Low testosterone levels & stroke?

Potential Link Discovered Between Low Testosterone and Stroke
By barekmed (Open Post)January 17, 2015 at 1:35pm


A new analysis of several prospective health studies indicates that low testosterone levels at any age are associated with an increased risk ischemic stroke in men.

Researchers from 4 hospitals in Denmark began by pulling records for 4,615 men who were enrolled in the Copenhagen City Heart Study between 1981 and 1983 and followed for up to 29 years. In all, 524 of those men suffered an ischemic stroke, at an average age of 74 years, during the follow-up period.

Men with the lowest testosterone levels — at or below the tenth percentile when initially measured — were a third more likely to have ischemic strokes than all other men (Hazard ratio [HR], 1.33; 95% Confidence interval [CI], 1.04-1.71).

The study team, which presented its findings at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Chicago, also performed a meta-analysis on 4 prospective studies and found the same association.

In all, they collected records for 10,797 men and found that the increased risk of stroke for men who started with the lowest testosterone levels — again, at or below the tenth percentile at study outset — was even higher than the first analysis suggested (HR, 1.43; 95% CI: 1.21-1.70).

The group’s poster noted that 3 of the studies only enrolled men who were at least 65 years old at the outset but that the largest of the studies enrolled men who were as young as 21 years old.

The researchers reported that they found no connection between extremely low testosterone and ischemic stroke in women and, also, that they found no connection between extremely low estradiol levels and ischemic stroke in either sex.

Still, the researchers concluded, the relationship they discovered between low testosterone and ischemic stroke in men was robust and potentially important.

See more at: http://www.hcplive.com/articles/pot...-Testosterone-and-Stroke#sthash.ZV8JzKjX.dpuf