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Item
#6
Banishing
the Beer Belly & Reducing Diabetes Risk
 Testosterone
reduced obesity by greater than 15% in 6 months.
Doctors
have beaten the beer belly, with the help of testosterone.
They
doubled the blood level of the hormone in a group of patients and
reduced their obesity by more than 15 per cent in just six months.
At
the same time, cholesterol levels and blood pressure also dropped.
Belly's
gonna get you...
The
treatment could pave the way for new ways of tackling the fat
concentrated around the male abdomen - popularly known as the beer
belly or pot belly.
A
London conference on the male menopause also heard how higher
testosterone levels may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's, as well as
having beneficial effects on bone health, diabetes and depression.
All
fat can be a health risk, but it's more of a problem when it builds up
in and around the abdomen. Pound for pound, this kind of abdominal fat
is much more likely to cause diabetes, heart disease and other
problems.
Many
men develop abdominal fat, especially in middle age. That is also the
time when natural testosterone levels begin to decline, and the
falling levels have been linked to the andropause (male menopause).
But
younger men have problems, too, and the conference was given the
results of a new Russian study into the link between testosterone and
abdominal (visceral) obesity in men aged between 18 and 46.
Doctors
gave patients two testosterone tablets a day for six months. The body
mass index of the men - a measure of obesity which takes both weight
and height into account - ranged from 30 to 34, with an average of
around 31. All the patients had low levels of testosterone at the
start of the treatment.
After
one month of taking the tablets, the levels of the male hormone had
doubled, and a positive link was found between body mass index and
levels of testosterone.
After
six months, the decrease of body mass was more than 15 per cent. The
researchers also found that PSA concentrations - which measure the
risk of prostate cancer - stayed the same. There have been fears that
testosterone supplements would increase the risk of the cancer, or the
likelihood of an existing cancer spreading.
Testosterone
may also protect the brain against Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at
Oxford say they have found lower levels of testosteronein men with
Alzheimer's when they compared them with men who were disease-free.
Several
studies have now shown that the female hormone oestrogen reduces the
production of a toxic protein called beta amyloid which plays a key
role in the development of Alzheimer's.
Now,
researchers believe testosterone can also reduce the levels of the
compound in brain cells.
One
study, the first of its kind, has shown that when testosterone
production in animals was stopped, levels of the protein in the blood
and the brain increased.
Men
at risk of heart disease and stroke are candidates for testosterone
therapy, too.
Doctors
say the fact that testosterone levels decline at the time of life when
the risk of vascular disease increases, may be more than coincidence.
Testosterone
has been shown to be reduced in men admitted to hospital for stroke or
myocardial infarction and to be significantly lower in men with
coronary atherosclerosis.
Other
research indicates that the risk of artery disease, poor bone density
and diabetes can also be affected by testosterone levels.
===========================
DID
YOU KNOW:
2.8
million. 13.0% of all non-Hispanic blacks have diabetes. On average,
non-Hispanic blacks are 2.0 times more likely to have diabetes than
non-Hispanic whites of similar age.
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