MENopause: The truth about male mid-life crises

Just like women, when men start ageing their hormone levels decline. Photo / iStock

Men, too, can have a mid-life hormone crisis, says Dr Erika Schwartz.

Whatever our age, we all have constant fluctuations in our hormones. When they are in balance, the results are amazing - our skin looks radiant and fresh, our minds work smoothly, we remember things, we focus well, our weight and moods are stable and our sex drive soars.

But when they are out of balance, problems can occur: we may have difficulty concentrating, we get tired and stay tired, we can't catch up on sleep, we lose interest in sex, become bloated and gain weight.

We develop aches and pains in our joints, our skin becomes wrinkled and dry, we have digestion problems, arthritis, heart disease . . . put simply, we age.

Nor are men immune from the effects of hormonal imbalance.

When I began studying hormones, I never thought in terms of men.

I wanted a safe solution for my personal menopausal symptoms, and by association found solutions for my female patients.

But it wasn't long before they started to discuss and include their husbands and partners, and for the past 15 years or so I have treated men, too.

The male menopause, technically called andropause, has never been in the spotlight because men who experience it have been reluctant to acknowledge its existence.

But, just like women, when men start ageing their hormone levels decline. The middle-age belly, the unwillingness to get up off the sofa and the grumpy moods associated with men in their middle years are clear symptoms of a natural drop in testosterone.

Unfortunately, the medical profession has not been keen to address this obvious similarity to female menopause.

Of course, researchers have been studying andropause for decades, but it was the pharmaceutical companies who first saw an opportunity in this group of ageing men - in the form of Viagra.

The problem was that this addressed one isolated symptom: poor erections.

- Daily Mail