U.S. nurse defies Maine's Ebola quarantine, takes bike ride

Reuters) - A nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone but has tested negative for the virus ventured out of her home in Maine and took a bike ride on Thursday, defying a quarantine order and setting up a legal collision with state authorities.

Attorneys for Kaci Hickox, 33, said they had not yet been served with a court order to enforce a 21-day quarantine - matching the virus's maximum incubation period - but remained prepared to fight such an order if necessary.

Hickox left her home in the small Maine town of Fort Kent, along the Canadian border, and television news images showed her taking a morning bicycle ride with her boyfriend.

Hickox has said that she plans to take the issue to court if Maine, giving the state a deadline of Thursday to lift its order that she remain isolated at her home until Nov. 10.

Norman Siegel, one of the lawyers, defended Hickox’s decision to go for a bike ride as a public statement but noted that she avoided the center of town so as not to “freak people out.”

“Since there’s no court order, she can be out in public,” Siegel said. “Even if people disagree with her position, I would hope they respect the fact that she’s taking into account the fear, which is based on misinformation about the way the disease is transmitted.”

Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and is not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not airborne.

Siegel also criticized Maine Governor Paul LePage for stoking fear of Ebola rather than using his bully pulpit to educate the public about the disease.

"People tell me politics isn’t involved in this?” the attorney said. “Give me a break.”

LePage, a Republican who is in a tough re-election battle, said he is seeking legal authority to keep Hickox isolated at home.

The nurse's confrontation with state officials in Maine, as well as in New Jersey, highlights how U.S. states have been struggling to protect their citizens from Ebola without resorting to overzealous, useless precautions or violating civil rights.

Hickox says she is completely healthy and has been monitoring her condition and taking her temperature twice a day.

She tested negative for Ebola after returning from treating patients in West Africa. Hickox previously blasted New Jersey Governor Chris Christie after she was taken from Newark's airport and put in quarantine in a tent before being driven to Maine to spend the rest of her 21-day quarantine at home.

Her town is in Maine's sparsely populated far north, more than 300 miles (480 km) from the state's largest city, Portland, and further north than Quebec City in neighboring Canada.

Hickox worked with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, one of the three impoverished countries at the heart of an outbreak that has killed about 5,000 people, all but a handful in West Africa. The disease causes fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea.

Some U.S. states have imposed automatic 21-day quarantines on doctors and nurses returning from treating Ebola patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Republicans have accused the Obama administration of doing too little to protect Americans from the disease.

President Barack Obama's "Ebola czar," Ron Klain, was due to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on Thursday.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said Obama should issue a guarantee to medical volunteers to assure them of help when they return to the United States.

"The president should guarantee that all U.S. citizens who travel to West Africa to help fight Ebola will be allowed to return to the United States, that any medical care they need as a result of their trip will be provided free of charge and that wages lost to any government-imposed quarantine will be reimbursed," Coons wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday editions of the Washington Post.

U.S. Representative Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, said the fight over Hickox and the larger battle over isolation policies have deteriorated into political posturing just days ahead of next week's midterm elections.

"This is just fear. It's kind of understandable, but unfortunately it's just stirred up and caused by fear-mongering politicians who see poll-driven numbers in anticipation of Tuesday's election," Cohen told CNN after Hickox' outing. “This is strictly driven by politics and fear-mongering.”

Thursday, October 30, 2014 - By Unknown 0

N. Korea to quarantine foreigners over Ebola fears

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korean officials have announced they will quarantine foreigners for 21 days over fears of the spread of the Ebola virus.

An announcement distributed to foreign diplomatic missions in Pyongyang said that, regardless of country or region of origin, all foreigners will be quarantined under medical observation for 21 days.

It said foreigners from affected areas will be quarantined at one set of locations, while those from unaffected areas will be sent to other locations, including hotels. It said the staff of diplomatic missions and international organizations in North Korea will be allowed to stay in their residences.

A copy of the document, dated Wednesday, was obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday.

There have been no reported cases of Ebola in North Korea.

More than 13,700 people have been sickened in the Ebola outbreak, and nearly 5,000 of them have died. Nearly all the cases are in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, though there were 20 in Nigeria, four in the U.S. and one each in Mali, Senegal and Spain. No cases have been reported in Asia.

