The study findings were presented today at the 8th annual meeting of the North American Menopause Society, held in Boston. It's also worth noting that maintaining one's sex life is a high priority for using HRT for over 40 percent of the women who use it. Androgens are hormones produced in the ovaries and adrenal glands that act on the musculoskeletal, nervous, hepatic and vascular tissues.
Women actually make more androgens than estrogens daily and convert the androgens to estrogens.
In adult women, androgens have long been known to play a key role in sexuality and to prevent bone loss and increase bone density. Like estrogen, androgen production drops significantly after menopause. Yet the impact of post-menopausal androgen decline has been far less studied than that of estrogen. Androgen production, except in women undergoing surgical menopause, decreases gradually over the years leading up to menopause and for a decade later. According to Dr. Sarrel, these symptoms, observed in surgically menopausal women receiving estrogen replacement therapy, can include more severe and frequent hot flashes, more and long-lasting symptoms due to urogenital atrophy and a greater frequency of psychologic difficulties, including mental depression and loss of libido.