Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT)
Testosterone replacement therapy should be initiated by a medical practitioner when relevant symptoms are accompanied by decreased testosterone levels and other factors have been excluded. The aim of therapy is to re-establish normal sexual functioning, and general mental (e.g. mood, mental acuity) and physical status (e.g. muscle mass, muscle strength, virilisation) appropriate to age by the most physiological and risk-free means available.
Testosterone replacement restores serum testosterone to physiological circulating concentrations in men with hypogonadism and reverses the symptoms of androgen deficiency. Thus it is able to produce improvement in libido, increase in bone mineral density and in muscle mass, and produces favourable changes in body composition with reduction in fat mass and increase in lean body mass, improvement in mood, correction of anemia and improvement in memory performance and cognitive status. Whether testosterone therapy lessens the risk of cardiovascular disease is not established.
