Testosterone 'helps men fight MS'

From correspondents in Washington

May 16, 2007 02:05am
Article from: Agence France-Presse


TESTOSTERONE, the mighty hormone that elevates physical energy and sex drive, can also help fight the effects in men of multiple sclerosis, which weakens the body's immune and nervous systems.

Nancy Sicotte of the University of California-Los Angeles and a team of researchers found in a small pilot study on ten men with MS that regular application of a gel containing testosterone helped their cognitive ability and retarded brain deterioration characteristic of MS.

The ten subjects, each with relapsing-remitting MS - in which the disease generates periodic neurological symptoms like numbness and difficulty moving around, and then falls into periods of remission - were given daily applications of the gel, containing 100 milligrams of testosterone, over 12 months.

Before the treatment the subjects, who averaged 46 years old, showed on average an annual decrease in brain size due to MS of 0.81 per cent. But after receiving the testosterone, brain atrophy slowed to 0.25 per cent a year.

In addition, the participants enjoyed on average a 1.7 kilogram increase in muscle mass during the treatment, and reported no adverse effects.

“One year of treatment with testosterone gel was associated with improvement in cognitive performance and a slowing of brain atrophy (deterioration),” the authors of the study wrote in a summary of their research released yesterday.

“Overall, in this first trial of testosterone treatment in men with relapsing-remitting MS, the treatment was shown to be safe and well tolerated.”

They also said that the successful use of testosterone to fight brain atrophy in men with MS suggests the same treatment might work with other non-inflammatory neurodegenerative diseases like ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

The study was published in the May issue of Archives of Neurology.
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