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2 5 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 4 Testosterone makes you fat
Gus Cairns
When testosterone is used in people with HIV to build muscle, it may end up doing exactly the opposite, a study at the 7th Glasgow AIDS Conference has found.
The study by researchers at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada found that testosterone taken without exercise increased the amount of abdominal fat in patients, reduced fat in the limbs, and actually wasted muscle – giving rise to the exact ‘lipodystrophy look’ patients were hoping to avoid.
The study looked at 45 HIV positive men, 13 of whom had had regular testosterone shots to improve muscle mass and reduce AIDS wasting.
The researchers then asked nine of the 32 men not on testosterone to take it for six months, to see what the immediate short term effects would be.
It found that patients who had taken testosterone long-term ran more risk of heart problems. Eighty five per cent of them had high levels of the blood fats called triglycerides, as opposed to 40% not taking testosterone; three-quarters had high cholesterol as opposed to four in 10 of the others; and half of them had low levels of the protective ‘good’ HDL-cholesterol as opposed to one in five of the others.
These findings are consistent with a much bigger study released recently, which found that regular therapy with steroid hormones like testosterone roughly doubles the risk of heart attack in men.
However the body shape changes after six months of testosterone treatment were not what researchers expected.
They found that the testosterone users had put fat on inside the belly, giving them the ‘protease paunch’ look. While non-users of testosterone put on 300 grams (about 11 ounces) of abdominal fat, the experienced users had put on 1.3lbs and the patients new to testosterone 1.5lbs.
In contrast all the groups had lost fat from their limbs, in amounts varying from 3.5lbs in the experienced testosterone users to 5lbs in the ones new to taking it.
But what was really surprising was that while the experienced testosterone users did build a bit of muscle – about 2.3lbs – the ones new to testosterone actually lost about 1.8lbs of muscle mass, contrary to what would be expected.
The researchers came to the conclusion that just taking testosterone and hoping to develop a fit body without exercise is not just unrealistic, it’s counterproductive.
Weight-bearing exercise is essential if you’re to benefit from pumping male hormones into yourself, say the researchers.
They say: “In the absence of resistance training, supplementary testosterone may have cosmetically undesirable effects.”
In addition, because patients who actually had low testosterone and sexual dysfunction were excluded from the study, everyone on it had normal levels from the start. This may indicate that all that adding to your own store of male hormones will do is remove your body’s capacity for making its own and leave you off worse than before.
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
