Word: treating
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Whether or not the FDA approves flibanserin to treat women's libidos, the German company's trial results have reignited a decade-long debate over the merit of the HSDD diagnosis - the most commonly diagnosed female sexual dysfunction - which some psychologists say is a made-up condition, promoted precisely for the service of moments like this: a drug-company rep at a conference on sex declaring that a treatment has been discovered...
Certainly, there may be women who will do better after taking flibanserin, says Judy Norsigian, executive director of the women's health advocacy Our Bodies Ourselves, based in Cambridge, Mass. But she thinks the diagnosis of HSDD unnecessarily medicalizes women's sexual lives. Attempting to treat low libido with a pill ignores the fact that many women's level of desire is deeply affected by everyday life stress and interpersonal relationships. Add to that a cultural milieu that at once promotes shame and ignorance about women's sexuality while wildly inflating their expectations for sex. In many cases, says Norsigian...
...women are complex and so are their libidos. Which is why the quest to treat HSDD has been so fraught. It is far more difficult than, for instance, treating men's complaints about erectile dysfunction. Viagra works simply by increasing blood flow to the penis and producing an erection. In women, the issue is not about wanting to have sex and being physically unable; rather, it's often that women lose interest in sex altogether, especially with the partner who once excited them. Beyond the many and varied psychological roots of the problem, there is still much that...
...guesses so far is that women with HSDD have low levels of testosterone. Indeed, the condition affects mainly postmenopausal women or those who have had their ovaries surgically removed, which leads to a drop in sex hormones - namely testosterone. Many American women already use testosterone treatments off-label to treat their low libidos, and doctors attest that they work. But past efforts by drugmakers to get such treatments approved by the FDA specifically for HSDD have been blocked for safety concerns. Intrinsa, a testosterone patch manufactured by Procter & Gamble, is used to treat female sexual dysfunction in postmenopausal women...
...younger women. Since 2002, when most professional organizations urged annual mammograms for women between 40 and 49 years old, the breast-cancer mortality rate in that group has steadily dropped, by about 3% a year, owing in large part to enhanced screening; doctors were able to pick up and treat cases of disease earlier...