Men—Stay On Top of Your Health

Men, if you’re experiencing fatigue, a loss of libido, weight gain, and/or depression, please don't chalk it up to the fact that you may be "getting old."

Yes, you may be chronologically older, but age is not your enemy. You can grow older and have a perfectly good quality of life. You just need to know what you're dealing with.

The truth is, you could be going through "andropause," the male equivalent of menopause. This condition, while trickier to treat than menopause, is indeed treatable.

While menopause can come like a "thief in the night," often bringing about abrupt changes in quality of life, the symptoms of andropause often go unnoticed, as they occur over the course of a decade.

So, while a woman's estrogen levels may fall precipitously, a man's testosterone levels may drop only 1 percent–1.5 percent a year. Over ten years, this dip can really take a toll on a man's body.

Unfortunately, the andropausal male is often labeled with one or more diseases when, in fact, his problem is excessive loss of testosterone. Unfortunately, these men get little relief from traditional medical approaches that typically fail to address the cause of the problem.

The first study on andropause was published in 1944 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers tried to determine whether falling testosterone levels could be causing similar symptoms among a group of men and affecting their quality of life. Of the 38 men they evaluated, 23 had a testosterone deficiency. Almost all of these men reported a change in mood, fatigue, hot flashes, sweating, and libido after testosterone injections. Potency returned to normal in 18 of those men.

How to Find Out if Your Testosterone Is Low

• The first order of business is to check your testosterone levels. Because mean testosterone levels fluctuate (they may be 700 ng/dL at 8 a.m., then drop to 425 ng/dL at 10 p.m.), have your blood drawn at least twice over a two-week period, at different times of day. The test provides a baseline, which is important if you plan to go with testosterone patches/injections.


• You also may want to test your growth hormone, as well as your estrone (a measure of estrogen), DHEA, PSA, and sex-hormone-binding globulin. This comprehensive profile can help pinpoint the cause of your problem and better tailor your therapy. For example, I give pregnenolone, a precursor to DHEA, to men with low DHEA levels and low testosterone. This combo is broken down into DHEA and progesterone. Progesterone inhibits the aromatase enzyme, which interferes with testosterone production


• If your tests reveal low testosterone levels, you should be screened for hemochromatosis (excessive iron) and have your insulin levels, blood sugar, fibrinogen, and LP(a) (ugly cholesterol fractions) checked. These risk factors for heart disease may be—and often are—elevated when testosterone is low.
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