A 2014 medical study conducted by a team of leading researchers from UCLA and the U.S. National Cancer Institute found a two-fold increased risk of heart attacks in men 65 and older in the 90 days following the first prescription. That same study also showed adverse risks for men younger than 65 who had pre-existing cardiovascular disease. That group had a two- to three-fold increased risk of a heart attack in the 90 days following the first prescription. –
A November 2013 study, conducted on older men in the U.S. Veterans Affairs health system, many of whom had underlying cardiovascular disease, demonstrated that there is a 30 percent increased risk of stroke, heart attack and death in the group that had been prescribed testosterone therapy drugs. The findings were reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
The products are:
- AndroGel – Manufactured by AbbVie
- AndroDerm – Manufactured by Actavis
- Axiron – Manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company
- Bio-T-Gel – Manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals
- Fortesta – Manufactured by Endo Pharmaceuticals
- Striant – Manufactured by Columbia Laboratories
- Testim – Manufactured by Auxilium Pharmaceuticals
- Testopel – Manufactured by Auxilium Pharmaceuticals
- Delatestryl – Manufactured by Indevus Pharmaceuticals
- Depo-Testosterone – Manufactured by Pharmacia & Upjohn Company
Tapping a medical-records database of 55,593 men who received prescriptions for testosterone from 2006 to 2010, the current research compared the subjects to themselves before and after receiving their first testosterone prescription.
And they compared the men who got prescriptions for testosterone to a similar group of men who got a first prescription for an erectile dysfunction medication. Men in both of those two groups tend to be of similar age, have similar health problems, and complain of similar symptoms, and so are comparable. But since erectile dysfunction drugs do not affect hormone balance and work in different ways than do testosterone supplements, the researchers who observed differences in the two groups’ heart attack rates would point to a drug effect, not just a correlation between those taking a drug and a negative outcome.
By both measures, older men on testosterone, and younger ones with established heart disease, were significantly more likely to suffer a heart attack shortly after starting a testosterone prescription.
The authors said that large clinical trials should be conducted to clarify which men might incur risks from testosterone supplementation that outweighed its benefits. Until those are conducted and the results are in, they wrote, physicians counseling men who seek testosterone supplements “might be well advised to include serious cardiovascular events in their discussion with patients of potential risks, particularly for men with existing cardiovascular disease.”
FDA Recalls and The Law 