Menopause and Andropause: The Next Passage

Menopause / Andropause is the result of age related waning sex steroid levels.

Think steroids.   What’s the first thing that comes to mind?   What’s the first image?   Bulked up Olympic Athletes?  Baseball players testifying before congress?   Or something else? Sex hormones — it’s what keeps us youthful, vital and playful.

We live in a world loaded with images and mis-perceived words. Menopause has become so much more”acceptable” to talk about. You could go to a local bookstore and find maybe 5 or 6 books on this subject 25-30 years ago. Now you can find an entire section. But andropause was less well known or even accepted until more recently popularized by marketing mad men as the “low-T-syndrome.”

There is one recurring theme where the sexes change roles. Women take charge and solve problems when not feeling well. When “off” men just keep working harder trying to ignore the fact that something may be “not quite right.”  So men tend to become overwhelmed and find themselves about 25 years behind women in this final “passage.”

It has been said that we should stop worrying so much about Menopausal symptoms.  Just let it unfold. Live with it and it will all pass.  Surely this is the way of nature. Grow old gracefully.

But the truth is that we are living in exceptional times.

At the dawn of the 20th century, as consistently difficult as it is to believe, life expectancy was 47 years. By 1936 it had increased to 65 years. Today life expectancy is about 78 years. A dramatic increase, as illustrated by the very fact that for most of human existence, most women never lived long enough to “suffer” the pangs of menopause.

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