Table 8.

NMDRCs for natural hormones identified in the epidemiology literature

Hormone	Affected endpoint	NMDRC	Study subjects	Refs.
Testosterone (free)	Incidence of coronary events	Incidence of 25% at extremes of exposure, 16% at moderate exposure	Rancho Bernardo Study participants, women aged 40+ (n = 639)	824
	Depression	Hypo- and hypergonadal had higher depression scores than those with intermediate free testosterone	Androx Vienna Municipality Study participants, manual workers, men aged 43–67 (n = 689)	825
PTH	Mortality	∼50% excess risk for individuals with low or high iPTH	Hemodialysis patients (n = 3946)	826
	Risk of vertebral or hip fractures	∼33% higher for low or high iPTH compared to normal levels	Elderly dialysis patients (n = 9007)	827
TSH	Incidence of Alzheimer's disease	About double the incidence in lowest and highest tertile in women (no effects observed in men)	Framingham Study participants (elderly) (n = 1864, 59% women)	828
Leptin	Mortality	Mortality ∼10% higher for lowest and highest leptin levels	Framingham Heart Study participants (elderly) (n = 818, 62% women)	563
Insulin	Coronary artery calcification	Higher for low and high insulin area under the curve measures.	Nondiabetic patients with suspected coronary heart disease, cross-sectional (n = 582)	829
	Mortality (noncardiovascular only)	Relative risk ∼1.5 for highest and lowest fasting insulin levels	Helsinki Policemen Study participants, men aged 34–64 (n = 970)	830
Cortisol	BMI, waist circumference	Low cortisol secretion per hour for individuals with highest and lowest BMI, waist circumference	Whitehall II participants, adults, cross-sectional (n = 2915 men; n = 1041 women)	831
	Major depression (by diagnostic interview)	Slight increases at extremes of cortisol	Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam participants, aged 65+, cross-sectional (n = 1185)	832

BMI, Body mass index; iPTH, intact PTH; PTH, parathyroid hormone.