Oral enclomiphene citrate raises testosterone and preserves sperm counts in obese hypogonadal men, unlike topical testosterone: restoration instead of replacement

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Enclomiphene (non-peptide SERM).

Serum samples were obtained over the course of the study to determine relevant hormone levels at baseline and after 16 weeks of treatment.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, men only.

Men were screened and enrolled in the trials (ZA-304 and ZA-305).

Men provided semen samples twice to enroll at the beginning and twice at the end of the study.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter and parallel-group study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Enclomiphene (non-peptide SERM) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Enclomiphene (non-peptide SERM), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Enclomiphene (non-peptide SERM) group a baseline to be compared against.

More than one site took part, so the participants came from several places.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Circadian Rhythm, Enclomiphene, Estrogen Antagonists, Follicle Stimulating Hormone, Hormone Replacement Therapy, Hypogonadism and Luteinizing Hormone.

Author keywords: selective oestrogen receptor modulator, serum testosterone, spermatogenesis secondary hypogonadism and topical testosterone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Enclomiphene (non-peptide SERM).

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2016 (BJU international), a journal based in England.

More context: the Enclomiphene (non-peptide SERM) compound page, all human trials.