What About Men?
Tired? Got the blues? Maybe testosterone can help. Or not.
But aging is a complex process, involving many physical processes and hormones. Testosterone, a steroid that affects many organs and tissues, is just one of them. Studies that gave healthy men over 65 enough testosterone to raise their blood levels to that of a man in his 20s found that the men gained, on average, 4 pounds of muscle and lost 6 pounds of fat but gained no improvement in muscle strength or bone density. And more isn't always better. Although testosterone is universally associated with virility, giving a man too much causes testicular atrophy and sterility. The normal decrease in testosterone associated with aging may well confer some yet-to-be-understood physiological benefit (aside from making an office less like a high school locker room). Or it may be possible to develop drugs that deliver the benefits of testosterone without the risk, much as drugs such as raloxifene have been developed to give women the bone-protecting benefits of estrogen without the cancer risk, according to Glenn Cunningham, a testosterone researcher at the Baylor College of Medicine. "The symptoms that are associated with low testosterone in younger men are clearly a lot of the symptoms that occur in the setting of aging," Cunningham says. "I believe there is a potential benefit. I just don't know what the risk is."
Do Men Have an 'Andropause'?
Unlike women, men don't experience a sharp drop in sex hormones in midlife.
[Chart labels]
Peak hormone levels
Men
Women
10 yrs.
30
50
70
90
USN&WR
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