North Korea's frantic response to Ebola, including a broad but so far poorly defined ban on foreign tourism, is also surprising because the notoriously reclusive country admits so few foreigners in the first place.

Other than diplomatic and government missions, it has virtually no contact with any of the countries that have been most affected in west Africa, though it has tried to cultivate good relations with some African nations.

Kim Yong Nam, the head of North Korea's parliament, is now touring other parts of Africa.

Last week, North Korea's state media announced that travelers and cargo would be subject to stricter monitoring at airports, seaports and railway border crossings. Warnings are also being aired on television to increase public awareness of the disease and its symptoms.

North Korea's reaction isn't unprecedented. It closed its borders for several months in 2003 during the scare over SARS.

But that was a much more obvious threat. SARS affected China, and Beijing is where most flights into Pyongyang originate. In the case of Ebola, North Korea's efforts to defend itself from what appears to be a tiny risk may end up alienating it from foreigners who have been willing to invest here.

Thursday, October 30, 2014 - By Unknown 0

10 of the world's biggest unsolved mysteries

1.Voynich Manuscript

Named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912, the Voynich Manuscript is a detailed 240-page book written in a language or script that is completely unknown. Its pages are also filled with colorful drawings of strange diagrams, odd events and plants that do not seem to match any known species, adding to the intrigue of the document and the difficulty of deciphering it. The original author of the manuscript remains unknown, but carbon dating has revealed that its pages were made sometime between 1404 and 1438. It has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript."

Theories abound about the origin and nature of the manuscript. Some believe it was meant to be a pharmacopoeia, to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. Many of the pictures of herbs and plants hint that it many have been some kind of textbook for an alchemist. The fact that many diagrams appear to be of astronomical origin, combined with the unidentifiable biological drawings, has even led some fanciful theorists to propose that the book may have an alien origin.

One thing most theorists agree on is that the book is unlikely to be a hoax, given the amount of time, money and detail that would have been required to make it.

2.Kryptos 

Kryptos is a mysterious encrypted sculpture designed by artist Jim Sanborn which sits right outside the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, Va. It's so mysterious, in fact, that

3.Beale Ciphers 

The Beale Ciphers are a set of three ciphertexts that supposedly reveal the location of one of the grandest buried treasures in U.S. history: thousands of pounds of gold, silver and jewels. The treasure was originally obtained by a mysterious man named Thomas Jefferson Beale in 1818 while prospecting in Colorado.

Of the three ciphertexts, only the second one has been cracked. Interestingly, the U.S. Declaration of Independence turned out to be the key — a curious fact given that Beale shares his name with the author of the Declaration of Independence.

The cracked text does reveal the county where the treasure was buried: Bedford County, Va., but its exact location is likely encrypted in one of the other uncracked ciphers. To this day, treasure hunters scour the Bedford County hillsides digging (often illegally) for the loot.

4.Phaistos Disc 

The mystery of the Phaistos Disc is a story that sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Discovered by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in 1908 in the Minoan palace-site of Phaistos, the disc is made of fired clay and contains mysterious symbols that may represent an unknown form of hieroglyphics. It is believed that it was designed sometime in the second millennium BC.

Some scholars believe that the hieroglyphs resemble symbols of Linear A and Linear B, scripts once used in ancient Crete. The only problem? Linear A also eludes decipherment. 

Today the disc remains one of the most famous puzzles of archaeology.

5.Shugborough inscription 

Look from afar at the 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in Staffordshire, England, and you might take it as nothing more than a sculpted re-creation of Nicolas Poussin's famous painting, “Arcadian Shepherds.” Look closer, though, and you'll notice a curious sequence of letters: DOUOSVAVVM — a code that has eluded decipherment for over 250 years.

Though the identity of the code carver remains a mystery, some have speculated that the code could be a clue left behind by the Knights Templar about the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.

Many of the world's greatest minds have tried to crack the code and failed, including Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin.

6.Tamam Shud case 

Considered to be one of Australia's most profound mysteries, the Tamam Shud Case revolves around an unidentified man found dead in December 1948 on Somerton beach in Adelaide, Australia. Aside from the fact that the man could never be identified, the mystery deepened after a tiny piece of paper with the words "Tamam Shud" was found in a hidden pocket sewn within the dead man's trousers. (It is also referred to as "Taman Shud.")

