Journal
PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE
Volume 73, Issue 8, Pages 643-647Publisher
LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS
DOI: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e318230343f
Keywords
schizophrenia; sex hormone; androgen; senescence; aging; first episode
Categories
Funding
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases [RO1 DK069265]
- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression
- Government of Catalonia, Comissionat per Universitats I Recerca del Departament d'Innovacio, Universitats I Empresa [2009SGR1295]
- Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red de Salud Mental
- Bristol-Meyers Squibb
- Janssen-Cilag
- GlaxoSmithKline
- Pfizer
- Organon
- AstraZeneca
- Wyeth
- Lilly
- Cephalon
- Solvay
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Objective: Schizophrenia has been associated with age-related abnormalities, including abnormal glucose tolerance, increased pulse pressure, increased inflammation, abnormal stem cell signaling, and shorter telomere length. These metabolic abnormalities and other findings suggest that schizophrenia and related disorders might be associated with accelerated aging. Testosterone activity has a progressive decline with increasing age. Methods: We tested the hypothesis that circulating biologically active testosterone is lower in newly diagnosed, antipsychotic-naive male patients with nonaffective psychosis than in matched control subjects. Results: Patients (n = 33) were matched to control subjects (n = 33) for age, sex, body mass index, socioeconomic status of the family of origin, and smoking. The free androgen index, a measure of biologically active testosterone, was significantly lower in the psychosis group (mean [standard deviation] = 57.7% [26.1]) than in control subjects (71.6% [27.0], p = .04), with an effect size of 0.53. Multivariate analysis also supported the findings. In the psychosis group, free androgen index had a significant negative correlation with the conceptual disorganization item (r = -0.35, p = .049) but not with reality distortion (r = -0.21, p = .24), negative symptoms (r = 0.004, p = .98), or depression (r = -0.014, p = .94). Conclusions: Lower testosterone level is consistent with accelerated aging in nonaffective psychosis, but further testing of this hypothesis is needed.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available