Research

Hormonal

In postmenopausal women, higher levels of bioavailable testosterone are associated with an increased risk of incident type 2 diabetes, but this association is entirely mediated by adiposity (BMI) and insulin resistance.

For postmenopausal women, high testosterone levels are a warning sign of metabolic risk, but they are not the root cause. The risk comes from excess body fat and insulin resistance. Managing weight and insulin sensitivity is the primary way to mitigate this risk, rather than targeting testosterone levels directly.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
After adjustment for body mass index and insulin resistance estimated by homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance, bioavailable T was no longer associated with incident T2DM.
Rita R. Kalyani et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2009

Why this rating

Prospective cohort study with large sample size (n=1612) and rigorous adjustment for confounders.

Source

The Association of Endogenous Sex Hormones, Adiposity, and Insulin Resistance with Incident Diabetes in Postmenopausal Women

Rita R. Kalyani et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2009

DOI 10.1210/jc.2009-0910

cohort · n=1612Cited 180×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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