Sex Hormones, Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: Is There a Link?

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Sex Hormones, Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: Is There a Link? ID: 18-0450 8 1 A Gambineri and C Pelusi Testosterone, obesity and 8:1 R1–R9 diabetes REVIEW Sex hormones, obesity and type 2 diabetes: is there a link? Alessandra Gambineri and Carla Pelusi Endocrinology Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, St Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Alma Mater University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to A Gambineri: [email protected] Abstract An imbalance in sex hormones has an important impact on type 2 diabetes (T2DM) Key Words mainly through the involvement of visceral adipose tissue. Androgens have an f androgens interesting sex-dimorphic association with T2DM, since hyperandrogenism in females f estrogens and hypogonadism in males are risk factors for T2DM. Thus, treatments aimed at f sex correcting hyperandrogenism in females and hypogonadism in males may prevent the f obesity development of T2DM or help in its treatment. f diabetes Endocrine Connections (2019) 8, R1–R9 Role of sex and gender on the development Sex hormone differences between the sexes of type 2 diabetes Males and females produce the same steroid hormones in There is increasing evidence that sex and gender differences a similar way. Regarding androgens, in both sexes, there influence the epidemiology, pathophysiology, treatment are different synthesis pathways; a classic pathway where and outcomes of many diseases, including type 2 diabetes testosterone is synthesized directly in testicular Leydig (T2DM) (1). The term sex is used to primarily indicate cells in men and ovarian theca cells in women. Androgens biological differences and the term gender predominantly are parallel produced from Δ5- and Δ4-precursors, and describes the psychosocial differences between sexes. Sex therefore, converted into peripheral target tissues to differences between women and men include differences in the more potent androgen 5α-dihydrotestosterone sex hormones and their effects on organ systems. Gender (DHT) by 5α-reductase enzyme (3). However, it is also differences arise from sociocultural processes and include possible that testosterone is locally synthesized at the different forms of nutrition, life styles or stress or attitudes level of peripheral organs. For example, at the level of toward treatments and prevention of diseases. Sex and gender the adipose tissue, androstenedione (A4) is converted differences are equally important in terms of development, to testosterone by 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase awareness, presentation, diagnosis and therapy, as well as type 5 (17β-HSD5) and testosterone may be further the prevention of T2DM, influencing each other, above all activated to DHT by the type 1 isoform of 5α-reductase. through the impact on obesity. There is a general agreement In addition, there are several alternative pathways to DHT that obesity is the major risk factor for T2DM in both sexes, synthesis, the backdoor pathway and alternate 5α-dione as supported by the data of the prevalence patterns of T2DM pathway, which directly synthesize DHT from circulating across regions which resemble those of obesity (2). androgen precursors in peripheral tissues bypassing This review focuses on the link between sex hormones the conventional intermediate testosterone (3). There and T2DM through the impact that a sex hormone is also an 11-oxygenated adrenal androgen pathway imbalance has on metabolic tissues, particularly on which converts A4 to 11β-hydroxyandrostenedione adipose tissue. The sexual dimorphism of androgens in (11OHA4) and testosterone to 11-keto-testosterone the pathophysiology of T2DM is emphasized. (11KT) and 11-keto-dihydrotestosterone (11KDHT) by https://ec.bioscientifica.com © 2019 The authors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons https://doi.org/10.1530/EC-18-0450 Published by Bioscientifica Ltd Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 InternationalDownloaded License. from Bioscientifica.com at 09/23/2021 08:05:29PM via free access -18-0450 PB–R10 A Gambineri and C Pelusi Testosterone, obesity and 8:1 R2 diabetes adrenal 11β-hydroxylase (CYP11B1) activity. These are of E2 and distinct between sexes. In addition, in females, active 11-oxygenated androgens (3). In particular, 11KT the amount of testosterone that is bound to SHBG is and 11KDHT are able to activate the human androgen significantly higher than that in males (77 vs 53%). receptor (AR) with the same potency as testosterone Therefore, changes in the level of SHBG have a greater effect and DHT. A4 and testosterone can be converted to the on the free testosterone level (and thus on its biological estrogens estrone (E1) and estradiol (E2), respectively, expression) than on the corresponding free E2 level, and by aromatase (CYP19A1), which has been found in the this is particularly evident in the free testosterone level of ovary and testis as well as in many extragonadal tissues, females with respect to males. Thus, the serum transport including the brain, prostate gland, breast, bone, muscle, of androgens and estrogens