Andropause is a menopause like condition in aging men.
It has to be associated with LOW LEVELS OF TESTOSTERONE to be called Andropause.
PREVALENCE of andropause
It is estimated that 30 percent of men in their 50s will have testosterone levels low enough to be causing symptoms or putting them at risk.
Between the ages of 40 and 70 years, male bone density falls by up to 15 percent.
What’s more, approximately one in eight men over age 50 actually have osteoporosis.
COMPARISON WOMEN AND MEN
Unlike women, middle-aged men do not experience a complete and permanent physiological shutting down of the reproductive system as a normal event
The incidence of hip fractures rises exponentially in aging men, as it does in women, starting about 5 to 10 years later. In Canada, 20-30 percent of osteoporotic fractures occur in men. The incidence of fractures has been increasing in men, whereas it seems to be stabilizing in women – likely due to their lifestyle changes, calcium supplements and hormone replacement therapies (HRT).
Two important consequences of osteoporosis are often seen as a slow but progressive rounding of the shoulders as well as a loss of height and back pain. Particularly devastating seem to be hip fractures, up to one third of patients never seem to regain full mobility.
It is now well accepted that women’s risk of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) increases after menopause. Estrogen replacement therapy seems to reverse this trend.
New evidence suggests that a similar phenomenon occurs in men as their testosterone levels diminish with age.
TESTOSTERONE LEVELS
Different labs have varying ranges of what they consider normal with values ranging from the low 200s to over 1200 ng./dl. considered normal for men and from 15 to 70 ng./dl. considered normal for women. Much of the recent research suggests that people living with HIV should be in the upper range of normal, with men at ranges of at least 500 ng./dl. or higher. Jon Kaiser, M.D., author of Healing HIV, suggests that for peak health we should be in optimal ranges of 500 to 1000 ng./dl. of total testosterone levels for men, and 50 to 100 ng./dl. of total testosterone levels for women.
Testosterone can be measured as “free” (that is, bioavailable and unbound) or more commonly, “total” (including the percentage which is chemically bound and unavailable). In the United States, male total testosterone levels below 300 ng/dL from a morning serum sample are generally considered low