Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2001 March;41(1):78-82

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Lack of correlation between 6-month fluctuations in habitual physical activity and testosterone. Concentrations in elderly subjects

Bonnefoy M. ^{1, 6}, Kostka T. ^{1, 2, 3}, Patricot M. C. ⁴, Berthouze S. E. ⁵, Lacour J. R. ²

From the 1 Service de Médecine Gériatrique Centre Hospitalier Lyon-Sud, Lyon, France 2 Laboratoire de Physiologie - GIP Exercice Faculté de Médecine de Lyon-Sud, Lyon, France 3 Department of Preventive Medicine Medical University, Lodz, Poland 4 Laboratoire de Biochimie (Pr A. Revol) Centre Hospitalier Lyon-Sud, Lyon, France 5 Département de Rééducation et Réadaptation Fonctionnelles GIP Exercice, Faculté de Médecine, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, France 6 Centre de Recherche en Nutrition Humaine de Lyon (CNRHL) Lyon, France

Back­ground. To ­examine the influ­ence of ­long-­term mod­ifi­ca­tions in ­habitual phys­ical ­activity (PA) on ­resting ­total tes­tos­te­rone (TT) con­cen­tra­tions in a ­group of ­healthy eld­erly sub­jects.
­Methods. Experi­mental ­design: 6-­month pros­pec­tive ­study. Set­ting: Uni­ver­sity ­research depart­ments of exer­cise phys­iology and ger­i­atric med­i­cine. Par­tic­i­pants: ­thirty-one inde­pen­dent, com­mu­nity ­dwelling eld­erly sub­jects (16 men and 15 ­women) ­aged >65 who vol­un­teered to par­tic­i­pate. Inter­ven­tions: cor­re­la­tional ­study. Meas­ures: PA was eval­u­ated by a ques­tion­naire ­QAPSE (Ques­tion­naire ­d’Activité Phy­sique ­Saint-­Etienne) and ­expressed by two ­activity ­indices: ­mean ­habitual ­daily ­energy expen­di­ture (­MHDEE) and ­daily ­energy expen­di­ture cor­re­sponding to lei­sure ­time ­sports activ­ities (Sports ­activity ­index).
­Results. ­Changes in ­resting TT con­cen­tra­tions ­were not ­related to ­changes in ­MHDEE (r=-0.28; p=0.30 and r=-0.001; p=0.99) and ­Sports ­activity (r=-0.30; p=0.26 and r=-0.05; p=0.85) in men and ­women, respec­tively. Sim­i­larly, rel­a­tive (%) ­changes in TT ­were not ­related to rel­a­tive ­changes in ­MHDEE (r=-0.16; p=0.55 and r=0.17; p=0.55) and ­Sports ­activity (r=-0.11; p=0.68 and r=0.02; p=0.92).
Con­clu­sions. The ­levels of ­habitual PA under­taken by an ­average ­senior do not ­appear to ­affect TT ­levels in ­healthy ­active eld­erly men and ­women.