Ten years after Viagra, there’s still more to men’s sexual health than erections

Hormone decline the root of andropause and chronic illness

“Viagra treats a single symptom,” says Justin Mager, a doctor of Integrative Medicine at the prestigious CLEAR Center of Health™ in Mill Valley and an expert in hormonal health for men.

“Viagra and similar products do nothing to address the causes of erectile dysfunction—a whole constellation of issues associated with the decline of androgen levels in men as they age.” Mager’s practice at CLEAR is a comprehensive, whole person approach to preventing and reversing the diseases of aging, including ED. “The key to restoring men’s health and maintaining virility is to solve age- and stress-related imbalances within the entire endocrine system.”

“Men’s general health and their sexual health are inextricably linked. The scarcity of informed doctors and the easy option of a powerful drug with serious side effects hasn’t helped men to find a solution to erectile dysfunction or  other symptoms of androgen decline.” Cultural myths of virility and fear of aging exacerbate the challenges. “Even the popular terms ‘male menopause’ and even ‘andropause’ are problematic as they falsely indicate an end of vitality, sexuality and reproductive potency. I use the word ‘androcline’ to indicate positively that it is a decline or imbalance, which can be reversed.”

The integrative medical approach favored by Mager and a small but growing number of doctors requires considerable medical detective work to uncover an individual man’s biochemical make up. Androcline, as Mager calls it, isn’t widely recognized by physicians, in part because they have not been trained to associate the long list of symptoms with declining testosterone levels. “A doctor has to have a clinical suspicion, ask the right questions, assess the risk factors, and put together a correct symptom profile that would fit with androgen decline.”