Andropause / Male Menopause - Diagnosis

Diagnosis

There is an ongoing debate regarding the need to ‘diagnose’ and ‘treat’ andropause. There are many who think andropause is a condition that needs to be addressed in order to mitigate its symptoms; others think it is unnecessary.

It is recommended by experts that men experiencing pronounced symptoms of andropause, along with others such as weight gain and decreased bone density, must seek appropriate treatments such as hormone replacement therapy.

Andropause is a state in the life of a human male, which has been grossly under diagnosed, leading to severe consequences. The reasons are many. One of the prominent reasons is that the symptoms are very vague and they tend to vary among individuals.

Earlier, many of the symptoms were associated with other medical conditions, such as depression, and middle aged men were made to think that their health problems were part of the ‘growing old’ process and were encouraged to reconcile to the fact that they no longer were ‘spring chickens’.

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Today, the entire scenario is changing. Often the researchers have found that the actual cause of depression maybe due to imbalance in hormones like testosterone, DHEA, thyroid and estrogen. There is a lot of ongoing research in the field of andropause to device diagnostic blood tests and their interpretation.

It is likely that in the coming years the men will be given the option of getting screened after the age of 50 years. The so called normal range of male hormone will be different for different age groups. Already there is a drive to check for prostate cancer, in men over the age of 50 years, by doing PSA levels.