Endocrine Abstracts

From an evolutionary point of view, reproduction is one of the key events. Thus, any potential threat to human fertility, needs to be taken seriously by researchers as well as the general public. In 1992 a meta-analysis of 63 published papers, indicated almost 50% reduction of sperm counts during the period 1940 to 1990. Since then, the discussion on whether the sperm numbers are decreasing or not has divided the scientific world into believers and non-believers. A concomitant...

Androgens and oestrogens, are acting through specific receptors, belonging to the nuclear receptor family and both androgen receptor (AR) and the two forms of oestrogen receptor, α (ER1) and β (ER2) are richly expressed in different parts of the male reproductive system.There are several examples indicating that polymorphisms in these sex hormone receptors can be associated with some types of disease or milder dysfunction of the sex hormone reg...

Cryopreservation of spermatozoa, has been utilized for decennia as an easily accessible tool in male fertility preservation, prior to treatment for cancer and autoimmune diseases. However, although this technique is well established, there is a number of questions regarding this procedure which still needs to be answered. Which patient groups should be offered semen cryopreservation? Are spermatozoa preserved prior to treatment safer to use for fertilization than fresh, ejacul...

Endocrine Connections, (2022), 11, (6), e210639 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1530/EC-21-0639): ...

Background: During ageing, total testosterone (TT) declines and SHBG increases, resulting in a greater decline of free testosterone (FT) compared to TT. However, guidelines suggest using TT to diagnose androgen deficiency and to reserve FT only for men with borderline TT. We investigated if isolated low FT or isolated low TT was associated with androgen-related endpoints in healthy men.Methods: 3369 community-dwelling men, aged 40–79, were included....

Introduction: Primary hypogonadism (PHG, testosterone <10.5 nmol/l and LH >9.5 U/l) without a recognisable cause affects ~2% of community-dwelling middle-aged and older men. We sought to identify the clinical significance of, and risk factors for, this apparently age-related hypogonadal state.Methods/design: The European Male Ageing Study (EMAS) is a prospective observational cohort survey of 3.369 community-dwelling men aged 40–79 in eight ...

Objective: The role of thyroid hormones in the control of erectile functioning has been only marginally investigated. The aim of this study is to investigate the association between thyroid and erectile function in a general population sample (European Male Aging study, EMAS study) and in patients seeking medical care for sexual dysfunction (University of Florence Study, UNIFI study).Participants: Two different cohorts of subjects were evaluated. The fir...