CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,079Hormonal and reproductive studiesMenopause: Health Impacts and TreatmentsAdrenal Hormones and Disorders

The Decline of Androgen Levels in Elderly Men and Its Clinical and Therapeutic Implications

Kaufman, Jean M., Vermeulen, Alex·2005·Endocrine Reviews
DOI 10.1210/er.2004-0013
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Aging in men is accompanied by a progressive, but individually variable decline of serum testosterone production, more than 20% of healthy men over 60 yr of age presenting with serum levels below the range for young men. Albeit the clinical picture of aging in men is reminiscent of that of hypogonadism in young men and decreased testosterone production appears to play a role in part of these clinical changes in at least some elderly men, the clinical relevancy of the age-related decline in sex steroid levels in men has not been unequivocally established. In fact, minimal androgen requirements for elderly men remain poorly defined and are likely to vary between individuals. Consequently, borderline androgen deficiency cannot be reliably diagnosed in the elderly, and strict differentiation between "substitutive" and "pharmacological" androgen administration is not possible. To date, only a few hundred elderly men have received androgen therapy in the setting of a randomized, controlled study, and many of these men were not androgen deficient. Most consistent effects of treatment have been on body composition, but to date there is no evidence-based documentation of clinical benefits of androgen administration to elderly men with normal or moderately low serum testosterone in terms of diminished morbidity or of improved survival or quality of life. Until the long-term risk-benefit ratio for androgen administration to elderly is established in adequately powered trials of longer duration, androgen administration to elderly men should be reserved for the minority of elderly men who have both clear clinical symptoms of hypogonadism and frankly low serum testosterone levels.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1210/er.2004-0013

Cites

60 of 60 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Estrogen excess is associated with low gonadotropin levels.

    “Estrogen excess in turn has been associated with premature closure of the epiphyses, gynecomastia and low gonadotropin and testosterone levels.”

    From Aromatase inhibitors in men: effects and therapeutic options (2011) · cites this paper as [26]

  • Estrogen excess is associated with gynecomastia.

    “Estrogen excess in turn has been associated with premature closure of the epiphyses, gynecomastia and low gonadotropin and testosterone levels.”

    From Aromatase inhibitors in men: effects and therapeutic options (2011) · cites this paper as [26]

  • Estrogen excess is associated with low testosterone levels.

    “Estrogen excess in turn has been associated with premature closure of the epiphyses, gynecomastia and low gonadotropin and testosterone levels.”

    From Aromatase inhibitors in men: effects and therapeutic options (2011) · cites this paper as [26]

  • Estrogen excess is associated with premature closure of the epiphyses.

    “Estrogen excess in turn has been associated with premature closure of the epiphyses, gynecomastia and low gonadotropin and testosterone levels.”

    From Aromatase inhibitors in men: effects and therapeutic options (2011) · cites this paper as [26]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Kaufman, J. M., & Vermeulen, A.
Affiliations
Ghent University Hospital (BE)
ORCID
Venue
Endocrine Reviews
Publisher
The Endocrine Society
Published
2005-10-01
Volume
26
Issue
6
Pages
833-876
ISSN
  • 0163-769X (ISSN-L)
  • 1945-7189
DOI
10.1210/er.2004-0013
OpenAlex
W2111674612
Cited by
1,079
References
60
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 47 · 2017: 47 · 2016: 48 · 2015: 65 · 2014: 56 · 2013: 71 · 2012: 80
FWCI
38.92
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Endocrine Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Hormonal and reproductive studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Menopause: Health Impacts and Treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Adrenal Hormones and Disorders
Keywords
androgen deficiency, older men, aging, testosterone, hypogonadism, androgen therapy, body composition, quality of life, risk-benefit ratio, sex steroids
MeSH terms
Aged, Aging, Androgens, Clinical Trials as Topic, Coronary Disease, Dehydroepiandrosterone, Humans, Hypogonadism, Male, Gonadal Steroid Hormones, Hormone Replacement Therapy, Atherosclerosis

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review