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Luigi Gennari, Sundeep Khosla, John P Bilezikian, Estrogen and Fracture Risk in Men, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Volume 23, Issue 10, 1 October 2008, Pages 1548–1551, https://doi.org/10.1359/jbmr.0810c
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The sex steroid hormones are important for acquisition and maintenance of bone mass in both sexes. Alterations in their levels can become relevant in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis either because deficiency leads to suboptimal acquisition of peak bone mass or because deficits in adulthood can lead directly to bone loss. Whereas estrogens have been shown to be critically important in these respects for the female skeleton, their role in male skeletal health has only recently become appreciated. This is caused, in part, by assumptions that sex steroid action insofar as skeletal health is concerned is sex specific: estrogens for women and androgens for men. These assumptions are rational because circulating androgens predominate in men, and estrogens predominate in women. Moreover, alterations in androgen levels (i.e., hypogonadism) in the growing male skeleton or in the context of the aging male skeleton or diseases associated with hypogonadism have been often related with secondary osteoporosis and increased fracture risk in men.(1–3)
