Purpose

Gender dysphoria (DSM-5) or transsexualism (ICD10) is a condition in which a person's feeling of gender identity is not congruent with the physical body. The hormonal treatment includes inhibition of one's own sex hormone production followed by treatment with testosterone or estrogen levels that are normal for the opposite sex. Seen as experimental model, this is a process that provides an opportunity to study the sex hormone dependent influences that explain differences in morbidity in men and women respectively. The differences that are especially significant but not well known is 1) metabolic changes in the regulation of glucose homeostasis and lipid metabolism 2) regulation of vascular function and structural effects on the heart and arteries 3) regulation of skeletal muscle mass and fat tissue 4) morphological and functional effects on discrete areas of the brain. Therefore, the investigators will follow these patients for a year to study how the heart, blood vessels, brain, and risk factors for cardiovascular disease affected by altered sex hormone patterns and studying what happens in the muscles and fat in both the short and long term with respect to particular gene expression and epigenetic changes and link it to metabolic changes and body composition.