VIDEO: Monitor weight, cardiometabolic factors for adults receiving gender-confirming HT
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DALLAS — In this Healio video exclusive, Michael S. Irwig, MD, discusses how gender-confirming hormone therapy may affect obesity and cardiometabolic health.
Irwig, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of transgender medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said many transgender people will see cardiometabolic changes after starting gender-confirming HT. Transgender men receiving testosterone therapy may have an increase in body weight due to an increase in muscle mass. They may also have increased systolic blood pressure and triglycerides and a decrease in HDL cholesterol. Transgender women receiving estrogen have some of the opposite effects with a decline in systolic BP and elevated HDL cholesterol. Visceral and subcutaneous fat may also increase for transgender women.
“It is really important for endocrinologists and primary care doctors and clinicians just to monitor patients prior to starting HT and on HT for any changes in their body weight, blood pressure or cholesterol,” Irwig said.
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