Abstract

Background: Sarcopenia is a progressive and generalized skeletal muscle disorder with unfavorable muscle changes throughout life, which can be associated with chronic disease. Testosterone supplementation is emerging as a possible therapy; however, it is still necessary to explore its effectiveness.

Objectives: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate and summarize the evidence related to the effect of testosterone supplementation on sarcopenia components of chronic disease patients.

Methods: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis with studies that assessed the effect of testosterone supplementation on sarcopenia components of chronic disease patients. Papers were identified using Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms, combining “sarcopenia”, “muscular atrophy”, and “testosterone”, searching MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases, and also hand searching.

Results: The database search resulted in 1602 applicable citations that could be included. Of those, 1560 were removed at the first phase, by reading the title and abstract, and a total of 17 studies were finally included after full-text assessment and manual searches of previous review references. With regard to the effects of testosterone supplementation on sarcopenia components, when taken together, the evaluated studies presented an increase in muscle mass and/or muscle strength, but results for muscle functional capacity were inconsistent.

Conclusion: Testosterone supplementation increased the muscle mass and muscle strength in chronic disease patients. However, current evidence does not indicate that those patients could benefit from testosterone supplementation in order to improve their muscle function.

Keywords: Testosterone, sarcopenia, muscle mass, muscle strength, muscle function, chronic disease.