Article

MALE MENOPAUSE

What is Male Menopause?

Male menopause (also called viropause or andropause) begins with hormonal, physiological, and chemical changes that occur in all men generally between the ages of forty and fifty-five, though it can occur as early as thirty-five or as late as sixty-five.

These changes affect all aspects of a man’s life. Male menopause is, thus a physical condition with psychological, interpersonal, social, and spiritual dimensions.

The purpose of male menopause is to signal the end of the first part of a man’s life and prepare him for the second half. Male menopause is not the beginning of the end, as many fear, but the end of the beginning. It is the passage to the most passionate, powerful, productive, and purposeful time of a man’s life.

In the United States, there are 25,172,000 men between the ages of forty and fifty-five who are now going through the Male Menopause Passage. Worldwide that number is 408 million.

In less than twenty-five years, by 2020, the number of men in the United States going through the Male Menopause Passage will grow to approximately 57,500,000. Worldwide it will grow to 690 million men.

The most common physical symptoms of male menopause include:

• Taking longer to recover from injuries and illness

• Less endurance for physical activity

• Feeling fat, gaining weight

• Difficulty reading small print

• Loss or thinning of hair

• Sleep disturbances

The most common psychological symptoms of male menopause include:

• Irritability

• Indecisiveness

• Anxiety and fear

• Depression

• Loss of self-confidence and joy

• Loss of purpose and direction in life

• Feeling lonely, unattractive, and unloved

• Forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating

The most common sexual symptoms of male menopause include:

• Reduced interest in sex

• Increased anxiety and fear about losing sexual potency

• Increased fantasies about having sex with a new and younger partner

• More relationship problems and fights over sex, love, and intimacy

• Loss of erection during sexual activity

Sex and Male Menopause

Seven sexual changes that occur in healthy, normal males as they age include the following:

• Erections take longer to occur.
  He often requires direct physical stimulation to get an erection; a sexy sight or fantastic fantasy may not arouse him as it did before.

• The full erection doesn’t get quite as firm as it used to.

• His urge to ejaculate is not as insistent as before. Sometimes he doesn’t feel the need to have an orgasm at all.

• The force of ejaculation isn’t as strong as it once was. The amount of his ejaculate is less, and he may have fewer sperm.

• The desire for and frequency of masturbation may drop, but in some men may increase.

• The testicles shrink some, and the scrotal sack droops. The sack doesn’t bunch up as much during arousal.

• Impotence can be a significant problem for men going through male menopause. Impotence is defined as the persistent inability to attain and maintain an erection adequate to permit satisfactory sexual performance.

According to results from the Massachusetts Male Aging Study that studied a large sample of men between the ages of forty and seventy, the combined prevalence of minimal, moderate, and complete impotence was 52 percent.

Although the study found that psychological factors play a role as men age, physical factors are more significant.

There was a high correlation between erection dysfunction and heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, as well as with the medications that are often taken to deal with these problems.

Since the physical, psychological, and sexual aspects as interconnected, most all these symptoms can be prevented and treated by concentrating on the whole man.

How to Beat Male Menopause

1. Eat right. The traditional Asian diet, with its foundation of rice or other grains, an abundance of vegetables, fruits, beans, tofu, and legumes, a limited amount of meat and other animal foods, and virtually no diary products, is a good foundation for healthy eating.

2. Stay physically fit. Engage in regular exercise that includes the following components: cardiorespiratory (aerobic) endurance, muscular strength, and flexibility.

3. Take vitamins and supplements for health.

4. Take herbs to balance the system and protect the prostate.

5. Get regular health checkups. Regular health care visits and screenings are important contributors to men’s health and longevity, yet according to Kenneth Goldberg, M.D., men make 130 million fewer doctors visits a year than women.

6. Check hormone levels as you get older. Generally between forty and fifty-five a number of important hormones in a man’s body begin to decline.

8. Embrace a sexuality appropriate to the second half of life. In the second half of life, a man’s sexuality expands to include more emphasis on friendship, love, intimacy, and spirituality.

(Malemenopause.com)