Episode 239: 239. TRAVERSE Study...Is Testosterone Therapy Safe for the Heart?

Take away

The drug companies will say look how safe testosterone therapy is there was no difference in death from cardiovascular causes or myocardial infarction or stroke in those individuals randomized to testosterone therapy over placebo but in actuality this trial really showed nothing and it did show that when using placebo or minimal doses of testosterone -- ones that barely change blood levels of testosterone and have so little effect on how people feel that 60% of them stop the active arm of the trial, then and only then are the patients safe from cardiovascular risk at less than 2 years of follow up. And I am sure they will forget to mention the harm associated with testerone that was in the form of cardiac arrhythmias and acute kidney injury.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2215025