Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock image
Topics: Health, Women's Health
Britt Jones
Testosterone has always been seen as a male-only hormone, but there are others who are using it and have found amazing results.
Hormones are naturally occurring in the human body, and depending on your sex, you’ll either have a lot of testosterone, or oestrogen.
For cisgender men, testosterone is essential to their function, as is oestrogen for women. Testosterone is also taken by trans men as part of masculinising hormone therapy.
However, the amount of women taking testosterone as part of a hormone replacement therapy on the NHS has risen tenfold since 2015.
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That’s right, women are taking it too. If you didn’t know, women also produce testosterone in their ovaries, along with oestrogen and progesterone.
This trio is essential for our reproductive health, but as we age and enter menopause, the amount we produce halves.
At this point, women will experience everything from hot flashes to brain fog and a low libido, but for those who are taking testosterone in high doses, they’ve said it’s fixed everything.
With renewed energy, mood, and focus, they are calling it a miracle drug, despite its long-term use not being well researched.
For women, naturally occurring testosterone takes care of the sex drive, as well as supporting bone and muscle health, and energy levels.
However, when this plummets, women report feeling dissatisfaction in their sex lives and personal relationships post menopause.
For those who are able to have it prescribed, they’ve reported feeling more alive, capable of tackling anything, and wanting sex even more than their partners.
While even Kate Winslet has considered using HRT, there isn’t a lot that has been researched about it, and it can even increase your risk of developing cancer.
"Sometimes women have a real dip in libido because there might be stuff going on with their thyroid. There could also be stuff going on with your level of testosterone," the 50-year-old said on the Failing with Friends.
"A lot of people don't know this, but women have testosterone in their body, when it runs out — like eggs — it's gone," she added. "And once it's gone you have to replace it, and that is something that can be done and you'll feel sexy again.”
While Winslet and others have vouched for its worth, experts are a little wary.
“Understanding testosterone has been the last hormone that we've been racing to understand a little bit better [in women]," said Nora Lansen, a menopause society-certified primary care physician and chief medical officer at Elektra Health, told National Geographic.
“Advertising that testosterone is going to fix all that stuff is very premature and overblown. It’s inappropriate for now because we don’t know whether, like, you know, what the real story is.”
As always, talk to your GP before embarking on any new hormone journey and see what the benefits and risks are to your health.