Testosterone, the male sex hormone, plays more of a role in a man’s life than just fueling his sex drive: helps regulate heart function and plays a part in sperm production, bone health, energy levels, concentration, and muscle mass, Fox News reports.  

Most men experience a natural decline in testosterone as they age, and testosterone supplementation is commonly prescribed to help these men regulate their hormone levels.

But researchers have recently found that it's not just too little testosterone that's a bad thing—too much might be, as well.

Bu Beng Yeap of the University of Western Australia, the lead author of the JCEM study and his research colleagues discovered having the ideal amount of testosterone and higher levels of DHT could help men maintain good health as they grow older.

“Older men who had testosterone in the middle range survived longer than their counterparts who had either low or high levels of the hormone,” he said.

Researchers came to this conclusion after conducting a population-based cohort study of 3,690 men between the ages of 70 to 89 in Perth, Australia. The men’s testosterone and DHT levels were measured between 2001 and 2004, and their survival rate was recorded through December 2010.

Researchers found men with the lowest testosterone levels had the highest mortality rate, followed by men with the highest testosterone levels. Overall, men with middle levels of testosterone tended to live the longest.