Andropause is one of those issues that most males do not even understand the word or have not heard it very often. Rather andropause is the issue of the hormonal changes that accompany the aging process in males. These hormonal processes include the fact that males reach their peak of their sex hormones as well as growth hormone between ages 25 and 30 and there a steady reduction in the hormones such as DHEA, testosterone and growth hormone as the male ages. By age 60 the males have approximately 10% of each of those hormones compared to what they were at age 25-30. Unlike the females they do not really have many symptoms because there are no major fluctuations in their hormones, just a steady downward flow. This does not allow for very good comparison and therefore since there are no symptoms of “up and down” they tend to ignore the loss of energy or loss of libido to a certain extent. Frequently a male only becomes concerned where there is erectile dysfunction.
Conventional wisdom is that you treat the erectile dysfunction as such and do not worry about anything else. There are a number of medications out there to treat erectile dysfunction only. Eventually many men that we see have reached the point that the drugs prescribed for their erectile issues no longer work. This is because they are actually deficient in a number of different areas. It is this combination of imbalance in all the hormones that result in andropause. On the other hand, it is the balance and corrected combination of hormones and nutrients that result in optimum sexual health.
A little known point is that males also have high estrogen levels and by the time they reach 55 they have their estrogen levels approximately equal to a female at age 55. If one is going to receive testosterone then it is important that they receive an agent that blocks the “aromatase pathway” by which testosterone is made into estrogen. If that is not done then a significant amount of the testosterone that is being received by the male will be routed into estrogen (which is not helpful).
Our approach is to evaluate all the hormones and begin to balance them all so that we reduce the estrogen and we increase the testosterone precursors and testosterone levels as needed and then give the body the appropriate other supplements so that the body actually is able to perform its job of developing good erections, good libido and normal hormone function as they build up all of their hormones with supplements. This results in a longer term steady improvement in the whole feeling of “being male”.
Call our office at 512-327-4886 for an appointment to deal with andropause.
