Testosterone

This article presents an up-to-date review of the literature on hormone augmentation in the elderly to help primary care physicians better evaluate and utilize hormone replacement and optimization strategies to benefit their patients. The scientific literature suggests that hormone supplementation with estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, growth hormone, and thyroid hormone has the potential to improve quality of life and to prevent, or reverse, the many symptoms and conditions associated with aging, including fatigue, depression, weight gain,frailty, osteoporosis, loss of libido, and heart disease. Possible long-term side effects are also considered.

This dissertation is based on a long-term ethnographic and sociophonetic study of 15 transgender people on the female-to-male (or transmasculine) identity spectrum. The focus of the study is the way these individuals’ voices change during the first 1-2 years of masculinizing hormone therapy, which brings about a drop in vocal pitch along with other salient physiological changes. Based on regular recordings of participants during a one year period, the analysis tracks changes in fundamental frequency as well as formant frequencies and the acoustic characteristics of [s], each of which has a different place in biology-driven theories of gender and the voice. In addition to ostensibly hormonally driven changes to speakers’ available fundamental frequency range, I present evidence that these speakers are engaged in various types of articulatory shifts as part of their gender role transition, which affect both formants and [s]. However, I argue that changes in all three of the phonetic domains examined here must be situated in both sociocultural and linguistic context, even where biology appears to play a significant role. The analyses presented, which include attention to both intra- and inter-speaker variation, draw on a multi-layered understanding of gender derived from transgender people’s own distinctions between gender assignment, gender role, gender identity, and gender presentation. My speakers’ metalinguistic commentary on gender and the voice further elucidates the constellations of phonetic features that combine to create their cohesive gendered speaking styles. Ultimately, I focus on the ways that changes in one phonetic variable, like pitch, can recontextualize other elements of a speaker’s linguistic style, like the acoustic spectrum of [s]. This connection drives home the necessity of considering the relationship between linguistic characteristics, rather than treating them as entirely separable variables. Attention to stylistic wholes, over individual variables, points us toward the notion that transmasculine individuals do not engage in across-the-board masculinization, but rather bring together acoustic characteristics acquired from disparate sources in order to construct phonetic styles that reflect their complex affiliations with manhood, maleness, and masculinity.

Introduction.  Controversy exists regarding testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) in men following radical prostatectomy (RP). Many clinicians are hesitant to offer patients TRT after an RP, out of concern that the increased androgen levels may promote tumor progression or recurrence from residual tumor. Recently, several small studies have demonstrated the use of TRT in men following an RP and have shown an improvement in serum testosterone levels with no increase in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values.Aims.  The aim of this article is to assess changes in PSA and testosterone values in hypogonadal patients on TRT after RP and also to evaluate the impact of pathologic Gleason grade on ultimate PSA values.Methods.  All hypogonadal men who were treated with TRT by members of our department following RP were retrospectively reviewed. PSA values before RP, after RP, and after TRT were evaluated. Serum testosterone levels before and after TRT were also examined. Only patients with undetectable PSA values and negative surgical margins on pathologic specimen were offered TRT and included in the study.Main Outcome Measures.  Main outcome measures were changes in PSA and testosterone values after initiation of TRT.Results.  Fifty-seven men, ages 53–83 years (mean 64), were identified as having initiated TRT following RP. Men received TRT for an average of 36 months following RP (range 1–136 months). Patients were followed an average of 13 months after initiation of TRT (range 1–99 months). The mean testosterone values rose from 255 ng/dL before TRT to 459 ng/dL after TRT (P < 0.001). There was no increase in PSA values after initiation of TRT and thus no patient had a biochemical PSA recurrence.Conclusion.  TRT is effective in improving testosterone levels, without increasing PSA values, in hypogonadal men who have undergone RP. Khera M, Grober E, Najari B, Colen J, Mohamed O, Lamb D, and Lipshultz L. Testosterone replacement therapy following radical prostatectomy. J Sex Med **;**:**–**.

There is little doubt that family factors can influence involvement in delinquency, although the full nature and extent of their influences remain unclear. In recent decades, testosterone has been increasingly implicated as a contributor to adolescent offending. The present study sought to determine whether two important types of familial factors--parental socioeconomic status and amicable parent-child relationships--are interacting with testosterone (and possibly other androgens) to affect delinquency. A large sample of North American college students self-reported their involvement in eight categories of delinquency along with self-ratings of various androgen-promoted traits (e.g., muscularity and low-deep voice), parental social status, and the quality of the relationships they had with parents. In both sexes, parent-child relationships and androgens were significantly associated with delinquency but parental social status was not. Factor analysis revealed that the authors&#39; m...

To investigate whether autonomic nervous system (ANS) hyperactivity may be a potential cause for the relationship between lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and erectile dysfunction (ED). Twenty-four patients were recruited for this study. Complete physical examinations, urine analysis, uroflowmetry, and postvoid residual urine volume (PVRU) analysis were performed. The potential impact of some factors such as hyperglycemia, obesity, and hyperlipidemia were analyzed. These values were correlated with the various symptom scores. We performed an electromyographic and an electrocardiographic evaluation. The alterations after treatment with 2 different alpha-blockers were also analyzed. The electromyographic and electrocardiographic assessments revealed a minimal increase in ANS activity and it did not change significantly after treatment (P &gt; 0.05). After treatment, maximum flow rate increased and PVRU decreased significantly (P &lt; 0.001 and P &lt; 0.001, respectively); total and...

Steroid hormone measurement, first developed with radioimmunoassay, is now becoming easier with the use of automated platforms of immunoassay. However, some hormones remain uneasily detectable because of their low blood concentration, their structural homology or the presence of interferences. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) can be considered as an alternative to immunoassays. This approach allows the simultaneous determination of several parameters thanks to its selectivity led by the detector mass spectrometer and the separate dimension of chromatography liquid. In addition, recourse to UHPLC (ultra high performance liquid chromatography) allows improving selectivity and sensitivity while limiting the samples volumes. The &quot;ready-to-use&quot; kits are now available and added to the &quot;homemade&quot; techniques developed by laboratories, thus giving opportunity for measurement of a wide steroid panel with only one sample. Finally, mass spectrometry ...