TEENAGE OBESIITY CAN LEAD TO IMPOTENCE AND INFERTILITY

TEENAGE OBESITY CAN LEAD TO IMPOTENCE AND INFERTILITY IN LATER LIFE
 

• Obese young men have around half total testosterone levels in comparasion to  normal weight teens.
• Implications are horrendous because it could leave them impotent and infertile in later life.

Obese teenage boys have up to 50 per cent less testosterone than their leaner pals - increasing their risk of infertility in later life, a study has found.
Researchers said the results were a ‘grim message’ for overweight young adults.
The study by scientists at the University at Buffalo in the U.S shows for the first time that obese young men aged 14 to 20 have around half the total testosterone than normal weight youths.

Weighty issue: Obese teenage boys have half the testosterone levels of their healthy peers (posed)

The same research team first reported in 2004 the presence of low testosterone levels - known as hypogonadism - in obese, type 2 diabetic adult males and confirmed it in 2010 in more than 2,000 obese men, both diabetic and non-diabetic.
The study’s first author Dr Paresh Dandona, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine, said: 'We were surprised to observe a 50 per cent reduction in testosterone in this paediatric study because these obese males were young and were not diabetic.
'The implications of our findings are, frankly, horrendous because these boys are potentially impotent and infertile. The message is a grim one with massive epidemiological implications.'

 

In 2009, 20 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds boys in the UK were recorded as obese.
The study included 25 obese and 25 lean youths and was controlled for age and level of sexual maturity. Concentrations of total and free testosterone and estradiol, an oestrogen hormone, were measured in morning fasting blood samples.
Dr Dandona said the results need to be confirmed with a larger number of subjects.
However, he said: 'These findings demonstrate that the effect of obesity is powerful, even in the young, and that lifestyle and nutritional intake starting in childhood have major repercussions throughout all stages of life.'
Dr. Dandona said in addition to the reproductive consequences, the absence or low levels of testosterone that were found also will increase the tendency toward abdominal fat and reduced muscle, leading to insulin resistance which contributes to diabetes.
He added: 'The good news is that we know that testosterone levels do return to normal in obese adult males who undergo gastric bypass surgery.
'It’s possible that levels also will return to normal through weight loss as a result of lifestyle change, although this needs to be confirmed by larger studies.'
The researchers now intend to study whether or not weight loss accomplished either through lifestyle changes or through pharmacological intervention will restore testosterone levels in obese teenage boys.
The paper was published online in the journal Clinical Endocrinology.

BREAST FEEDING AND BREAST CANCER

DO NOT BREAST-FEED YOUR BABY AND INVITE BREAST CANCER
  
Washington, 19 October: Breast-feeding can reduce the risk for estrogen receptor-negative and progesterone receptor-negative breast cancer, according to a study.

Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health examined the association between reproductive risk factors — such as the number of children a woman delivers, breast-feeding and oral contraceptive use – and found an increased risk for estrogen receptor- and progesterone receptor- (ER/PR) negative breast cancer in women who do not breast-feed.

The results also indicated that having 3 or more children without breast-feeding was associated with an increased risk for ER/PR-negative breast cancer. ER/PR-negative breast cancer often affects younger women and has a poor prognosis.

The researchers used data from 3 sites of the Breast Cancer Family Registry, which includes women with and without breast cancer from the U.S., Canada and Australia. The study included 4,011 women with breast cancer and 2,997 population-based controls.

“Women who had children but did not breast-feed had about 1.5 times the risk for ER/PR-negative breast cancer,” said Meghan Work, MPH, doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology and first author.

“If women breast-fed their children, there was no increased risk for ER/PR-negative cancer. This is particularly important as breast-feeding is a modifiable factor that can be promoted and supported through health policy,” Work said.

The investigators also found that oral contraceptive use was not associated with ER/PR-negative cancer risk, with the exception of those formulations available before 1975.

“These earlier formulations contained higher doses of estrogen and progestin than more recent versions,” Work said.

These results are in line with previous findings that have demonstrated a breast-feeding benefit in triple-negative breast cancer, which includes estrogen and progesterone receptor negative cancers.

 
“The consistency of the association with breast-feeding and estrogen receptor negative tumours across a number of studies is particularly noteworthy as there have been few modifiable risk factors identified for this tumor subtype,” said Mary Beth Terry, PhD, associate professor of Epidemiology and senior author of the paper.

The paper was presented at the 11th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.