Sex differences in 'climacteric symptoms' with increasing age? A hypothesis-generating analysis of cross-sectional population surveys

Abstract

Are the established clinical symptoms of the female climacteric really specific for women? We were interested to compare the prevalence of these symptoms across age and sex. In the absence of longitudinal (cohort) studies, we tried to find cross-sectional, population-based studies with a broad age span to find a preliminary answer. We obtained six surveys that contained information for at least some of the symptoms. We re-analyzed these databases, which included over 8000 males and 8000 females, in a pooled fashion. Sixteen symptoms of predominantly somatic, psychological and urogenital origin were identified and the age-dependent increase of the relative frequencies was compared between genders. A general tendency for women to report more symptoms was confirmed; however, no significant differences were found between genders regarding the time trend of these symptoms. The analyses suggest that males experience a similar symptomatology in the same age span as women. One may thus be tempted to conclude that aging males experience similar phenomena to women during their menopausal transition. This should be confirmed in a specifically designed study.