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June 5, 2001 (Anaheim, Calif.) — The role male hormones, such as testosterone, play in male sexual desire has long been acknowledged. But new research presented here at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association shows that these hormones, get viagra drug online known as androgens, are involved in much more than simple desire — they are also vital for sexual arousal and sexual performance.
And not only in men.
“Androgens have a very central role in sexual function for both males and females,” says Irwin Goldstein, MD, professor of urology at Boston University School of Medicine. “Physicians have studied androgens in men and estrogens in women, but we have never crossed the bridge and studied androgens in women.”
Women with insufficient androgen — which can be caused by taking birth control pills or antidepressants, pregnancy, or stress, among other things — not only have low levels of desire, they also have reduced feelings or arousal and muted, less enjoyable orgasms, according to Goldstein.
“There is clear and obvious need for research on the role of androgen in the three phases of the sexual response cycle: desire, arousal, and orgasm,” he says. “The original concept of pure desire is oversimplified.”
At the meeting, Goldstein presented findings from a study showing that women with sexual problems related to low levels of androgen could be viagra soft generic treated with dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) — an androgen hormone — without significant side effects.
But Goldstein strongly cautions women about using DHEA, which is sold commercially over the counter, without first consulting a physician, a warning echoed by other urologists at the meeting.
“While we have this new information — and the results are phenomenal — women cannot just go and use this,” Goldstein says. “This is a drug, and it can have side effects that we do not yet totally understand.”
Among the problems that may be associated with DHEA use are cancer, ambiguous genitalia in offspring, acne, hair loss, and weight gain. These potential problems lead Ira Sharlip, MD, president of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America, to recommend that the sale of DHEA be regulated.
In Goldstein’s study, 32 women with low androgen levels received daily DHEA for an average of five months. The treatment seemed to increase their levels of androgens, while improving their self-evaluations of sexual performance.
The most commonly reported changes in sexual function while on DHEA were marked increase in sexual spontaneity, decreased time needed to achieve arousal, a return of sexual fantasies, and an increase in the duration of sexual arousal, according to the report.
Another study presented at the American Urological Association meeting examined male-female couples who came to a male sexual dysfunction clinic. The researchers found that many of the women — who accompanied their male partners for treatment — had problems of their own.
In the study, presented by Juza Chen, MD, of Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel, 113 women were asked about their own sexual dysfunction in a series of questionnaires. The results showed that more than half reported at least one sexual dysfunction, and that in 90% of the couples the woman had initiated the clinic visit.
Almost two-thirds of the women had problems with orgasm, more than half had decreased sexual desire, and more than one-third had sexual arousal disorder, according to the report.
So what kind of doctor should women seek out when suffering from sexual problems?
Goldstein suggests they talk to a physician with a special understanding of sexual problems. And he predicts the emergence of a new category of physicians who will be specialists in sexual medicine.
“My dream is that there will be a class of doctor called a sexual medicine physician,” Goldstein says. “And doctors who are sexual medicine experts will have to take on the female world. The traditional provider in women’s health is the gynecologist, but there has been little research going on in gynecology in this area.”
More women are seeking help for sexual problems, Goldstein says, and the days of don’t ask, don’t tell may well be numbered.
He attributed the change to the introduction of Viagra, the first drug treatment for sexual dysfunction in men.
“This is the beginning of an era,” he says. “In 1998, when Viagra came out it empowered women to seek help for [their own] sexual dysfunction.”
Pre-Viagra, Goldstein says, people with sexual problems were dependent on prosthetic devices, or on drugs that were injected into the genitals. “These are not dysfunction erectile natural treatment for women,” he points out.
And Goldstein stresses that sexual problems are similarly painful for both genders.
“It is an ego-deflating, frustrating, embarrassing, humiliating problem,” he says. “It is not a male-only or a female-only thing. And the quality of life is markedly improved with treatment.”
Read source of it on the Sex: When Things Go Wrong for Women site
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