Hormones and health in older men.
Bu Yeap (HIMS investigator, Professor, Medical School, University of Western Australia, and Endocrinologist, Fiona Stanley Hospital).
The Health In Men Study (HIMS) has been a tremendously important study, examining many different factors and how they influence key health outcomes as men grow older. Thanks again to all HIMS men, you are all legends and have advanced our understanding of male ageing.
With the blood samples collected during wave 2 (2001-04), we assessed how sex hormones such as testosterone, and other hormones such as thyroid hormone, were related to the risks of ill-health in subsequent years. With the additional samples collected during wave 4 (2011-12) we could then examine how levels of testosterone and thyroid hormone changed over a period of time. Recently, HIMS has been front and centre of a large international collaboration involving 10 other cohort studies of men from Australia, Europe and North America, the Androgens In Men Study (AIMS). Led by HIMS researchers the AIMS collaboration has linked data from 25,000 men aged from their 20s to 90s, with testosterone measured very accurately. We learnt important lessons from this work, extending the findings from HIMS. Men who had a higher body mass index, or had medical conditions such as diabetes, cancer, or heart disease, had lower testosterone levels. While age did not influence testosterone levels in men aged 20-70 years, in men older than 70 years, testosterone fell as age increased. And in AIMS, once testosterone reached a very low level, the chance of dying increased. So we should be encouraging men to engage in healthy lifestyle behaviours to preserve their testosterone levels and their health as they grow older!
In 2025, we hope to carry out another wave of data collection in HIMS men. Congratulations to all of you reading this newsletter. HIMS men alive today are in their 90s and 100s and are shining examples of healthy ageing. We hope that you will be willing to take part in another wave of HIMS data collection, and also provide another blood sample to compare results from previous blood samples. We hope to find hormones or other markers in the blood samples which increase the chance of becoming a centenarian.
We also would like to invite you to provide a stool sample. The reason for this is that our bowels host a large number of bacteria, the gut microbiome. The gut microbiome affects our body metabolism and health and could provide valuable information on healthy ageing. All this new information may help discover vital secrets to healthy ageing. With thanks, very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, and the hope that we can continue the work of HIMS in 2025.
WACHA Director and HIMS Principal Investigator.
Professor Leon Flicker AO
It has been another great year for WACHA. Professor Anne-Marie Hill and her team have made great strides in fall prevention particularly in older people who have to go to hospitals. Professor Christopher Etherton-Beer has been a major contributor to a national group that is trying to work out which medications can be stopped to help older people live more successfully. Our ongoing work in HIMS has helped demonstrate that balance is at least as important as strength in preserving your health as you age. Our ongoing collaborations with the Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health continue to help work out important aspects for ageing healthily in older Aboriginal peoples. Merry Christmas everyone and with thanks and best wishes to all our supporters from 2024 and we look forward to your further involvement in 2025.