This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Depression linked to low testosterone levels
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Depression prevalence may be higher in men with a free testosterone concentration in the lowest quintile, according to a recent study published in the Archives of Psychiatry.
Researchers from Australia performed a cross-sectional study on a sample of 3,987 men from Perth, Australia, aged 71 to 89 years to determine whether the correlation between testosterone concentration and mood is dominated by coexisting physical morbidities.
Using the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale, the researchers found a score of 7 or higher, which is considered significant depression, in 203 participants. Physical health was determined by survey.
Compared with nondepressed men, those with depression had lower concentrations of total and free testosterone (P<.001 for both). Depressed participants were also obese, more likely to smoke and have low educational achievement, among other factors. Even after adjusting for these factors, men with depression were 1.55 (95% CI, 0.91-2.63) and 2.71 (95% CI, 1.49-4.93) times more likely to have total and free testosterone concentrations in the lowest quintile, according to the researchers.
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65:283-289.
There is still a lot that we don’t know about what the lower levels of testosterone mean when men get older. There’s a suggestion here that there might be a correlation between free testosterone levels and depression, in that depression incidence is higher in those with lower testosterone. This is one study and there are probably more issues that need to be addressed. The researchers base these findings on scores for depression, which are sometimes difficult to evaluate.
The implication here is that there may be some further work that needs to be done to see if there really is any type of definitive relationship, and also whether treatments will make any difference. There are a lot of people being treated with testosterone because they are deficient, but we want to be careful that this doesn’t spark widespread treatment with testosterone as a way to avoid depression. It’s a dual-edged sword. There are some data there that are suggestive that need to be followed up, and at this point, we really don’t know whether treatment is going to make a difference or not.
This is an interesting piece of information that should be taken with some degree of caution, and perhaps we should look for more data.
– Philip Levy, MD
Endocrine Today Editorial Board member