The phrase translates as "ended" or "finished" and is a phrase used on the last page of a collection of poems called “The Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayyam. Adding to the mystery, a copy of Khayyam's collection was later found that contained a scribbled code in it believed to have been left by the dead man himself.

Due to the content of the Khayyam poem, many have come to believe that the message may represent a suicide note of sorts, but it remains uncracked, as does the case.

7.The Wow! Signal 

One summer night in 1977, Jerry Ehman, a volunteer for SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, may have become the first man ever to receive an intentional message from an alien world. Ehman was scanning radio waves from deep space, hoping to randomly come across a signal that bore the hallmarks of one that might be sent by intelligent aliens, when he saw his measurements spike.

The signal lasted for 72 seconds, the longest period of time it could possibly be measured by the array that Ehman was using. It was loud and appeared to have been transmitted from a place no human has gone before: in the constellation Sagittarius near a star called Tau Sagittarii, 120 light-years away.

Ehman wrote the words "Wow!" on the original printout of the signal, thus its title as the "Wow! Signal."

All attempts to locate the signal again have failed, leading to much controversy and mystery about its origins and its meaning.

 

8.The Zodiac letters 

The Zodiac letters are a series of four encrypted messages believed to have been written by the famous Zodiac Killer, a serial killer who terrorized residents of the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The letters were likely written as a way to taunt journalists and police, and though one of the messages has been deciphered, the three others remain uncracked.

The identity of the Zodiac Killer also remains a mystery, though no Zodiac murders have been identified since 1970.

 

9.Georgia Guidestones 

The Georgia Guidestones, sometimes referred to as the "American Stonehenge," is a granite monument erected in Elbert County, Ga., in 1979. The stones are engraved in eight languages — English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian — each relaying 10 "new" commandments for "an Age of Reason." The stones also line up with certain astronomical features.

Though the monument contains no encrypted messages, its purpose and origin remain shrouded in mystery. They were commissioned by a man who has yet to be properly identified, who went by the pseudonym of R.C. Christian.

Of the 10 commandments, the first one is perhaps the most controversial: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Many have taken it to be a license to cull the human population down to the specified number, and critics of the stones have called for them to be destroyed. Some conspiracy theorists even believe they may have been designed by a "Luciferian secret society" calling for a new world order.

10.Rongorongo 

Rongorongo is a system of mysterious glyphs discovered written on various artifacts on Easter Island. Many believe they represent a lost system of writing or proto-writing and could be one of just three or four independent inventions of writing in human history.

The glyphs remain undecipherable, and their true messages — which some believe could offer hints about the perplexing collapse of the statue-building Easter Island civilization — may be lost forever.

Saturday, February 22, 2014 - By Unknown 0

Sex After Divorce Can Be Best Sex Yet

 
Divorce News

Now don't go ditching a stable and satisfying marriage after being seduced into this article by the headline, even if things have become a bit stale. Stale can be revived. Incompatibility cannot. While healing from the harshness of divorce, here's some hopeful news:

While researching my new book, Sex After...Women Share How Intimacy Changes As Life Changes, a compilation of 150 interviews with women ages 20 through 90, I heard lots of breathy accounts from divorcees having the best sex of their lives.
"A pervasive myth is that quality of sex declines with age," said Dr. Melanie Davis, a certified sexuality educator and co-founder of the New Jersey Center for Sexual Wellness. "Studies have shown that many older adults are finding their sexual experiences to be even more sensual and satisfying than when they were younger."
Lucille is a California girl in her mid-fifties with a full-body tan and who works in the hospitality industry. She left a sexless marriage to a drug-abusing husband and is now living with a former NBA basketball player. With a boost from hormone therapy, she talks of "fantastic" post-menopausal sex, and discovering deep emotional fulfillment with her lanky boyfriend Johnny, who is ten years younger.

My sex life with Johnny was quite good from the start. But it's even gotten better -- my fifties have turned out to be really hot. Two years ago, I started using a testosterone cream, which I take along with progesterone. This has been fantastic for my post-menopausal libido.The older-woman-younger-man thing, we don't really talk about that. We are very well matched, emotionally and physically. Intimacy is so much more important than most people want to admit. When I didn't have it, I buried myself in my work. And, I think most people who don't have it make excuses like, "Oh, I'm too busy to think about sex." Sure, there are people who are just asexual, but for most of us, my God, we truly need sex to feel alive!

