[Ageing and male sexuality]. / Invecchiamento e sessualità nell'uomo.

ABSTRACT

Visceral, hormonal and neuroendocrine changes after the sixth decade of life result from slowing down and alteration in metabolic, hormonal, protein, lipid and glucose turnover, progressive receptor insensitivity, degenerative processes--primarily arteriosclerosis--of the endocrine and non endocrine tissues. Unlike menopause, andropause has no biological speed; it is neither rapid nor marked by macroscopically evident psychobehavioral change, as occurs in women. Because of its indistinct and widely variable nosographic contours, the male climacterium is more complex. The challenge to the clinical sexologist, therefore, is to identify appropriate treatment approaches for an ageing population with an increasingly longer life expectancy and the right to a sexually satisfying life.