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Age-related decline in total testosterone levels among young men: insights from a large single-center observational study

International Journal of Impotence Research volume 37, pages 655–660 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

We aimed to depict the age-specific distribution of total Testosterone (tT) levels among young men presenting to a single academic centre with uro-andrological complaints. Overall, tT levels from 2593 men aged 20–44 years were analyzed. Men were grouped into ‘infertile men’ and ‘men with sexual dysfunction (SD)’ according to their primary complaints. Data was also collected from 71 same-ethnicity age-comparable fertile controls. Linear regression fitted the relationship between tT and increasing age. Distribution of tT was determined for each 5-year age-group, both for the overall population and the subgroups. tT quantiles were reported for each sample sub-group and age-group. Of 2664 men, 1913 (71.81%) were classified as infertile, 680 (25.52%) with SD and 71 as fertile men (2.67%), respectively. tT levels depicted a reduction of 0.14 nmol/L per year between 20 and 44 years of age (p < 0.001) within the overall study population. Significant reduction was also observed for the population stratified by urological complaints (all p < 0.05). This is the first study to describe tT levels as a function of baseline clinical status in a large same-ethnicity cohort of young men, uniformly assessed using a standardized laboratory method.

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Fig. 1: Age-specific thresholds for low tT levels.

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Data availability

the datasets analysed during the current study are not publicly available but are accessible from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Experimental Oncology/Unit of Urology; URI; IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan, Italy

    Christian Corsini, Edoardo Pozzi, Federico Belladelli, Alessandro Bertini, Fausto Negri, Massimiliano Raffo, Eugenio Ventimiglia, Luigi Candela, Alessia D’Arma, Francesco Montorsi & Andrea Salonia

  2. University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy

    Christian Corsini, Edoardo Pozzi, Federico Belladelli, Alessandro Bertini, Fausto Negri, Massimiliano Raffo, Eugenio Ventimiglia, Francesco Montorsi & Andrea Salonia

  3. Fondazione IRCCS Ca’Granda Ospedale Maggiore, Milan, Italy

    Luca Boeri

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  1. Christian Corsini
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  2. Edoardo Pozzi
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  3. Federico Belladelli
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Contributions

A.S.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – Review & Editing and Supervision. C.C.: Methodology, Investigation, Writing – Original Draft and Writing – Review & Editing. E.P.: Investigation. F.B.: Investigation. A.B.: Investigation. F.N.: Investigation. L.B.: Investigation. M.R.: Investigation. L.C.: Investigation. E.V.: Investigation. A.D.: Investigation. F.M.: Supervision

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Correspondence to Andrea Salonia.

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The author declares no competing interests.

Ethical approval

Data collection followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was approved by the IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital Ethical Committee (Prot. 2014—Pazienti Ambulatoriali).

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Corsini, C., Pozzi, E., Belladelli, F. et al. Age-related decline in total testosterone levels among young men: insights from a large single-center observational study. Int J Impot Res 37, 655–660 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-025-01029-2

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