Association between serum total testosterone and Body Mass Index in middle aged healthy men.

Muhammad Omar Shamim,Farooq Munfaet Ali Khan,Rabia Arshad

doi:10.12669/pjms.312.6130

Abstract

Objective:To determine correlation of serum total testosterone with body mass index (BMI) and waist hip ratio (WHR) in healthy adult males.Methods:A cross sectional study was conducted on 200 nonsmoker healthy males (aged 30-50 years) university employees. They were selected by convenience sampling technique after a detailed medical history and clinical examination including BMI and Waist Hip Ratio (WHR) calculation. Blood sampling was carried out to measure serum total testosterone (TT) using facilities of Chemiluminescence assay (CLIA) technique in Dow Chemical Laboratory. Independent sample T test was used for mean comparisons of BMI and WHR in between low and normal testosterone groups. (Subjects having < 9.7 nmol/L of total testosterone in blood were placed in low testosterone group and subjects having ≥ 9.7 nmol/L of total testosterone in blood were placed in normal testosterone group). Correlation of testosterone with BMI and WHR was analyzed by Pearson Correlation.Results:Mean (± SD) age of the subjects included in this study was 38.7 (± 6.563) years mean (± SD) total testosterone was 15.92 (±6.322)nmol/L. The mean (± SD) BMI, and WHR were 24.95 (±3.828) kg/m2 and 0.946 (±0.0474) respectively. Statistically significant differences were observed in the mean values of BMI and WHR for the two groups of testosterone. Significant inverse correlation of serum total testosterone with BMI(r = -0.311, p = 0.000) was recorded in this study. However testosterone was not significantly correlated with waist/hip ratio.(r = -0.126, p = 0.076)Conclusion:Middle age men working at DUHS who have low level of serum total testosterone are more obese than individuals with normal total testosterone level.

Highlights

With the advancement of life in the developing countries there is a visible change noticed in the life style including lack of physical activity along with increased junk food intake
Mean comparison in between two groups (Low and normal) of total testosterone for body mass index and waist hip ratio was analyzed by applying Independent Samples T Test
Significant (p < 0.05) differences were observed in the mean values of body mass index (BMI) and waist hip ratio (WHR) for the two groups of testosterone as shown in Table-II

Summary

Introduction

With the advancement of life in the developing countries there is a visible change noticed in the life style including lack of physical activity along with increased junk food intake. Over the last two to three decades, this change resulted in increased risk of overweight and obesity.[1]. Obesity is the root cause of many systemic illnesses like diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases and directly associated with low Total Testosterone levels.[3]. The probable mechanism by which obesity results due to low testosterone is the alteration of protein and fat metabolism by testosterone. Testosterone is associated with significant rise in muscle mass providing maximal voluntary strength and decreased fat mass.[4] It decreases fat mass by mechanisms acting at different steps in fat metabolism such as inhibiting the activity of lipoprotein lipase,[5] and inhibiting the activity of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase.[6] Besides this, dihydrotestosterone causes decreased lipid accumulation and enhanced lipolysis in fat cell precursors.[7] testosterone and DHT modulate the mesenchymal stem cell differentiation in a way that adipocytes differentiation is inhibited and shifted towards the formation of myogenic cells.[8]

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