Tackling the MANopause

The male menopause might be a myth, as the experts would have us believe, but somehow I seem to have all the symptoms.

Aged 58, I'm quite prepared to admit that I suffer from hot flushes, profuse sweating at night, persistent bouts of depression and a lower sexual drive than I once had.

And I don't think that is the result of being overweight, lazy, smoking or drinking too much, as male ageing expert Professor John McKinlay of the American New England Research Institute maintained last year.

I'm not overweight, I don't think I'm lazy, I've never smoked and I drink only as much as many writers do: more than most, but less than some. You're as young as you feel, as the saying goes, but I'm certainly feeling my age.

So when it was suggested that I try out a treatment designed to 'cure' the male menopause, also known as the andropause, I was more than prepared to give it a try. I wasn't sure that anyone could breathe new life into a man at the far end of his 50s, but I certainly wasn't going to dismiss it.

'Sex drive in a tube'

Not that the proposed cure isn't controversial. It involves the use of testosterone cream, the so-called 'sex drive in a tube', to provide increase virility, the production of sperm and improved muscle tone in middle-aged men.

Many medical experts are highly suspicious of this treatment, suggesting that in high doses the cream can produce dangerous side-effects, including strokes.

Dr Malcolm Carruthers - chairman of the Andropause Society, which maintains that there is a male menopause - was found guilty two years ago of serious professional misconduct after advising a woman on the internet that her husband should have weekly testosterone injections.

At a British conference last year, Professor John McKinlay said male ageing was generating public interest and 'creating a lucrative market'.

Manopause nightmare

So it was with some trepidation that I set out to investigate whether the male menopause exists _ and if it can be 'cured'.

Little did I realise what I was letting myself in for. Women might be used to the vagaries and travails of sparkling modern health clinics in pursuit of sleeker bodies _ but for men, the whole thing is a nightmare.

Feeling balding, elderly and un-chic, not to say past it, I forced myself into the HB Health clinic in Beauchamp Place, central London, just down from Harrods, in pursuit of the potential cure.

The clinic is one of the first in the country to offer hormone balancing programmes to combat the symptoms of the andropause.

Senior doctor Lynette Yong, 36, a former surgeon, is exactly what a middle-aged man growing old disgracefully is not - striking looking, panther sleek and exercised to the point of destruction. Dr Yong terrified the wits out of me.

'Gradual decline'

She is in no doubt that men undergo some form of menopause in late middle age. 'There's a decline in testosterone levels, sexual energy, in clarity of thought and mood,' she told me, briskly. 'It's a gradual decline, and at a different rate for every man, but exercise and activity can slow or delay that decline.

'I think we have to deliver vigour. Diet, exercise and an active mind can slow down the decline.'

One way of doing that, she insisted - and I am not joking - was to stand on one leg with my eyes closed for as long as I could manage every day. 'Keep your hands by your side, and it doesn't matter which leg,' she told me.

To do it for 30 seconds a day would be wonderful - a 30-year-old man should be able to do that - but ten seconds for a man of your age would be fine.

'Now let's talk about your diet. I want you to eat many more green vegetables _ they should make up 50 to 60 pc of your diet. I am particularly keen that you should eat a lot of broccoli.

I must have looked a little crushed, because there was a pause, before she murmured: 'Well, you could always put pesto sauce on your broccoli, if that would make it more palatable.

She continued: 'I want you to increase your exercise. Start with ten press-ups every morning and ten squats every evening. This will increase the release of testosterone in your body.'

'No magical treatment'

During all this I found myself nodding sagely, even though I couldn't help feeling that, true or not, getting in tune with your body doesn't have all that much to do with helping a middle-aged man feel better about himself. But I was prepared to try.

'There is no magic in this,' Dr Yong concluded. 'You have to want to improve your life, and we can help you.'

Has she succeeded in helping other men of my age? 'We've had about five men come to see us so far,' she told me. 'It is a little early to be sure whether they have felt some benefit.'

She then took some blood to check my hormone levels. When I returned ten days later for the results, the news wasn't good. 'Your hormone levels are not what I might have hoped,' Dr Yong told me, looking grave. 'I am going to prescribe a set of supplements for you, and we will see what happens.'

And one of the things Dr Yong was prescribing for me was testosterone cream, to be rubbed on my arms every night before I went to bed. But I wasn't about to quibble. I'd signed on for the treatment and I was going to take it seriously.

I did not question her professional conclusions, but it is worth remembering that last year Dr Boulous suggested that if clinics tested testosterone levels late in the day, 'even Casanova would get a low result'.

Dietary supplements

A week or so later, an enormous parcel of dietary supplements arrived in the post. I had to take 22 different pills every day. Also included was a large tube of testosterone cream - I was expected to apply one gram daily.

What with standing on one leg, remembering to sit motionless for ten minutes with nothing crossed, the press-ups in the morning and sit-ups in the evening, not to mention the 22 pills and the possible pilates, I was beginning to feel under pressure.

However, I started my version of the new regime. I haven't always remembered to do all the exercise, and some days I can't face all those pills, but I have been trying to walk at least 30 minutes a day and drink plenty of herbal tea.

But I found that I could not bring myself to apply the testosterone cream more than a handful of times. It felt strange, and it certainly didn't seem to have any impact on my libido, or indeed on anything else much that I could feel. It seemed a step too far.

A middle-aged man, no matter how keen to renew himself, has no reason to suspect that he is putting his well-being at risk.

That aside, however, do I feel better? The truthful answer is that I'm not exactly sure. I certainly feel healthier but my blood pressure is still high, I sweat profusely at night and am liable to trembling during the day if the going gets tough. But maybe that's just me.

An expensive cure

All in all, this 'cure' for the male menopause is expensive, and I am not sure it's worth it. But I do think the suggestions about diet and exercise make sense.

As for whether there is actually a male menopause, after this experience I doubt it _ even if I do have the symptoms.

But I'm going to keep standing on one leg with my eyes closed. After all, it might help _ and what has a man in late middle-age got to lose?