The association between body mass index and testosterone deficiency in aging Chinese men with benign prostatic hyperplasia: results from a cross-sectional study.

Evidence has supported obesity as a risk factor for both benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and hypogonadism. In this paper, we performed a retrospective study and discussed the prevalence of testosterone deficiency (TD) and its relationship to body mass index (BMI) in aging Chinese men with BPH who have surgical intervention.

We reviewed the clinical data by age, BMI, medical history, serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels, serum total testosterone (TT) levels, biochemical analysis, and transrectal ultrasound. BMI and other variables were considered to be independent variables in an effort to evaluate any potential associations between these factors and TD status using non-adjusted and multivariate-adjusted regression models.

Of the 795 BPH participants, 27.2% (216) patients had TD. After adjusting for all potential covariates, there was a similar J-shaped relationship between BMI and TD, with an inflection point of 19.2 kg/m2. The effect sizes and the confidence intervals on the left and right sides of this inflection point were 0.6 (0.4-1.0) (p = .043) and 1.2 (1.1-1.3) (p < .001), respectively.

Nearly one-third of the aging Chinese BPH patients had TD in this study. The association between BMI and TD is not simple. A J-shaped curve correlation was detected. BMI was positively correlated with TD when it was over 19.2 kg/m2 and inversely correlated with TD when it was below 19.2 kg/m2. Long-term prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings.

The aging male : the official journal of the International Society for the Study of the Aging Male. 2019 May 06 [Epub ahead of print]

Yu Wu, Ding Xu, Hai-Bo Shen, Su-Bo Qian, Jun Qi, Xu-Jun Sheng

a Department of Urology , Xinhua Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , Shanghai , China.