That mid-life crisis may have a physical cause. It’s called andropause. Just as women suffer menopause as hormones in the body decrease, a lot of men also suffer declining hormone supplies.
Andropause is becoming more widely recognized and accepted by doctors for the changes many middle-aged men experience – everything from energy loss to depression to loss of libido to dysfunction. And some men experience many more symptoms from the same cause – such as decreased bone density, weight gain and hair loss.
As hormone levels change, so does the body, and it can affect a man’s outlook on life. It’s like reverse puberty. The main missing hormone is the male hormone testosterone, but often symptoms do not go away when testosterone replacement is prescribed because other hormones have dwindled off, too.
All hormones produced in the body affect each other. As the body ages, hormone production tapers off. That would include not only testosterone, but growth hormone, estrogen and progesterone (female hormones), thyroid hormone and others. Because multiple hormones may be needed, administering only testosterone is most often not a solution.
A sudden drop in the female hormone estrogen characterizes the female experience of menopause. Andropause is more likely to sneak up on a man and some men have more problems and symptoms than others, because the loss of hormones is gradual. It can affect men as young as 35.
Symptoms of andropause can be exacerbated when traditional medicine approaches the problem by treating only one or two symptoms. A man complaining of depression and lack of libido may see his doctor and get a prescription for anti-depressants. Both doctor and patient check depression off the list as being treated. The anti-depressant however, will only worsen both symptoms, because it does not treat the cause of the symptoms.
Doctors who are trained in hormone replacement therapy should interview a patient at length to find all symptoms and then order laboratory testing to discover hormone levels for that individual. The tests would not just be for testosterone, but for other hormones as well. DHEA, growth hormone, thyroid hormone are a few of the hormones that should be tested. From the outcome of the tests and the information from the patient, a plan for that particular individual can be prescribed.
Changes in diet and exercise can improve the results of any prescriptions, but most importantly exact amounts of missing hormones can be prescribed at gradually increasing levels to replace those hormones that the body no longer produces in sufficient quantity. The replacement hormones must be bioidentical. Bioidentical means that the hormones used for replacement must be molecule for molecule exactly like those hormone produced in the body. A more youthful body will be the result.
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