Andrea Dunaif, a professor and system chief of endocrinology and diabetes at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. The study design used by the researchers is “the gold standard,” said Dr. “Our population were not elite athletes, but well-trained.” While the study proves that in the short term, at least, higher testosterone levels can lead to better performance in women, “the results could not be directly translated to female elite athletes with high testosterone in the male range,” Hirschberg said. Women in the testosterone group also ended up with bigger increases in lean body mass: 923 g versus 135 g. The report comes on the heels of a recent ruling that upheld the International Association of Athletic Federations’ regulations that require female athletes with naturally high levels of the hormone, such as the Olympic 800-meter champion Caster Semenya, to medically reduce their testosterone levels to be allowed to compete as women in middle-distance events.Įndurance in the testosterone group was significantly higher: running time to exhaustion on the treadmill was 21.17 seconds longer – an 8.5% increase - in those with higher levels of the hormone. The improvement in endurance by the increased testosterone levels was more than 8%.” “Testosterone levels increased more than four times but were still much below the male range. Angelica Linden Hirschberg, a professor in the department of women’s health at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. “Our study gives evidence for the causal effect of testosterone on physical performance in women,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, researchers found they could improve young women athletes’ abilities by having them smear a cream containing testosterone on their thighs for 10 weeks, according to the results published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. (Reuters Health) - Artificially raising women’s testosterone levels may result in improved physical performance, boosting endurance and muscle mass, a new study finds.

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