Is It Low Testosterone or Is It Sleep Apnea? Dr. John Spencer Ellis on the Question Men Over 50 Get Backwards
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A 54-year-old man walks into an appointment with four complaints: he's exhausted, his libido has fallen off, he's losing muscle despite training, and his mood is flat. He has already done the research. He is fairly sure it's his testosterone. He may be right. He may also be describing untreated sleep apnea, which produces that exact list and affects roughly 40 percent of men aged 50 to 70 according to the American Urological Association — about twice the rate seen in women. Getting this wrong is expensive. It means years on a treatment that manages a symptom while the actual driver continues doing damage every single night. And it happens constantly, because the two conditions overlap almost perfectly on the surface and diverge completely underneath. Why the symptoms are identical Sleep apnea causes low testosterone. That's the connection most men have never been told, and it's the reason the two are so easy to confuse. Testosterone is produced largely durin...