital at the University of Hong Kong.
"The take home message is we should pay more attention to low testosterone, particularly in people who have signs of cognitive impairment," coinvestigator John Morley, MD, professor of gerontology and director of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri, told Medscape Medical News.
"We found that low testosterone did predict a pretty rapid decline in memory and conversion to Alzheimer's," added Dr. Morley. "So this opens up the possibility of using testosterone as a potential treatment in males who are having early memory problems."
However, he noted that the findings should be viewed with some caution. "We thought the same thing was true with estrogen and then the Women's Health Initiative suggested that at least in some subgroups of women estrogen made them worse not better. So until we have further studies, we just don't know for sure. But we do think it's exciting."
The study was published in the October issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
Although low levels of BT were associated with the onset of AD, higher levels may offer protective value against the disease, report the researchers, led by Leung-Wing Chu, MD, chief of geriatric medicine at Queen Mary Hospital at the University of Hong Kong.
"The take home message is we should pay more attention to low testosterone, particularly in people who have signs of cognitive impairment," coinvestigator John Morley, MD, professor of gerontology and director of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri, told Medscape Medical News.
"We found that low testosterone did predict a pretty rapid decline in memory and conversion to Alzheimer's," added Dr. Morley. "So this opens up the possibility of using testosterone as a potential treatment in males who are having early memory problems."
However, he noted that the findings should be viewed with some caution. "We thought the same thing was true with estrogen and then the Women's Health Initiative suggested that at least in some subgroups of women estrogen made them worse not better. So until we have further studies, we just don't know for sure. But we do think it's exciting."
The study was published in the October issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
# posted by roodbont @ 12:55 AM 
