Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Demand for health care for transsexual people has increased exponentially in last years, especially among adolescents and young adults. Gender-affirming hormones (GAHs) are initiated to accommodate secondary sexual characteristics to the desired sex. Published studies about metabolic repercussion of GAHs are heterogeneous and report diverse results. Our objective is to evaluate the effect of GAHs on cardiovascular risk factors in transsexual population treated in our hospital.MethodsWe design a retrospective before-and-after study to evaluate changes in anthropometric parameters, blood chemistry analyses and metabolic comorbidities in transgender population treated with GAHs at least one year in Hospital Puerta del Mar between January 2017 and December 2020.

Results: A total of 227 transgender people were included in the study, 136 (59.91%) transmen and 97 (40.09%) transwomen. GAHs was initiated with median age of 18 (16–23) years old without significant differences between genders. It was detected a significant increase in weight, BMI and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as a worse lipid profile in both genders. Likewise, prevalence of dyslipidemia and hypertension increased in transmen (P<0.001 and P=0.004, respectively) and transwomen (P=0.035 and P=0.002, respectively). Glycated hemoglobin increased significantly [32 (31-33) vs 33 (32-37) mmol/mol; P=0.040] in transmen and fasting blood glucose [4.66 (4.33-4.88) vs 4.77 (4.38-5.11); P=0.008] in transwomen, although it did not translate into a higher risk of prediabetes.

Conclusion: In our setting, there is a higher risk of dyslipidemia and hypertension and a tendency towards weight gain after one year of the THAG in transmen and transwomen. Prevalence of prediabetes did not increase and any new cases of type 2 diabetes mellitus were detected. No cardiovascular events or thromboembolic processes were reported during the study period.