14 Nov 08 Testosterone boosts women’s sexual desires

Testosterone ramps up women’s sexual desires, according to a study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Procter & Gamble-funded study — with the acronym APHRODITE — involved 814 women treated at 65 different locations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Sweden and the U.K. All of the women had what is medically referred to as “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” — a chronic lack of interest in sexual activity. Study participants received 150 micrograms or 300 micrograms of testosterone a day delivered via a patch, or a placebo patch with no testosterone in it. Nobody (clinicians or women) knew who got what until the end of the study.

Tags: testosterone

11 Oct 08 Phosphatidylserine (PS) Promote Free Testosterone Levels

A study published today in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition indicates that the consumption of a phosphatidylserine (PS) can help to effectively manage exercise induced stress and promote healthy free testosterone levels. An excessive cortisol response to exercise-induced stress has been linked to a negative training state, which could lead to overreaching or overtraining.  Chronic overtraining often creates a disturbance in the anabolic-catabolic balance, which may express itself in decreased performance, injury, depressed immunity, and psychological depression.  PS has been reported to be an effective supplement for combating exercise-induced stress and preventing the physiological deterioration that accompanies too much exercise. Previously, 800 mg of soy-derived PS has been reported to reduce the cortisol response to intensive resistance training by 20%.

This gold standard (randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover) clinical trial investigated the influence of short-term supplementation with a moderate dose of PS (600 mg per day) on endocrine response to moderate intensity exercise on a cycle ergometer. The PS group was able to decrease mean peak cortisol concentrations by 39% when compared to the placebo group.  In addition, PS promoted healthy free testosterone levels and consequently significantly improved the “testosterone to cortisol” ratio by 184% when compared to placebo.  Neither PS nor placebo supplementation had an effect on lactate or growth hormone levels.

Previous findings suggested that the effect of PS on cortisol might be dose dependent.  “For the first time, short-term supplementation with a moderate dose of PS showed significant results”, said Dr. Martin Purpura, Managing Member of Increnovo LLC and co-author of the study.  “Preventing the negative effect of cortisol and increasing the  to cortisol ratio will allow athletes to train and compete at their highest levels”.  Additionally, Scott Hagerman, president of Chemi Nutra, sponsor of the study’s publication and leader in the production of PS said, “Chemi Nutra has filed a patent for PS’s effects to promote healthy testosterone levels.  These exciting findings will open new markets for PS-based sports nutrition and anti-aging nutritional supplements, and we intend to pursue several very promising applications with selected customers”.

Chemi Nutra is the US business unit of parent company Chemi S.p.A., a privately held pharmaceutical and nutraceutical company based in Milan, Italy.  Chemi, with cGMP certified manufacturing facilities in Italy and Brazil, is best known in the US nutritional arena for its introduction of phosphatidylserine (PS), the popular dietary supplement which has been granted two health claims by the FDA, and is used to enhance learning, memory, and concentration.

Please visit the website of the Journal of the International Society of Sport Nutrition at www.jissn.com/content/5/1/11 to access the original publication.

Tags: testosterone

11 Oct 08 Comments From A Conf on Osteoporosis amd Low Levels of Free Testoaterone

Osteoporosis in men continues to be an intriguing issue. From a practical viewpoint men respond as well to the approved osteoporosis therapies as do women. Testosterone replacement is clearly indicated if the presentation is not with osteoporosis but with sexual dysfunction (of course not suitable in men treated with androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer). BMD does increase with testosterone but there is no data documenting that this decreases the risk of fracture. It almost certainly would but the studies have not been done. Combined use of testosterone and specific osteoporosis therapy is safe and effective. Excellent clinical research continues to demonstrate that circulating estrogen levels (free estradiol) are more closely linked to BMD than free testosterone levels but there is no apparent clinical value in measuring estrogen in most men with hypogonadism.

* Michael Kleerekoper is a member of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Consortium for Osteoporosis and of the Board of Trustees of the national Osteoporosis Foundation.

Tags: Free Testoaterone

02 May 08 Balancing blood sugar with glucomannan

Balancing blood sugar with glucomannan

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