Product Description

Compelling, personal, and solidly supported, this book takes a look at the newly coined phenomenon "male menopause." Therapist and author Jed Diamond uses personal interviews, sound research and studies, and poignant experiences from thousands of men to tackle this groundbreaking subject.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #349227 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Amazon.com Review
So do men really go through menopause? If you think of menopause as hot flashes and a sudden change in fertility, no. But if you regard menopause as physical and emotional changes triggered by significant changes in hormone levels, then yes, men go through it. In Male Menopause veteran psychotherapist and men's-movement leader Jed Diamond looks at the observable and documentable changes associated with male midlife--weight gain, less physical endurance, longer recovery from injuries, reduced interest in sex, feelings of irritability and depression--and concludes that this is indeed a passage similar to what middle-aged women go through. The last section of Male Menopause discusses how men can get back what they've lost, but for the most part Diamond focuses on understanding and accepting the aging process, not fighting it.

From Library Journal
In this somewhat New Age and trendy book, psychotherapist Diamond explores the climacteric, andropause, or viropause?terms which he prefers to the catachrestic "male menopause." He presents evidence that there are many similarities between what women and men go through both emotionally and physically during the mid-life change. This life change affects all aspects of a man's life and is thus a physical condition with psychological, interpersonal, social, and spiritual dimensions. Many of the things that men experience as negative (loss of strength and physical stamina) actually prepare them for the second of half of life, where more emphasis is placed on emotional and spiritual issues. Diamond addresses issues of concern to the aging male: loss of sexual enjoyment, feeling that time is running out, increased anxieties, weight gain, irritability, sleep disorders, etc. and offers mind-body healing therapies. Unfortunately, despite the bibliographic apparatus, Diamond's text is repetitive and simplistic and remains pop psychology masquerading as scholarship. An optional purchase at best.?James Swanton, Harlem Hospital Lib., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From the Introduction to the Paperback Edition of Male Menopause

When I first began writing Male Menopause over five years ago, very few people were aware that men, like women, experience physiological changes that affect all aspects of their lives. My goal in the book was to show that male menopause is a multidimensional life transition and can only be treated effectively by focusing on the physical, hormonal, psychological, social, spiritual, and sexual changes that occur in all men's lives, generally between the ages of forty and fifty-five.

This book draws on the latest information from my own clinical experience over the last thirty-five years, as well as from worldwide studies on sexuality, longevity, and vitality medicine. In late 1997, this book was among the first to introduce you to a new medication, sildenafil citrate, being tested in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. It was hoped that this new drug would help the more than thirty million men in the U.S. and hundreds of millions of men throughout the world who were suffering from erectile dysfunction (ED).

When I wrote Male Menopause, few took note when I reported the results of my colleague, Stephen M. Auerbach, M.D., on a new medication being developed by the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer. "Thus far, the research has been very positive," said Dr. Auerbach when I interviewed him three years ago. "It has helped 90 percent of my patients who have taken it, and there seems to be few side effects." Few knew then, though most know now, that sildenafil citrate, being marketed under the name Viagra, would become, perhaps, the most important medical breakthrough on male sexuality of the century.

I told you then that research on male menopause was just beginning and that we would know much more over the next few years. I am pleased to be able to give you the most up-to-date information available on this emerging new field of study. Specifically, included here are six new areas of research that will affect the lives of men and women around the world: 1. The latest information for men and their partners in treating erectile dysfunction, including the most recent findings on Viagra, Vasomax, and other new medications being researched. 2. New information on enhancing sexuality for men and women over forty, including studies on Viagra for women. 3. Hormone replacement therapy for men, including the latest research on testosterone replacement therapy for men experiencing male menopause. 4. New approaches for understanding and treating depression in men, including studies that show that male and female depression are often quite different. 5. Findings from the emerging field of vitality and longevity medicine, including research showing that we may soon be able to halt or reverse the aging process. 6. News from the front line from those who have been living with male menopause, including a major shift in the way male menopause is seen by the medical profession.

Customer Reviews

The first real book to talk completely about Male Menopause
Male Menopause written by Jed Diamond is the first book to seriously and completely alert men and women about this very real phenomenon - Male Menopause. As the editor and founder of HotFlash! the perimenopause/menopause web site and online support group I know first hand the effects of hormonal changes in women. They can be very devastating and change a woman's life. The same is true for men. I applaud Jed's work because he takes a subject, male menopause and drags it out from the "taboo" closet and forces us to look at it. I have had the pleasure of interviewing Jed and have found that there are millions of men and their partners suffering in silence about this change of life. Male Menopause, hallmarked by lowered testosterone levels, can leave a man depressed, scared, anxious, moody, lose sexual interest and have problems getting and sustaining erections ( this is very distreesing for men). Jed's book alerts us to this health issue and we all must take this seriously. His book speaks to the problems men have with lowering tesosterone levels and bodily changes; we must recognize this as seriously as we do for women in perimenopause and menopause. In talking with hundreds of women every day and through my media appearances and articles, I find that men too are going thorugh "something" as women are experincing perimenopause and menopause. Many people think this is just a phase or "mid-life" crsisi" but it is more. Like perimenopause male menopause must be discussed openly and with intelligence; Jed Diamiond does just that.

There are probably better, more focused books on the subject
I first became aware of the author Jed Diamond, when I saw him on a video tape by Gary Null. I appreciated Mr. Diamond's frankness about male genitalia and sexual function. When I learned of his book, I was hoping for a focused discussion on the subject and what can be done about it, based upon my experience of him in his video tape.

"Male Menopause" is really two different books. While Mr. Diamond does go into the physiological aspects of male aging and its affect on sexual function, its comparison to female menopause, as well as what can be done to help nutritionally and medically, the bulk of the book is not dedicated to the subject matter. It focuses on what older men should do with their lives to save society (in other words, in place of sex as a result of the what he states is the inevitable decline of male sexual function). While this is a noble subject, I believe that Mr. Diamond's view is rather idealistic, and would have been better addressed in another book under a different title. Frankly, this information was uninteresting to me, set in a depressing context, and at times, I fought to stay awake while reading it. Moreover, the concepts that he spoke of really should apply to men of all ages, and how we treat one another and male children who will become adults.

As noted, the other information in the book was useful, however, I would not recommend this book for someone who is interested in treating the problems associated with male menopause. I am sure the information is available from other more succinct sources.

It is brilliantly written and superbly researched.
It puts 'men' back into menopause and substantiates the reality that certainly in midlife, women and men are more alike than different. I particularly liked that definitions were clear and there was a specific program for men and women to assist men in moving through this difficult passage.