In short, women with MS generally have lower levels of testosterone in general. Very low levels of testosterone are associated with more lesions. There are, however, some women with MS with abnormally high levels of testosterone-- and in that case, such levels were associated with more serious, permanent damage.

For men with MS, testosterone levels were not any different than non-MS'ers, but the presence of higher levels of the female hormone oestrogen were linked with more serious brain damage.

While this studies seems a bit back-and-forth in the results, the important point is that while people have demonstrated many links for the sex hormones to MS (e.g., pregnant women don't have relapses, twice as many women as men have MS, etc.), this research shows definitively that something is indeed abnormal about these hormones in MS'ers. It is, as many of the studies we post, a jumping-point for more targeted research and no treatment is suggested herein.

"The primary objective of this study was to determine whether there is a link between the profile of sex hormones and MRI characteristics of brain damage in RRMS. As a first step, we investigated whether MS patients had hormonal patterns that were different from those in healthy controls...

The results showed that women with MS had lower testosterone concentrations than normal subjects. Women with hormonal levels more than 2 standard deviations below those of healthy controls had more enhancing lesions than women with normal testosterone concentrations...

Moreover, in women affected by MS, higher testosterone concentrations were significantly associated with the likelihood of irreversible tissue injury... and clinical disability, whereas in men with MS, there was a positive correlation between serum oestradiol and [irreversible tissue injury].

Click "read more" for a link to the full study (interesting, but technical)...

Link to Full Journal Article

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