The seemingly natural inclination of men to be more competitive and aggressive has been often linked to the presence of testosterone – which is why it gets called a man’s hormone. Yet testosterone is often present in women as well – just as men also have estrogen in their body. The male menopause, also called the Andropause, can cause a reduction in testosterone in a man’s body in the same way as the menopause in women reduced the level of progesterone and estrogen in a woman’s body.
In normal levels, testosterone in a woman therefore implicates nothing much more than a normal thing. In fact, testosterone in a woman can be a good thing, as it has been proved to increase a woman’s libido by increasing the blood flow to the vagina and enhances the sensation and the occurrence of orgasms. It has also been found to improve the energy in women and cause them to feel less fatigue. The hormone promotes a higher sense of “well-being” and motivation to perform different tasks. This is why when women go through the menopause, as well as estrogen therapy they can also take testosterone therapy as it can increase energy, decrease depression, decrease triglycerides and has even been shown to help with bone density.
One of the reason why the question of women and testosterone is so controversial is because of the link made between the steroids used by East European athletes in the early 80s and the development of testosterone within them which ended up with some quite high profile cases recently. The story of this shows what happens with every drug and every therapy. Too much of anything is rarely a good thing. Testosterone in women should be kept below a certain level or what happened to Heidi Kreiger could happen to you.
Heidi Krieger was the European shot-put champion in 1986. However, you couldn’t find her in the German phone book because now her name is Andries – a man’s name. Ms Krieger says that she was forced to have a sex change operation due to the amount of male hormones she was given to take by her doctor whilst she was in training in the 1980s.
Ms Krieger alleged that the performance enhancing drugs she was given led her to develop a pronounced Adam’s apple, facial hair and other male characteristics. We don’t actually know how many female athletes have found these problems – but we do know that almost 200 former officials and coaches from the old East German government have been investigated over the abuse of steroids in athletics.
The moral of this is that testosterone in women is good, but too much is not good, unless you are called Simone and really want to be called Simon.