Men with type 2 diabetes who have low testosterone levels can benefit significantly from testosterone treatment. That is the conclusion of University at Buffalo (UB) researchers who conducted the first randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of testosterone treatment in type 2 diabetic men that comprehensively investigated the role of insulin resistance and inflammation, before and after treatment with testosterone. The study, funded by the NIH, was published online on November 29, 2015 in Diabetes Care. The article is titled “Insulin Resistance and Inflammation in Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism and Their Reduction After Testosterone Replacement in Men With Type 2 Diabetes.” "This is the first definitive evidence that testosterone is an insulin sensitizer and hence a metabolic hormone," said Paresh Dandona, M.D,. Ph.D., senior author on the paper and State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Professor and Chief of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism in the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. He sees patients at UBMD Internal Medicine. The UB researchers found that low testosterone levels were associated with significantly decreased insulin sensitivity; this was demonstrated by a 36 percent decrease in the rate at which glucose is taken up by tissues when patients with low testosterone were administered a set concentration of insulin. Dr. Dandona and his co-authors have been reporting on the relationship between insulin sensitivity and testosterone in type 2 diabetic males since the publication of their seminal paper in 2004, when they demonstrated the association between low testosterone levels and type 2 diabetes. This association was extended to obesity in 2010 in a study of more than 2,000 obese men.Login Or Register To Read Full Story