The choice to shuck a bad marriage at midlife and beyond is being made more often, and with less trepidation. Women now occupy more than half of the management and professional positions in the U.S. work force, and can increasingly fend for themselves financially. Renee, who grew up in a working-class family in which her housewife mom felt stuck in a bad marriage, put herself through medical school and is now a successful physician.
"I never wanted to be dependent on a man," Renee, 55, told me. I met her at a party and knew she belonged in Sex After... when she introduced me to the person she was dating after divorce -- her pool man! Here is a segment from our interview:

My husband retired at the age of fifty-three, then did nothing for the rest of our marriage. I waited for years after his retirement for him to get a hobby, to go back to school, to volunteer, to do something. It didn't happen; he just drank more and more.I had no desire for sex; it actually got to the point where he was repulsive to me. Finally, I pulled the plug when I realized this saying was true: "I'd rather be alone without you than lonely with you." The kids stayed with me most of the time.
For years after the divorce I had no desire to be intimate with a man. What turned my heart was when I found someone very nice and very attractive. And when he kissed me, something that I believed was dead inside of me totally came alive. I never thought I would feel this way again. And it was the pool guy -- a grown woman's fantasy!
Two years later are still together. I have become obsessed with sex. I am totally comfortable with my new guy and totally turned on by him. I never had this with my husband! I'm not robbing the cradle either -- this isn't a young pool boy. He is a man who is only a few years younger than me.
Initially he was like living out that fantasy, screwing my pool man. I thought the fantasy would go away but then the relationship kept lasting. Many women friends are staying in their marriages because of money. I didn't have to. When my mother was unhappy in her marriage and I urged her to leave she said, "I can't." She didn't have a profession. She couldn't sustain herself without a husband. From my teenage years, I always vowed if I was in a relationship it would be because I wanted to, not because I had to.

Ingrid is a 42-year woman who has also been awakened sexually after a 20-year "humiliating" marriage. But unlike Renee, the loss of her husband's income left her in a hole, as he has withdrawn payment of any household expenses. She is working overtime to support their young son, who is in her sole custody, and to pay off six-figure attorney bills. Solace has come in the form of a fawning new lover who also happens to be her son's Cub Scout leader.
Here is a swatch of our interview:

My ex-husband was volatile and completely degrading of everything I am. During the early years of our marriage we were very sexy, but the passion died quickly. I never had an orgasm with my husband. I don't think he ever knew this because I faked it.When this new man came into my life, I was ready to be laid, quite frankly. It had been six years since I had sex! Oh God, it feels so great, having sex back in my life, skin against skin, the heavy breathing, the feel of a man.
I've been seeing him for a few months now and he is very bold in the bedroom. He loves to watch a woman touch herself, so he started buying me toys I never owned, like a vibrator. The sex is fantastic yet the chemistry is far more than physical. We have this great emotional energy between us.
So I am going a little wild as I escape a hurtful marriage. I would recommend this to any woman going through a bad divorce.

I'll leave you with a theme I found to be recurrent in all of my interviews, from recent college graduates to grandmothers: A woman's sexuality is of central importance to her until the day she dies, and that day is getting farther and farther away. With medical inroads and improved fitness regimens, women in their late 80s and early 90s are the fastest growing segment of the aging population. So there is lots of time ahead for second-chance love and carnal pleasures.
"I could easily live another 35 years and I refuse to live without good sex and real love," said Monica, 55, a real estate agent who divorced after 16 "miserable" years of marriage.
"I will never again sacrifice myself on a spiritual and psychological level to a man, like I did with my control-freak husband," she added. "I am attractive and smart, and I will find love again. Though I won't settle until I am swept off my feet. Not just sexually, but by the whole package -- mentally and soulfully."
Iris Krasnow's new book Sex After...Women Share How Intimacy Changes As Life Changes was recently released by Gotham Books. Connect with her at

Friday, February 21, 2014 - By Unknown 0

Clay Matthews: 'I'm an awesome player, not a dirty player'

By Chuck Schilken

September 13, 2013, 10:10 a.m.

