Partial Androgen Deficiency, Depression, and Testosterone Supplementation in Aging Men

Table 2

Naturalistic and cross-sectional studies in patients with depressive disorders.

Author, year	Type of study	Sample size	Age	Outcome measures	Results
Steiger et al. [61]	Pre-post analyses	12 male patients with MDD	Mean: 46.4±11.3 yrs	Change in nocturnal secretion of T	Nocturnal secretion of T increased after remission of depression.
Booth et al. [71]	Naturalistic	4,393 men from the Vietnam Experience Study	Range: 30–48 yrs; Mean = 37 yrs	Associations between T and depression measured with the items from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule	T-squared has a significant relationship with depression, indicating a curvilinear relationship. Among men whose testosterone is below 590 ng/dL, each increase in the testosterone level is associated with less depression. Among men whose testosterone is above this value, each increase in the hormone is associated with greater depression.
Schweiger et al. [60]	Cross-sectional	15 male inpatients with moderate to severe MDD and 22 healthy comparisons	Range: 22–85 yrs;48±15for MDD versus53±18for comparisons	Differences in T between groups	Daytime T, nighttime T, and 24-hour mean T secretion were significantly lower in the MDD inpatients.
Seidman et al. [62]	Cross-sectional	32 elderly men with dysthymic disorder, 13 elderly men with MDD, and 175 nondepressed comparisons	Range: 60–82 yrs	Differences in TT	TT was lower in elderly men with dysthymic disorder than in men with MDD and men without depressive symptoms.
Shores et al. [67]	Naturalistic	278 men with consistently normal or low T levels (TT ≤ 200 ng/dL; or FT ≤ 0.9 ng/dL) at baseline and during a 2-year follow-up period	45+ yrs	Differences in prevalence of ICD-9-CM depressive illness	The hypogonadal men had an increased occurrence of diagnosed depressive illness (21.7% versus 7.1%).
McIntyre et al. [44]	Cross-sectional	44 depressed and 50 nondepressed men	Range: 40–65 yrs; depressed= 52.0±7.1; controls= 50.8±6.5	Differences in T levels	Depressed men had lower BT levels and TT levels than controls. Biochemical hypogonadism (i.e., BT level ≤ 2.4 nmol/L or TT level ≤ 12.14 nmol/L) was also more prevalent in depressed men than in non-depressed controls (34% versus 6% and 61% versus 14%, resp.).
Ponholzer et al. [51]	Naturalistic	247 men of a population-based study	Mean: 75.7 yrs	Differences in T levels and DHEAS	T levels were not associated to prevalence or incidence of depression or dementia.

T: testosterone; BT: bioavailable testosterone; FT: free testosterone; DHEA: dehydroepiandrosterone; DHEAS: dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate; SHBG: Sex hormone-binding globulin; BMI: body mass index; HAM-D: Hamilton scale for depression; BDI: Beck depression inventory; CES-D: center for epidemiologic studies depression scale; GDS: geriatric depression scale; MDD: major depressive disorder.