Testosterone Therapy and Heart Attacks

Hello. Bit of a different video from me, but one I felt is important as a kind of testosterone PSA.

If you like. I'll try to keep it short. I'm seeing a lot of men on testosterone therapy who are otherwise quite fit and well, coming in with heart attacks.

My name is Rohin Francis. I'm a consultant interventional cardiologist in the UK and in just the last few months, I've seen five men admitted with the most severe form of heart attack, something called an ST elevation myocardial infarction, which means that these men had a complete occlusion of one of the arteries

supplying the heart. I treated them all and they've all gone home safely, but they all suffered permanent damage to their heart.

Now, if you haven't seen any of my videos before, I spend a lot of time criticizing people who share anecdotal evidence and who draw conclusions from small data.

I'm very aware that this is exactly what I'm doing now, and I'm a bit apprehensive about saying this.

So I do want to emphasise this is purely one doctor's observation based on my own experience. Please don't take what I'm saying as conclusive evidence of anything, but just as a doctor might try to sound the alarm about a novel infection they're seeing in their hospital.

I actually felt strongly enough to mention this publicly and contradict my own code of conduct, because I've been practicing for a long time and I've not seen this before.

Secondly, because I have an interest in this field due to, you know, having this YouTube channel and just being interested in the science of fitness and training.

And because I keep tabs on misinformation being promulgated by health influencers online, I think I'm probably more attuned to asking men that I treat about testosterone, which makes me suspect that the problem is likely underreported, as in many cases, men don't mention testosterone therapy on admission.

I think in most part because they might consider it like a supplement rather than a medication. And we know that people often don't mention supplements when you ask them what medication they take when they come into hospital.

In fact, I think in every case the men have only divulged it after I specifically asked. One chap denied it until his family left, and then he told me so.