The Male Form Of Menopause, Myth Or Not

Andropause is what could be described as the male form of menopause. Recently, this condition became the motif for new researches and studies.

Before starting a comparison between the menopause and the androgen related condition that appears in men we will view or review the general facts of each of them.

Menopause appears in all women around the age of 50 as a natural process or induced by external factor like surgical removal of ovaries or powerful drugs used in chemotherapy for cancer. The ovaries cease to produce estrogens, her serum testosterone level drops at half, she no longer can procreate and has effects like hot flashes, mood swings, vaginal dryness, difficulty sleeping, osteoporosis, and often the loss of sexual desire.

Only 25-30 % of men that passed the age of 60 suffer from an age-related reduction in testosterone that is sufficiently dramatic for the man to be diagnosed as having an androgen (testosterone) deficiency. The first symptoms that appear in this case are loss of sexual desire, increasing frailty of muscle and bone, loss of well-being, loss of energy and initiative, cognitive decline, and an increase in abdominal fat. All these symptoms, together with the androgen deficiency are called by some specialists ” andropause”.

The differences between the menopause and the andropause are:

• - Only some men develop this deficiency
• - Men are, unlike women, still capable of producing sperm and procreating
• - The syndrome in men is a direct result of an age-related decline in serum testosterone, which can be reversed by treatment with testosterone patches, gels, or injections.

Even though a woman's symptoms and effects can be alleviated with treatments, she can not regain the capacity of procreation

All men and women are aging the same way but it is not correct to say that men suffer the same transition as women at menopause.