Sex Hormones Reveal Risk For Type 2 Diabetes In Men And Women.

2002 FEB 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - An evaluation of sex hormones in men and women has revealed testosterone levels are predictive of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in older adults.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, recently announced that endogenous sex hormones, particularly testosterone, can influence the advent of type 2 diabetes in older people. A report of their study was issued in the journal Diabetes Care.

Beginning in 1984, several hundred men and women were screened for diabetes with oral glucose tolerance tests and assessed for hormone levels, according to Jee-Young Oh and associates. Eight years later, 294 men and 233 women who did not have diabetes at their initial evaluations were again tested, with two additional tests for insulin metabolism being added to the screening regimen. Study participant's ages ranged from 55 to 89 years.

After adjustment for age, "total testosterone was inversely and significantly related to subsequent levels of fasting and postchallenge glucose and insulin in men, whereas bioavailable testosterone and bioavailable estradiol were positively and significantly related to fasting and postchallenge glucose and insulin in women," Oh and ...