Clay Matthews doesn't care what Jim Harbaugh or anyone else thinks.
“I'm an awesome player, not a dirty player,” the Green Bay Packers linebacker told reporters with a smile on Thursday.
The former USC standout was asked specifically about being a dirty player after the fallout from his late hit on San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick last weekend, the ensuing scuffle with offensive lineman Joe Staley and criticism from 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh.
That was the only response Matthews gave to questions on any of those topics, including whether or not he was fined by the NFL for his actions Sunday.
“Um, I'm not really going to discuss all that right now, but on to the next game,” Matthews said.
Matthews has made the Pro Bowl in each of his four NFL seasons, helping the Packers win a Super Bowl along the way. He's ranked in the league's top five in sacks twice and has 43.5 in his career.
So it would be hard to argue Matthews' assertion that he's an awesome player. Whether he's a dirty player ... well, you can decide for yourself.

Friday, September 13, 2013 - By Unknown 0

Understanding the Universe’s invisible elements

Our solar system extends a lot further than we first thought. Astrophysicist Charles Alcock says exploring its outer reaches may shed light on the Earth’s beginnings.

Most of the Universe is invisible. Understanding these unseeable elements can be an important step in working out how the entire Universe works.
Charles Alcock, the director of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, says the Solar System extends far further than first thought. If we define our Solar System as expanding as far as the gravitational field of the Sun dominates, that’s about a thousand times further than we have explored to date.
Alcock is currently exploring the outer limits of our Solar System, beyond the planets Neptune and Pluto. There are billions of small objects in this dark, empty zone – objects that could hold vital clues in understanding how our own planet came into being.
(All background footage courtesy of Nasa)
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Thursday, September 12, 2013 - By Unknown 0

Why men need women's hormones too: Oestrogen is vital for sex drive and avoiding obesity, say doctors

• These symptoms were previously often put down to falling testosterone levels
• Men with too little oestrogen can develop 'male menopause' symptoms

1. These include weight gain, loss of libido and muscle weakeningMen need the ‘female’ hormone oestrogen to maintain their sex drive and avoid obesity, new research suggests.
   Men who have too little oestrogen in their bodies can develop certain ‘male menopause’ symptoms – such as diminished libido.
   They are also more likely to put on weight.
   ‘A lot of things we think are due to testosterone deficiency are actually related to the oestrogen deficiency that accompanies it,’ said Dr Joel Finkelstein of Massachusetts General Hospital.
   Testosterone is the main male sex hormone.
   Men's bodies convert some of it into oestrogen, and levels of both decline with age.
   However, it is usually thought that the problems some men experience as they age are caused by a lack of testosterone when, actually, it could be their falling oestrogen levels that are to blame.
   The study involved 400 healthy male volunteers, aged 20 to 50, who were given monthly injections of a drug to temporarily reduce their testosterone production to pre-puberty levels.
   They were then given various doses of testosterone gel or a dummy gel to use. Half were also given another drug to prevent testosterone's conversion into oestrogen.
   Designing the study this way allowed researchers to compare the effects of different levels of each hormone on things like strength and body composition.
   After 16 weeks, researchers saw that muscle size and strength depended on testosterone, body-fat mass depended on oestrogen, and both hormones were needed to maintain normal sex drive and performance.
   

   More...

   • Could 'milk and cookie disease' be making your child ill? Doctor fears bedtime treats could cause string of health problems
   • Does anorexia have a genetic link? New theory suggests the disorder may not be purely down to social pressures
   The results mirror animal research – mice that are altered so they do not make oestrogen become fat and have no sex drive.
   And in male-to-female transsexuals, ‘there's actually evidence that when those men are given oestrogen, it helps their libido,’ Dr Finkelstein said. 
   The new study was too short to see long-term benefits or risks, such as the effect of testosterone supplements on the heart, mental sharpness, prostate enlargement or cancer.
   
   
   

   Men who have too little oestrogen in their bodies can develop certain 'male menopause' symptoms such as diminished libido. They are also more likely to put on weight
   
   Also, abruptly and artificially depriving men of testosterone the way the study did may not be the same as when it falls naturally and gradually over time.
   Further research is needed, but the results may boost the case for giving testosterone to prevent frailty in older men, the authors write.
   Low testosterone may contribute to less muscle and bone strength and mobility, impaired thinking skills, heart disease and other problems.
   ‘This is a big public health issue,’ Dr Finkelstein said. ‘If the changes with aging are due to these things, then potentially replacing these hormones in men might ameliorate these changes.’

