Women who are genetically predisposed to produce higher levels of testosterone have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and some other cancers, UK researchers say.

And for men, naturally elevated testosterone is associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer, but a reduced risk of diabetes, they say.

Writing in Nature Medicine, the University of Exeter and University of Cambridge-led team examined more than 2500 genetic variables that regulate testosterone and their associations with metabolic diseases in 425,000 participants in the UK Biobank database.

To distinguish between the apparent beneficial and detrimental effects of the sex hormone in men and women respectively, sex-specific analyses were performed.