The Effects of Testosterone Deprivation

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death all over the world. Currently various researches are made in order to find a cure for this disease without resorting to chemotherapy, cobalt treatment and major surgery. As the search continues, different trial treatments for cancer appear. One of them is testosterone deprivation for men suffering from prostate cancers.

Verbal Memory

• The researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University discovered that testosterone deprivation affects verbal memory in men undergoing this treatment. The study involved 14 men undergoing testosterone deprivation for treating prostate cancer and 16 healthy men without prostate cancer. The study indicated that the men with cancer and the healthy men used the same process in memorizing a list given to them. Researchers then asked the subjects to recall the list given to them at an interval of two minutes per session. The healthy men recalled most of the words in the list at the intervals indicated without problems. However, keeping in or recalling the words later proved difficult for the testosterone-deprived men. This is because the hippocampus, the area in the brain that is responsible for memory and learning, is affected. Testosterone deprivation also imitates the damage done to the brain due to lesions caused by strokes.

Metabolic Syndrome

• Because testosterone deprivation essentially eliminates most male hormones in the body, metabolic syndrome then can occur. The syndrome includes obesity in the abdomen, high blood pressure, insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. As gaining weight when one gets older is common, obesity in the abdominal region is a factor overlooked easily. This situation is dangerous because of the fat build-up happening in the body. Fat build-up can lead to increased risk of getting heart disease and strokes. As testosterone deprivation also results in the body's insulin resistance and glucose intolerance, the endocrine system can also be greatly affected later on. Further studies reveal that metabolic factors may cause early aging and sluggishness to its sufferers.

Diabetes

• As testosterone deprivation may have an adverse impact on the endocrine system, a patient undergoing this treatment may also suffer from diabetes. As patients under the testosterone deprivation treatments risk getting a metabolic syndrome that can result in diabetes, diabetes then becomes the side effect of another side effect. Diabetes is an incurable lifetime disease that a sufferer would have to deal with. Insulin shots, consistent sugar level checks and maintaining a strict diet are some of the requirements in managing this disease. Some of symptoms of diabetes may include having an obese or an extremely skinny figure, depending on the imbalance of sugar levels in the body.