Thursday, September 12, 2013 - By Unknown 0

Male menopause’ is real, as low estrogen may also be linked to changes in sex drive, body fat levels in men: U.S. study

Television ads tout testosterone treatments for “low T,” but surprising new research shows a different hormone may play a role in less sex drive and more fat as men age. Estrogen — the female hormone — is needed by men, too, and the study gives the first clear evidence that too little of it can cause certain “male menopause” symptoms.
“A lot of things we think are due to testosterone deficiency are actually related to the estrogen deficiency that accompanies it,” said Dr. Joel Finkelstein of Massachusetts General Hospital. He led the U.S.-government funded study, which appears in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Forever young: Male hormone therapy is no Peter Pan panacea for aging

“Larry” is one of the healthiest guys I know. He’s in his late middle ages, and he reads a lot of medical and fitness magazines to try to gain an edge. He watches what he eats. He exercises regularly, he makes a point of getting plenty of sleep and he’s proactive about his medical strategy. Last week, he came in for an appointment and asked me to test his testosterone levels, because he’d heard about something called male hormone replacement.
The same week, I noticed a large feature in Esquire magazine that revolved around an outfit in Burlington, Ont., known as the Masters Men’s Clinic, which, according to the article, is run by a gynecologist who bills himself as an expert on male hormone replacement. (Normally, male hormones would be the domain of an endocrinologist. A gynecologist typically specializes in women’s health.) But the really strange thing about the article was its cheerleading tone. “What do these doctors think the various compounds can accomplish?” posed Craig Davidson, the Canadian writer of the Esquire piece. “Very simply, a life that is good to the end.”
Read more…

Testosterone is the main male sex hormone. Men’s bodies convert some of it into estrogen, and levels of both decline with age. Until now, there was no way to tell which hormone was responsible for complaints of diminished libido, strength and energy.
Millions of men have been prescribed testosterone gel, patches or shots for these problems, but it’s not known how much they need or whether this hormone replacement therapy is good, bad or neutral, Finkelstein said. Doctors don’t usually prescribe estrogen to men; the way to remedy low estrogen is to give them testosterone and let the body convert it.
The study didn’t test hormones as therapy, but explored which ones had which effects. It involved 400 healthy male volunteers, ages 20 to 50, who were given monthly shots of a drug to temporarily reduce their testosterone production to pre-puberty levels. They were then given various doses of testosterone gel or a dummy gel to use. Half also were given another drug to prevent testosterone’s conversion into estrogen.
Designing the study this way allowed researchers to compare the effects of different levels of each hormone on things like strength and body composition.
After 16 weeks, researchers saw that muscle size and strength depended on testosterone, body-fat mass depended on estrogen, and both hormones were needed to maintain normal sex drive and performance.
The results mirror animal research — mice altered so they don’t make estrogen grow fat and have no sex drive. And in male-to-female transsexuals, “there’s actually evidence that when those men are given estrogen, it helps their libido,” Finkelstein said.
The new study was too short to see long-term benefits or risks, such as the effect of testosterone supplements on the heart, mental sharpness, prostate enlargement or cancer.

Some people call this midlife decline ‘male menopause’ although men don’t menstruate

Also, abruptly and artificially depriving men of testosterone the way the study did may not be the same as when it falls off naturally and gradually over time.
Some people call this midlife decline “male menopause” although men don’t menstruate and testosterone doesn’t fall off as sharply with age as estrogen does in women after menopause.
“Andropause would be more reasonable,” since testosterone is an androgen, a male sex hormone, said John Morley, an expert on hormone therapies and aging at Saint Louis University.
He said the study shows a big variability in the amount of testosterone men may need. Doctors tend to try a lower dose and abandon it if it doesn’t work, but some men may need more.
Further research is needed, but the results may boost the case for giving testosterone to prevent frailty in older men, the authors write. Low testosterone may contribute to less muscle and bone strength and mobility, impaired thinking skills, heart disease and other problems.
“This is a big public health issue,” Finkelstein said. “If the changes with aging are due to these things, then potentially replacing these hormones in men might ameliorate these changes.”
Dr. Peter J. Snyder of the University of Pennsylvania called the new work an excellent study, but noted it was not intended to determine whether hormone therapy is beneficial. He is leading a study that will — a National Institute on Aging study testing testosterone replacement in 800 older men. He hopes for some early results late next year.

Thursday, September 12, 2013 - By Unknown 0