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Recognizing the 'men' in menopause

Men, if you're suffering from lethargy, flab and loss of libido, it could be menopause

Date published: 8/27/2006

GUYS, are you suffering from--or gals, are your men suffering from-- lethargy, mood swings, flushing, sweating, irritability, loss of libido, flab and impotence? You men could be the victim of what some consider a fictitious disease.

Ask any woman over the age of 50 and she'd recognize these symptoms (except perhaps the impotence). She'd nail it: menopause.

It's an ironic twist of our language that the syndrome associated with the drop-off of a woman's hormones at the end of her reproductive life is called men opause. But more and more is being made of a true "men"-opause, where a man suffers from the above symptoms. It's associated with a drop-off in men's testosterone levels, which can happen any time from their fourth to their seventh decade.

Failure to recognize the symptoms of male menopause, and skepticism about whether it really exists, may be related to the fact that the fall-off of testosterone is far less dramatic than the abrupt drop in a woman's production of estrogen.

The woman's drop-off triggers menopause, with its accompanying mood swings, hot flashes and other symptoms--which can often leave the old man wondering what in the world is happening, and why the thermostat has to be set at "refrigerate."

But nobody denies what's happening.

Yet when men lose muscle and become flabby, and when they become grouchy, lose their sex drive, can't get an erection, and don't exactly feel good about themselves--some would rather deny that it's all happening.

The Web site midlife-passages.com leaves no doubt about the existence of male menopause.

"Approximately 40 percent of men in their 40s, 50s and 60s will experience some degree of lethargy, depression, increased irritability, mood swings and difficulty sustaining erections that characterize the male menopause," the Web site claims.

More august bodies also acknowledge the existence of this questionable malady. They include Time magazine, researchers of a study published in The Archives of Internal Medicine (which incidentally showed an increased mortality in men with low testosterone) and, across the pond, the BBC--which includes information for menopausal blokes on its Web site.

It's often the erectile problems that cause the most anguish.

Local urologist Dr. Peter Carey told me he had a patient who likened it to "playing pool with a piece of rope."

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Date published: 8/27/2006