Does Male Menopause Exist?

Is male menopause the reason some men morph into cranky, mushy Homer Simpsons as they age? Is a dip in testosterone levels analogous for soft, flabby bodies, snippy attitudes, erratic sleeping patterns and no interest in sex? If low testosterone is the culprit, can't we just pump up middle-aged men with the hormone and watch them transform into youthful Adonises? 

Researchers are starting to have doubts that it's that simplistic. In fact, a new British study of 3,000 men reveals that many drug companies have perhaps incorrectly attributed many symptoms to "male menopause" aka hypogonadism, the medical term for when gonads produce little to no hormones. According to these researchers only three symptoms on a long generic list of male menopause red flags actually make the cut as attributable to hypogonadism: 1.) fewer morning erections 2.) fewer sexual thoughts and 3.) erectile dysfunction. Testosterone Makes Chicks Think Like Dudes

Other symptoms like mood fluctuation, body changes and a loss of energy might just be plain, old aging. Nothing less. Nothing more. Shockingly, only about 2 percent of men between the ages of 40 and 80 qualify for hypogonadism, though testosterone levels do drop as all men age.

"The application of these new criteria can guard against the excessive diagnosis of hypogonadism and curb the injudicious use of testosterone in older men," Dr. Frederick Wu of the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and colleagues write in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In other words, the sleepless nights, irritability and low energy levels we'd like to call male menopause and remedy with a pill might just be the result of our partners becoming crotchedy older men—and this probably isn't news to many women in long-term relationships who've watched their men age. For solution-oriented men, however, the news that there's no magic pill for their aging woes is understandably a bitter one to swallow.