| BACKGROUND / OBJECTIVESWith age increasing, the production of androgen decreases and a series of corresponding clinical symptoms appear in men. The phenomenon was defined as andropause. In 1994, PAD AM (Partial androgen deficiency of the aging male) was suggested to express the regularity of androgen changes and the functional deficiency of target organs caused by androgen deficiency in men. The reason why PAD AM hasn't been noticed for a long time may be that its clinical symptom is irregular or atypical and is often mistakened for the result of senescence. Although there have been several small-sample studies on serum steroids in Chinese old men, the large-scale epidemiological investigation is still scarce. It remains unknown whether the age-related sex hormones' change in Chinese men is the same as that of foreigners or there is race- and region-specific difference.Now the correlation between sex hormones (SH) and geriatric diseases receives more interests than before, however, most of them concern estrogen, and few studies advert to males. In the past, testosterone (Te) and free testosterone (FT) were mainly involved in the studies on relations between androgen and age-related diseases in men, but it may be more accurate that Te and FT are replaced with bioavailable testosterone (Bio-T). The primary bio-active androgen is Bio-T that decreases most rapidly and significantly with aging in men. It's indicated that hi western males serum Bio-T level decreases 50 percent at 50 years old compared with that of young men and further decreases 30 percent at 70. With regard to Chinese men, no observations on age-related serum Bio-T changes were reported yet.It is known that there is a sex difference in the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) with men being more susceptible than their female counterparts before menopause. After considering other risk factors of CHD, male gender is still an independent risk factor, thus for a long tune androgen has been considered to play an important role in the pathogenesis of CHD. The risk factors of CHD include hypertension, hyperlipemia, overweight, hyperglycemia, smoking and drinking. The phenomenon that several risk factors gather in an individual is defined as the clustering of cardiovascular disease risk factors (CCDRF) that strikingly increase the prevalence of CHD. But reasons that result in the clustering remain unknown.Thus, by epidemiological study, we investigate the age-related sex hormones changes and relationships between Bio-T and several items and CCDRF in Chinese men. MATERIALS AND METHODSA cross-sectional study of systematic sampling was used in our study. In the first part, 1278 healthy male volunteers participated in our study and filled in questionnaires. Sex hormones and Insulin (INS) were measured by radioimmunoassay (RIA) through y-counter. Lipids, apolipiproteins and glucose (GLU) were evaluated by automatic biochemic analytical instrument. Peripheral T lymphocyte cell subsets were assayed by Elite flow cytometer of American. The value of MDA was measured by the thiobarbituric acid (TBA) test and the activity of plasm SOD was evaluated by the nitrite method modified by Oyanagui using spectrophotometer respectively. Firstly, objects were divided into four groups according to their age as follows: group A consisted of 180 people aged 20 to 49; group B involved 158 cases aged 50 to 59, group C involved 357 cases aged 60 to 69, and so did group D and groupE including 373 cases aged 60 to 69 and 210 persons over 80 years old, respectively. Then, measurement data signed by x+s were dealt with by One-way ANOVA method and SNK method, and the correlations with age were proved by bivariate analysis and the correlations of SH with other items by Partial analysis (controlling AGE, BMI and LH). In the meantime, the level of Bio-T was divided into four groups according to the quartile to investigate the changes of others items. In the second part, 1278 male volunteers were involved in our study. Several cardiovascular risk factors (blood pressure...
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