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Low levels of testosterone in the body increases the risk of diabetes mellitus in men, reports a study. The researchers have found that the hormone helps in maintaining blood sugar levels in the body by stimulating the production of insulin in pancreas.

Testosterone is present throughout a man's body and conditions like obesity affect the levels of the hormone leading to complications like diabetes mellitus. The levels of testosterone in body declines with age and researchers reason that the decline in hormone levels could be responsible for increased risk of diabetes mellitus in older men.

The investigators are hopeful that discovery of mechanism by which testosterone trigger the production of insulin in pancreas would shed light on advanced treatment for diabetes in men. On the other hand, patients under treatment for prostate cancer experience drop in testosterone levels in body and the research findings could pave way for appropriate intervention in affected men.

"We have found the cause - and a potential treatment pathway - for type 2 diabetes in testosterone-deficient men," said Franck Mauvais-Jarvis from Tulane University in the US, noted Futurity. "Our study shows that testosterone is an anti-diabetic hormone in men. If we can modulate its action without side effects, it is a therapeutic avenue for type 2 diabetes," said Mr Mauvais-Jarvis.

For the purpose of the study, researchers bred male mice that lack testosterone receptor in their pancreatic beta cells. The mice are then fed with western diet that includes rich sugar and fat. And when these mice were tested it was found they had low insulin production in their body compared to their counterparts that had testosterone receptor in beta cells. Therefore the glucose intolerance in genetically modified mice is attributed to lack of testosterone in body.

"To better understand how testosterone interacted with insulin production within the pancreas, researchers administered testosterone and glucose directly to human pancreatic cells treated with an androgen receptor inhibitor and those harvested from mice without androgen receptors. In both cases the cells showed decreased insulin production compared to those whose testosterone gene was not blocked or missing," according to Wakefield Express.