There is a biological plausibility for the association between sexual desire and androgens. Indeed, according to epidemiological and clinical studies, they both decline with age. However, any attempt to link directly low sexual desire with circulating low androgens (total testosterone, free testosterone) or androgen precursors (androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and DHEA sulfate (DHEAS)) has failed to identify a lower limit that can be used to diagnose women with sexual dysfunction related to androgen deficiency [1]. A Danish cross-sectional study by Wåhlin-Jacobsen and colleagues [2] has recently reported that sexual desire, measured by the total score in the sexual desire domain of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), correlated overall with free testosterone and androstenedione in a cohort of 560 healthy women aged 19–65 years. Moreover, the androstenedione : total testosterone ratio, an indirect marker of the activity of 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, was overall correlated with women’s sexual desire in women not using systemic hormonal contraception (HC) or postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT), indicating that the speed of transformation of androstenedione to testosterone is important. When the study population was stratified into three age groups depending on the intake of HC and HT, the authors demonstrated that, in women aged 25–44 years with no use of HC, sexual desire correlated with total testosterone, free testosterone, androstenedione, and DHEAS, whereas, in women aged 45–65 years, only androstenedione correlated with sexual desire. The primary androgen metabolite androsterone glucuronide did not show a correlation with sexual desire.
Author(s)
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Rossella E. Nappi
Research Center for Reproductive Medicine, Gynecological Endocrinology and Menopause, IRCCS S. Matteo Foundation, Department of Clinical, Surgical, Diagnostic and Paediatric Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
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