Research suggests that one in ten hospitals have “male menopause” guidelines, while a quarter have no policies for women.
Activation protocols have been installed in around 20 trusts, despite the NHS describing the term as “useless and misleading”.
Elsewhere, almost a quarter of police forces have policies to address “manopause”, but more than 40 per cent had nothing for female staff experiencing the menopause, according to a Freedom of Information request.
The findings are further evidence of widespread practice among public bodies, as exposed in an audit by the Mail last year which found examples within the Fire Service, Police, Councils and the NHS.
Critics said it was a mistake to compare the two, since one affected all women and the other affected about two percent of men.
Almost a quarter of police forces have policies to address ‘manopause’ but more than 40 per cent had nothing for female staff experiencing menopause (file photo)
A quarter of NHS trusts have no menopause policies for women, research suggests (file photo)
Male menopause, sometimes called “andropause,” is said to be characterized by a gradual change in testosterone levels.
As with women, the term is used to describe the period of an adult man’s life when his hormone levels drop, which can cause symptoms including erectile dysfunction, depression, anxiety, and rapid fat gain.
But there is considerable debate within the medical community about whether it should be recognized as a condition.
Dr. Channa Jayasena, a hormone specialist at Imperial College London and author of the Endocrine Society’s guidelines on testosterone replacement therapy, said it should not be called a “manopause.”
“I think it’s a useless term,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Menopause Matters series.
‘If we compare it to menopause, all women go through menopause, while 2 percent of men go through ‘manopause.’
‘Menopause is a relatively sudden event in a woman’s life. It occurs over two to five years, while declining testosterone levels can develop over decades.’
He said that while all women would potentially benefit from HRT if they had symptoms, this was not the case with testosterone deficiency and many men did not need medical intervention.
Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist and honorary researcher at Cardiff University, said symptoms related to manopause, such as brain fog and low mood, were more likely the result of common mental disorders such as anxiety or depression.
He said: ‘We are very keen to medicalise things in the modern world, because we are increasingly recognizing atypical conditions, disorders or simply ways of being, which could be better addressed.
‘Women go through menopause, so by saying that men have a similar type of hormone deficiency problem at a similar stage in life, it’s a very logical leap to say “well, that’s the male version” of this well established phenomenon.
“But I do think you can go too far and try to put a label on a problem that doesn’t necessarily exist.”
