Cabergoline monotherapy for hypogonadism

[K_T_F]

Hey guys. I was digging through the literature at Pubmed, and found the interesting paper bellow. Although it is not clear in its title, it shows that cabergoline considerably increased levels of LH, FSH and T while lowering Prolactin levels. Most importantly, there was an important improvement in the subjective symptoms (libido, ED, orgasmic function, overall sexual satisfaction). I wonder why not use cabergoline monotherapy to low T sufferers.

The one thing that bothers me in this study is that the average prolactin levels of the men tested was pretty high (31.9 17.8 ng/mL). On the other hand they say that: The repeated measure analysis did not yield any significant difference in the time course for high baseline prolactin (P=0.094) or low baseline testosterone (P=0.642) with respect to favorable treatment.

I e-mailed the author asking for the raw data. I would like to redo the table using only the men with normal prolactin levels. If cabergoline worked for those as well this would be fantatic. Right? Am I missing something?


http://www.nature.com/ijir/journal/v19/n1/full/3901483a.html

 

[Nelson Vergel]

Umm..hard to believe a statistical significance of p<0.001 in every measurement in a small sample size. The journal also is not respected at all since it accepts most papers.
Published in 2007.

I am skeptical.

 

[PAUL-E]

If it worked it would only help secondary hypogonadism but also be careful because I believe it can have a negative impact on your immune system if your progesterone/prolactin drops too low.

 

[K_T_F]

Nelson, are you skeptical about the subjective survey data or the whole thing?

As far as the hormone numbers go i think it makes perfect sense. I'm no expert in the relationship between hormones but I believe it is well accepted that high prolactin lowers testosterone levels. So it is not surprising that lowering prolactin would boost testosterone. Cabergoline could work like clomid or anastrozole were supposed to (i.e., increasing testostosterone by altering an upstream event of testosterone production/regulation), with the advantage of actually improving sexual symptoms (maybe the p-value numbers are not trustworthy but cabergoline helping with libido and orgasms is something that have been confirmed by others studies).

Umm..hard to believe a statistical significance of p<0.001 in every measurement in a small sample size. The journal also is not respected at all since it accepts most papers.
Published in 2007.

I am skeptical.

 

[ERO]

Too low a progesterone level is as bad or worse than too high of a level and it does not take much Cabergoline to get you too low pretty quickly.