Effects Of Testosterone Replacement Therapy On Male Body Composition:A Meta-analysis

Objective:Nowadays overweight and obesity are very universal on a global scale and are the main diseases affect human health.Although a large number of studies focused on finding obesity risk factors,the etiology of obesity(especially abdominal obesity)is not fully elucidated.Some studies found that change in male hormone levels may affectobesity.Therefore,we used meta-analysis to explore the effects of testosterone replacement therapy on body composition,especially on obesity-related indicators,and provide the basis for the study of etiology of male obesity.Method:The literature of Pubmed,EMBASE and Cochrane library was retrieved from built to March 2014,studies focused on the relationship between testosterone replacement therapy and body composition was evaluated and available data was extracted,Stata version 12.0 was considered as total effective index to develop a meta-analysis.For each study,a Hedges-weighted mean difference(WMD)and the 95%confidence interval(95%CI)for the effect size was calculated.The pooled effect of WMD was estimated by a random-effect model.Heterogeneity was assessed by the I2 statistic,which describes the percentage of total variation across studies that is due to heterogeneity rather than chance.Furthermore,Sources of heterogeneity were explored through subgroup meta-analyses and meta-regression.Finally,the chance of publication bias was assessed using both Egger's test and Begg's test.Result:In total 3023 cases of adult men were selected in this study finally according to inclusion and exclusion criteria,1543 cases in testosterone group,and 1481 cases in control group.The fat mass(FM)of testosterone replacement therapy group was lower than before by 1.26kg(95%CI:-1.58?-0.93);body fat percentage(BF)reduced 1.26%(95%CI:-1.90?-0.62);lean body mass(LBM)increased 1.72kg(95%CI:1.37?2.07);waist circumference(WC)declined 2.93cm(95%CI:-4.76?-1.09).There was no significant change in the total weight(BM)and body mass index(BMI).There was no significant difference between based testosterone levels,and testosterone treatment duration and fat mass,body fat rate and lean body mass,but patients' age affected fat mass,body fat rate and lean body mass,as well as drug type,mode of administration and dose.Conclusion:This study found that testosterone replacement therapy can significantly reduce fat mass,body fat rate and waist circumference,and increase lean body mass.It suggests that the male hormones may be an important cause of obesity in adult males,especially abdominal obesity.