Disruption of the Nocturnal Testosterone Rhythm by Sleep Fragmentation in Normal Men
Rafael Luboshitzky,
Ziva Zabari,
Zilla Shen-Orr,
Paula Herer and
Peretz Lavie
Endocrine Institute (R.L.), Haemek Medical Center, Endocrine
Laboratory (Z.S.O.), Rambam Medical Center, Haifa 32000, Israel; and
The Sleep Research Center (Z.Z., P.H., P.L.), Technion, Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Prof. R. Luboshitzky, Endocrine Institute, Haemek Medical Center, Afula 18101, Israel.
Recently, we have demonstrated that in normal men the nocturnal
testosteronerise antedated the first rapid eye movement (REM) sleep
episodeby about 90 min and was correlated with REM latency. To further
elucidatewhether the diurnal testosterone rhythm is a sleep-related
phenomenonor controlled by the circadian clock, we determined serum
testosteronelevels in 10 men during the ultrashort 7/13 sleep-wake
cycleparadigm. Using this schedule, subjects experienced partialsleep
deprivation and fragmented sleep for a 24-h period. Serumtestosterone
levels were determined every 20 min between 1900–0700h with
simultaneous sleep recordings during the 7-min sleepattempts. The
results were compared with those obtained in menduring continuous
sleep. Although mean levels and area underthe curve of testosterone
were similar in both groups, fragmentedsleep resulted in a significant
delay in testosterone rise (03:24h ± 1:13 vs.
22:35 h ± 0:22). During fragmentedsleep, nocturnal testosterone
rise was observed only in subjectswho showed REM episodes (4/10). Our
findings indicate that thesleep-related rise in serum testosterone
levels is linked withthe appearance of first REM sleep. Fragmented
sleep disruptedthe testosterone rhythm with a considerable attenuation
of thenocturnal rise only in subjects who did not show REM sleep.
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