Male Menopause

By Abraham Morgentaler, MD, FACS

One of the fastest-growing areas in medicine today is the use of testosterone in men, particularly during the middle years. Most of my academic credentials within medicine come from my work with testosterone, as I was one of the first to recognize that healthy men can experience an age-related natural decline in hormones that affects their sexuality and vitality, and which can be treated successfully with testosterone therapy. Although testosterone has been used since the 1930s, it was a small backwater in medicine until the last 20 years or so. I feel as if I were there at its modern-era birth and have taken a degree of uncertain pride as I’ve watched the field expand. Although I’ve published many articles on the benefits of testosterone, my greatest contribution has been to show that the long-held belief that testosterone is risky for prostate cancer is false. As the fear of testosterone has declined, physicians have become more comfortable with it, leading to a crescendo of interest in its use.

Men Are Also Hormonal

Over the last 10 years, the fastest pharmaceutical sector is testosterone, growing at more than 10% per year. There are a huge number of men out there who have symptoms of low levels of testosterone. As this problem gained attention from physicians about 10 to 15 years ago, there was a push to talk about andropause, a male version of menopause.

I started to use the term low T in the office and during lectures to describe the condition that has otherwise been called hypogonadism, or testosterone deficiency syndrome. My colleagues thought low T was too simplistic a term, but it worked for me and my patients, and I continue to use it. Nonetheless, I was surprised to hear one day that my verbal shorthand had been co-opted by the industry. Now, television and print ads ask, “Is it low T?”

This is an excerpt from an article originally published in Life Extension Magazine.Simply click here to read the complete article.