Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Annalisa Merelli
Published on 2024-02-08 09:30:17
There may be a general consensus that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, however, public perception still holds that testosterone is the male hormone, and estrogen, the female. The comparison can be puzzling given that a premenopausal woman’s body hosts more testosterone than estrogen. As women age, their testosterone levels decrease and reach especially low values after menopause, which can lead to health challenges such as bone density loss, lower energy, and depression. While some doctors prescribe testosterone for relief of such symptoms, there isn’t a testosterone product approved by the Food and Drug Administration for female use. This has created disagreement within the medical community about whether testosterone treatments should be mainstream, with many arguing that it may only help a very small number of women.
A lack of substantial research on the effects of testosterone in menopausal women means that both doctors and patients are frequently unaware of its respective benefits and safety. “We gender hormones. We say estrogen is for women and testosterone for men. And it’s so narrow-minded and it’s so limiting … If that’s where we’re starting, of course we can’t normalize testosterone for female bodies,” said Kelly Casperson, a urologist and menopause specialist who treats postmenopausal patients with testosterone.
There are crucial differences in how estrogen and testosterone work in women’s bodies. Women’s testosterone levels peak when they are in their teens and 20s and decrease gradually afterward. This variability leads doctors to usually not prescribe the hormone to women until after menopause, when a deficiency in testosterone is easier to detect.
Testosterone has been prescribed to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), which affects an estimated 10% of women across all age groups, and women who take testosterone during menopause report more energy, lower levels of depression, and increased muscle mass. “Testosterone receptors, like estrogen receptors, are all over our bodies. We have good data showing how supportive testosterone is for bone health, mental mood, wound healing, depression, cardiovascular health,” stated Casperson.
There is a lack of data and recognition in female medicine on the role of testosterone, with limited clinical trials and an absence of research on the drug. But despite this, doctors who are proponents of more widespread testosterone treatment for women also lament a lack of research on the subject. As a result, there is a lot of unanswered questions about the effectiveness of testosterone in treating various conditions and its mechanism of action.
Some doctors who, trained or practiced when the WHI’s report came out, are still holding onto old notions about hormonal treatment. The hurdles of prescribing testosterone include that in 1990, it was added to the controlled substance list of Schedule 3 drugs which adds an extra cost and can have physicians from using testosterone as a treatment option. There is also no actual testosterone product for menopausal women to prescribe, which makes getting it an additional challenging task.
In conclusion, there is a plethora of issues surrounding the concept of testosterone treatment for women. With little scientific research and hurdles for prescribing the treatment, the benefits and risks of testosterone in treating menopause symptoms remain uncertain. These factors contribute to the overall lack of understanding and awareness about the potential benefits of testosterone in improving women’s health.
