What is male menopause?
Male menopause, also known as andropause, is the decrease of androgen production. It is also termed PADAM, or Partial Androgen Deficiency of the Aging Male. The physical condition is the natural mid-life aging process with particular focus on the decreasing sexual drive. Menopause usually occurs during the 50s, but can start as early as the late 30s or as late as the 60s. The sexual factor does not always explain the onset of male menopause.
All women reaching a certain age will go through menopause marked clearly by the irregularity and then complete cessation of menstrual periods; not all men will lose testosterone. Women undergo an abrupt, almost total decline in their female sex hormones; the average healthy man will lose small amounts of testosterone gradually, but will typically retain levels within the broad normal range.
Occasional insomnia, night sweats, and hot flashes, but ironically an increase in sex drive often accompany female menopause; very few men will experience the dramatic symptoms that women do. Finally, it seems unlikely there is a "postmenopausal man"; these hormone declines will continue until the end of life.
Similarities Between Male and Female Menopause
What men and women have in common during this critical mid-life challenge is, first, the similarity in age at which it occurs and, second, the common suffering of serious emotional consequences. Male menopause is not greatly socially accepted, and most men and their mates do not know much about the symptoms.
Some people think that male menopause and mid-life crisis are the same. However, mid-life crisis can be a passing phase (men may have one every 5 or 10 years) based on a single-issue challenge, male menopause is a psychological and medical syndrome which is experienced as a passage of the spirit from a youth-oriented self-concept to an entirely different, more thoughtful way of living life.
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