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J. Steven Svoboda is a member of TheMensCenter Advisory Council, an Independent attorney active in human rights law and Executive Director of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC).
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By J. Steven Svoboda ... |
The Testosterone Revolution: Rediscover Your Energy and Overcome the Symptoms of Male Menopause. By Malcolm Carruthers, M.D. London: HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 2001. 238 pages. $22.95. www.thorsons.com.
I had a lot of resistance to reading this book. Now that I have just crossed another threshold (not that I’m counting or anything!) and am closer to being 50 years old than to being 35, I think a certain level of denial has been percolating. I know I’m getting older, and I’m going through certain changes, but I don’t want to think about it too much. I don’t have male menopause, but reading this book was challenging at first as it raised issues I’d rather not dwell on.
Well, The Testosterone Revolution can help the reader to think about these things, and in the end, that’s a very good thing. In parallel to my personal reticence, society as a whole as well as the medical profession has been reluctant to educate itself about the numerous physical, mental, and emotional changes men go through when they hit “male menopause,” a decline in usable testosterone in the body which Carruthers believes would more properly be called andropause. Andropause typically affects a middle-aged man who finds himself losing a number of things he may have always taken for granted—his libido, his ability to obtain and maintain erections, his energy, his positive attitude, his relatively flat stomach. As a man starts to find himself going through andropause, he may become quickly fatigued, and somewhat paradoxically may also be much more irritable than previously. In fact, severe depression or a serious life crisis are also not uncommon results. But a psychologically based mid-life crisis is not necessarily connected with the medical condition known as andropause.
As Carruthers explains, various forms of treatment, all designed to generate more active, usable testosterone in the male body, can provide dramatic, yet safe relief for these symptoms. Carruthers walks us through centuries of medical history, detailing the strong resistance to acknowledging this condition that persists even to the present day. Fortunately, certain intrepid physicians over past decades risked their careers to bring a private testosterone revolution to their suffering patients. One major problem has been getting the needy patient to a competent physician knowledgeable about this issue. Numerous potential roadblocks exist—the individual’s own resistance and fear, the many doctors ignorant of or even actively hostile to treating a patient for the symptoms of andropause, limitations that exist in the US and elsewhere due to certain of the best medicines not being available, etc.
Carruthers identifies a lot of fascinating points about testosterone that may not be familiar to readers. Testosterone is present in women as well as men, though blood levels of the hormone in men are 10-20 times that of women, and it stimulates the libido in women as well. Testosterone affects our health throughout life and might also be known as “the success hormone.” Most high achievers, Nobel prize winners, Hollywood directors, race car drivers, etc. have extremely high testosterone levels. Interestingly, one’s level of the hormone tends to peak right after a high-intensity challenge. For example, some of the highest levels of testosterone ever observed were seen in race car drivers immediately following an event. Even today many critics of andropause theory are confused by the fact that blood levels of total testosterone only decrease slightly up to age 70. The explanation is that as men age, the hormone is held in the blood in unusable forms and so less and less is biologically available to our body.
Carruthers repeatedly stresses that alcohol wreaks havoc on testosterone levels. Beer is worse than wine because it contains phyto-estrogens which act to partially chemically castrate the male. As Carruthers memorably phrases it, “the liver forgives and forgets, but the testis harbors grudges, so the bar-room bruisers of today are likely to be the lousy lovers of tomorrow.”
One thing Carruthers convinced me of with a couple well-chosen horror stories—vasectomy is a risky enterprise. In addition to some potentially horrific risks stemming from the surgery’s immediate results, it also exposes a man to the risk of suffering andropause, a serious side effect about which doctors evidently rarely inform patients considering the procedure.
Testosterone replacement therapy works! A variety of delivery techniques exist including injections, pills, pellets, and patches that need to be replaced every six months and which may eventually prove the clear method of choice. Carruthers devotes an entire chapter to Viagra and the changes its appearance and success have wrought.
This is about much more than sex. Maintaining our vitality and virility into our middle and late years is the key to managing stress, avoiding burnout, and to enjoying our families and our work well into our mature years. Having overcome my initial resistance, I have to take my hat off to Dr. Malcolm Carruthers, dedicated activist and eloquent author, fighting the good fight to help all of us to maximize our enjoyment of life and effectiveness for as long as possible. Bravo!
©2000 J. Steven Svoboda
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