After age 30 the production of testosterone in men and women declines and it continues to decline through life.
Many other causes for decreased testosterone levels include:
Alcohol overuse, stress, inflammatory diseases, infections such as AIDS, chronic diseases such as kidney and liver disease, pituitary dysfunction, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, injury or infection of the testicles, and medications, such as steroids and drugs used to treat prostate cancer.
Options for treatment:
There is not a “one size fits all” treatment for testosterone replacement; several options are available. Options include intramuscular injections weekly to every 2-3 weeks, topical preparations such as testosterone patches, gels and compounded creams, implanted “pellets”, and sublingual troches. There are no pills recommended for oral testosterone replacement use due to their metabolism through the liver, which is detrimental.
The mainstream medical community has finally accepted the fact that testosterone deficiency is a hormonal imbalance with a broad range of repercussions on many different organ systems including brain, bone, heart, muscle,liver, and genital organs. Dr. Alexander Morganteler, one of the chief urologists at Harvard, as well as various other researchers in the field, has done more recently to increase public awareness of the safety and benefits of testosterone replacement. Included in his recent research are observations that men that had the lowest testosterone levels had an increased risk of prostate cancer. He also recenly published studies using testosterone supplementation in patients with established prostate cancer and showed that there was no increase in either the PSA levels of these patients, or the activity of the prostate cancer. In fact, PSA levels DECREASED in some of these men on testosterone.
The large UK trial with nearly 1000 partcipants showed quite clearly that men that had established heart disease had lower morbidity and mortality if their testosterone levels were in the upper range, rather than lower range.