Table 2.
Sex hormone levels (mean ± SD) of study subjects categorized by erectile function and arsenic exposure.
| ED status
|
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenic exposure (ppb) | Normal (n = 48) | Moderate/mild (n = 49) | Severe (n = 77) | p-Value for trend | Total (n = 174) | p-Valuea | |
| Testosterone (nmol/L) | ≤ 50b | 19.28 ± 7.21c | 17.50 ± 4.28cd | 16.03 ± 5.28d | 0.01 | 17.55 ± 5.85 | |
| > 50 | 16.74 ± 4.19 | 15.57 ± 2.96 | 14.46 ± 5.16 | 0.22 | 15.04 ± 4.64 | 0.009 | |
| Free testosterone (nmol/L) | ≤ 50b | 0.42 ± 0.17c | 0.40 ± 0.13cd | 0.33 ± 0.17d | 0.01 | 0.38 ± 0.16 | |
| > 50 | 0.39 ± 0.11 | 0.34 ± 0.09 | 0.28 ± 0.14 | 0.03 | 0.31 ± 0.13 | 0.003 | |
| SHBG (nmol/L) | ≤ 50 | 33.53 ± 15.74 | 31.25 ± 14.21 | 37.31 ± 17.03 | 0.26 | 34.20 ± 15.86 | |
| > 50 | 28.71 ± 11.57 | 31.29 ± 11.34 | 41.79 ± 19.17 | 0.03 | 37.61 ± 17.50 | 0.23 | |
ED status: normal, IIEF > 21; moderate/mild, IIEF = 8–21; severe, IIEF ≤ 7.
a
Compared with ≤ 50 ppb arsenic exposure.
b
Duncan’s post hoc test was used to determine which groups were significantly different from each other after completing an ANOVA in which an effect (rejected the null) was found.
c,d
Different letters indicate significant difference; that is, c vs. d represents significant difference, but c vs. cd or cd vs. d represent no significant difference).