Relationship Between Obesity and Testosterone Levels

At the recent conference in Las Vegas of the18th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine and Biomedical Technologies, Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, Associate Professor of Urology at Harvard Medical School spoke about the impact of treating obesity with testosterone.

“We are facing a health crisis in this country with so many men and women who are obese.  It affects our overall health in terms of diabetes and metabolic syndrome that also impacts cardiovascular health. In addition, there are a lot of people who are simply feeling unhappy and poorly because of it.

“It turns out that obesity lowers testosterone levels in men. One of the most interesting things about testosterone therapy in men is its effects on body composition. When we treat men with testosterone - if their levels are low, they lose fat and gain muscle.

"There was a study a few years ago that observed men who had the metabolic syndrome which is partly related to obesity and blood sugar control and is an indicator of heart disease. Those men were placed on a program of diet and exercise or diet and exercise with the addition of testosterone. At the end of one year the group that did diet and exercise had a nice reduction in the number of men who had metabolic syndrome. But more than double those men reduced or eliminated their metabolic syndrome with the addition of testosterone to the diet and exercise.