Is your husband miserable to live with? Might be testosterone

If your husband is grumpy, it is possible that his level of the male hormone testosterone is too low. According to Dr. David Greenberg who was quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article on the subject:

"Men with low testosterone are miserable to live with -- they fall asleep after dinner and snap at everyone."

Low testosterone has also been associated with "reduced muscle mass, bone density, sexual function and vitality, and increased fatigue, depression, Type II diabetes and obesity -- particularly belly fat--in various studies." The Journal notes that evidence is accumulating that restoring testosterone to normal can alleviate many of those problems.

But there is far more that is not known about testosterone therapy than is known and the only true consensus in the medical community is that more large-scale clinical trials are necessary. Notably is the concern over the link between testosterone levels and prostate cancer though a meta-analysis of 18 studies in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute last month concluded that there was no correlation between the two.

For every doctor who supports treatment there is another wary of using it. According to Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, chief of epidemiology at University of California, San Diego. "No epidemiological results justify giving it [testosterone] to older men in general."

If you are concerned about this consult your own medical professional who can factor in the specifics of your medical situation to determine what, if anything, should be done.