contributes to sex-based liver and adipose tissue. differences by regulating the relative free hormone levels The fact that both sexes make the same steroid available to target tissues. Main sex hormone differences hormones in a similar way means that physiological between the sexes are summarized in Table 1. differences are necessarily quantitative in terms of (i) how much androgen is made, and (ii) what percentage of that quantity is converted into estrogen. If we focus on Sex-dimorphic association between testosterone and E2, the two most potent representatives androgens and type 2 diabetes results from of their classes and the principal hormones synthesized clinical studies in the gonads, two dramatic differences are evident. The testis makes approximately 7000 μg of testosterone per The sex-dimorphic association between testosterone and day and converts one quarter of 1% into E2, whereas T2DM, which is consistently observed across racial and the ovary makes only 300 μg of testosterone per day, but ethnic groups, is particularly evident in clinical studies fully converts half of it into E2. Thus, men make at least (6). There are many cross-sectional population-based 20 times as much testosterone as women do; however, studies that demonstrate that lower levels of testosterone the percentage of testosterone that is converted into E2 in men and higher levels of testosterone in women are in a woman is 200 times that in a man. In both sexes associated with T2DM, while lower levels of SHBG are testosterone induces the estrogen sulfotransferase (EST), associated with T2DM particularly in females (7). Some which inactivates E2 in E2 sulfate (E2-S); therefore, prospective population-based studies thus indicate that the higher the levels of testosterone, the higher the endogenous testosterone may differentially influence the inactivation of E2 in E2 sulfate, thus contributing to risk of T2DM in men and women. Reduced testosterone the quantitative differences in sex steroids between the levels (both total and free) in men are in fact associated sexes (4). with a higher risk of T2DM, whereas higher testosterone However, there is also a qualitative difference between levels (both total and free) as well as lower levels of SHBG the sexes that depends on the production site of E2. In in females are associated with a higher risk of T2DM (8). healthy premenopausal women, E2 is mainly produced by Interestingly, prospective studies performed on the ovaries and functions as a circulating hormone that men demonstrate that the inverse relationship between acts on distant target tissues. In men and postmenopausal testosterone and the risk of diabetes mainly depend on the women, E2 does not function as a circulating hormone; abdominal obesity phenotype. In fact, after adjustment rather, it is synthesized mainly in extragonadal sites and for waist circumference, this relationship drastically acts as a paracrine and intracrine factor (4). attenuates (9). In females, the risk of T2DM increases with Part of the sex hormone differences between the the aggravation of hyperandrogenism (10) and becomes sexes also depends on the sex hormone-binding globulin particularly evident in hyperandrogenic disorders, such as (SHBG), which regulates the biological effect of sex polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). steroids (5). Androgens and estrogens are transported in PCOS is the most common hyperandrogenic disorder the blood by proteins, particularly SHBG and albumin in women with a prevalence in European women in the which regulate the access of steroid hormones to their fertile age of around 6–8% (11). Observational cross- target cells. These proteins have different ligand affinities: sectional studies performed on PCOS and included by albumin binds the sex hormones indistinctly and with a Moran et al. in a meta-analysis estimate that the odds low affinity, whereas SHBG binds the sex hormones with of T2DM are four times as high for women with PCOS a high affinity but the affinity to testosterone is twice that compared with controls (12). A subgroup matched https://ec.bioscientifica.com © 2019 The authors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons https://doi.org/10.1530/EC-18-0450 Published by Bioscientifica Ltd Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 InternationalDownloaded License. from Bioscientifica.com at 09/23/2021 08:05:29PM via free access A Gambineri and C Pelusi Testosterone, obesity and 8:1 R3 diabetes Table 1 Main sex hormone differences between the sexes. Sex differences References Testosterone Men make 20 times as much testosterone as women do per day (3) Estradiol (E2) Men convert testosterone into E2 in a percentage that is 200 times (3, 4) lower than a women E2 in men is synthesized in extragonadal sites and functions as a paracrine and intracrine factor E2 in women is mainly synthesized in the ovaries and functions as a circulating hormone Estrogen sulfotransferase (EST) EST is more active in men than in women (4) Sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) Testosterone bound to SHBG is lower in men than in women (5) (53% vs 77%) for BMI confirmed that the odds of T2DM were more development of T2DM in PCOS (17).
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