Research

Hormonal

PCOS patients with high androstenedione and normal testosterone (HA/NT) exhibit significantly higher insulin resistance and dysglycemia rates compared to those with normal levels of both androgens (NA/NT), despite having normal testosterone.

If you have PCOS and your testosterone is normal, you are not automatically clear of metabolic risk. If your androstenedione is high, you may still have insulin resistance and a higher risk of developing diabetes, so monitoring glucose metabolism is important.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The incidence of dysglycemia according to an oral glucose tolerance test increased with the severity of androgen phenotype (NA/NT, 0%; HA/NT, 14%; HA/HT, 25%, P > .03).
Michael O’Reilly et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2014

Why this rating

Clear stratification of subgroups with statistically significant differences in dysglycemia rates.

Source

Hyperandrogenemia Predicts Metabolic Phenotype in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: The Utility of Serum Androstenedione

Michael O’Reilly et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2014

DOI 10.1210/jc.2013-3399

cross_sectional · n=129Cited 282×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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