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Male Menopause More Years, More Problems?

We are, without a doubt, the longest lived species of Homo sapiens in recorded history. We get older, we're taller, heavier; we certainly regard life from a much richer and easier position than our forebears. There is virtually no other sentient being that would like to kill and/or eat us or hunt us as prey.

Things weren't the same for the great majority of our ancestors. Our earliest relatives lived to about twenty years old, if they were lucky, and if they managed that long, they died of old age. They were prey to some fierce animals, ate basically what they could find, and if they lost enough of their teeth it was curtains because they couldn't chew anymore.

Our forebears during the Dark Ages perhaps lived a few years longer. They mostly had the advantage of a roof over their heads and grain, and if they were lucky, pulses (peas and lentils etc) to eat. They were still victim to filth, disease, and some pretty strict Liege Lords who could kill or execute at their fancy.

Hurtling forward into the latter years of the nineteenth century, people got to live somewhat longer than their Dark Age relatives, but still didn't get to have much fun. My father's parents emigrated from Russia and Eastern Europe to find no gold on New York's streets but filthy tenements and insane working conditions. They had a roof over their heads, and perhaps their American Liege Lords had to have a bit of a better reason to kill them than they were in a bad mood. They were still victims to filth and disease, but, their children were going to get a much better deal all round. My father used to boast that while his father was lucky to be a few inches over five feet tall, he was a strapping six footer with a college education.

If you are wondering what my point is, it is this: We have the means to live many years it's true, but there are a few dark spots in our shiny new life span. We may be starting to have some influence over our genetics, but we can't maintain proper hormone balance yet. Women and men are required to go through the change of life, no matter how difficult it may be. For males, especially, the science of managing their male menopause is only in its infancy, indeed, the medical community still hasn't finished the argument as to whether it truly exists or not. Women, strangely enough, have had more years of science devoted to their menopause. (That, and as women through the eons, they managed to talk to each other and swap herbal therapies along with some gossip). But for our more unfortunate brothers, they simply have not lived long enough for medical science to study what to do when a man enters his middle years and begins to have some hormonal problems.

The good news is that western science is not only beginning to make some inroads into this problem, they have started to pay attention to ancient Chinese medicine, where, apparently, somebody had time to notice male menopause and work out what to do about it. As the baby boomers encounter this phase of their life, they will be luckier than the generations beforehand.