Testosterone and exercise help weight gain in HIV wasting

Keith Alcorn
Estimated reading time 3 minutes
This article is more than 24 years old.

Further evidence that anabolic steroids or resistance exercise (weight training) can help replace lean muscle tissue lost in HIV wasting appears in a study published in this week's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. However, using anabolic steroids with an exercise programme did not result in any greater benefit than using one element on its own.

61 HIV-positive men whose body weight had declined by more than 5% in the previous 6 months, and who had low serum testosterone levels (

Daily food intake was standardised for all four groups at 1.5g of protein per kg of body weight and 40kcal per kg of body weight, a diet very high in protein and carbohydrates

Glossary

placebo

A pill or liquid which looks and tastes exactly like a real drug, but contains no active substance.

steroids

Hormones which may be used to suppress the body’s immune response or to reduce inflammation.

 

statistical significance

Statistical tests are used to judge whether the results of a study could be due to chance and would not be confirmed if the study was repeated. If result is probably not due to chance, the results are ‘statistically significant’. 

protein

A substance which forms the structure of most cells and enzymes.

anabolic

Anabolic processes build organs and tissues, including the growth and mineralisation of bone and increases in muscle mass. Anabolic steroids are synthetic forms of male sex hormones.

After 16 weeks, muscle strength had improved by 20-30% in all groups apart from the placebo group, and this improvement was statistically significant. Weight changes in each group are outlined below (asterisks indicate changes from baseline that were statistically significant):

Treatment group

Overall weight gain

Muscle gain

Placebo / no exercise

-0.5kg (ns)

+0.9kg (ns)

Exercise alone

+ 2.2kg *

+2.1kg *

Testosterone alone

+2.6kg *

+2.3kg *

Testosterone and exercise

+0.7kg (ns)

+2.6kg *

The authors cannot explain why the testosterone and exercise group failed to perform better than the exercise alone or testosterone alone group, despite the expected additive effect of combining the two interventions.

Reference

Bhasin S et al. Testosterone replacement and resistance exercise in HIV-infected men with weight loss and low testosterone levels. JAMA 283:6,763-770, 2000.

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