You’ll find two big misconceptions about Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) that I would love to deal with below however briefly. The first myth, or perhaps confusion would be kinder, is the fact that that TRT can cause cancer of the prostate. The other big elephant within the room is the fact that TRT is entirely about sex drive or libido.
All right, let us look at the very first one there. Where did the confusion come out of that adding testosterone might flame the fires associated with a pre existing prostate cancer or even, even worse still, in fact begin the fire itself?
It is nowadays standard therapy for some prostate cancers to suppress testosterone levels. This is often performed ether surgically by castration or perhaps, more typically nowadays, with medication known as anti-androgens. This kind of treatment, when it truly does work, causes the cancer cells to shrink. Immediately after a year or so this treatment typically stops working.
It hence could be sensible to think that, since the withdrawal of testosterone out of the body is able to cause some prostate cancers to shrink temporarily, then the addition of testosterone will definitely complete opposite and result in a similar prostate cancer to spread. However, this is exactly that – an assumption. In truth, there’s actually no scientific evidence to allow for this assumption or theory. There is no reported rise in the likelihood of prostate cancer in men on TRT as against those not on any such therapy.
Additionally, you may consider this. Prostate cancer is an ailment of older men with declining testosterone levels. It is not much of an ailment of younger men with relatively high testosterone levels. This being so there is a specific illogicality in the accretion that TRT is in any way deadly or perhaps cancer inducing. Certainly the exact reverse might possibly yet demonstrate to become the case and that testosterone therapy for more mature men could possibly afford them some protection against prostate cancer. It’s way too timely yet to make a definitive declaration in this regard but the recommendation of mine is to watch this space. The wheel might yet turn complete circle.
Therefore, what of the next myth then simply, that testosterone replacement therapy is about sex drive or libido. This mistaken stereotyping may perhaps have enjoyed some popular support ten years ago however, not any longer. There’s now some evidence, as well as I wouldn’t place it any stronger than that for the second, some evidence that TRT therapy might have a role how to boost testosterone naturally play in the protection against Alzheimer’s Disease and senile dementia. It may also afford some protection against cardio vascular disease and some types of stroke. Studies in these places so far have always been too little to be statistically significant and almost all agree that more work needs to be done.
And there quite possibly is where the true problem lies. Were testosterone a patented medication from which some pharmaceutical business could benefit financially, then money would swiftly be made readily available for long-term studies into other likely benefits from TRT. But, unfortunately testosterone is the thing that we call an’ orphan’ medication being reliant on academia for its additional study. And, so long as that is still the case, progress in this specific place is of necessity likely to be slow.
