Do women need testosterone too?

Yes, women produce and need testosterone too. It plays a real role in your libido, energy, mood, muscle and bone, and it declines with age just as it does in men.

Testosterone is not only a male hormone. Women make it, in the ovaries and adrenal glands, at much lower levels than men, but importantly so. It contributes to:

• Sex drive
• Energy and motivation
• Mood and overall well-being
• Muscle and bone strength

Women's testosterone gradually declines from the late twenties onward, and can drop further around menopause or after removal of the ovaries, which is one reason low libido and low energy are common at midlife and do not always respond fully to oestrogen alone. This is an area that is often overlooked: women with troublesome low libido after menopause sometimes benefit from testosterone, used carefully at low, female-appropriate doses. The point about dosing matters, because the goal is to restore a woman's own normal range, not to push levels up the way the supplement marketing aimed at men implies, which is also why female testosterone treatment is a prescribed, monitored therapy rather than an over-the-counter one.

An honest caveat: in many countries there is no testosterone product formally licensed for women, so it is prescribed "off-label" using a fraction of a male dose or a female-specific preparation where available. That is not a reason to avoid it, but it is why it belongs with a knowledgeable GP or menopause specialist who will start low, monitor levels and review the effect rather than chase a number.

What to do: if you have persistent low libido, energy or mood in midlife that has not responded to the usual approaches, ask your GP or a menopause specialist whether testosterone might help. It is prescribed for some women, usually for low sexual desire, under specialist guidance and at small doses, and it often sits alongside the wider approach in boosting libido during menopause. As with any hormone it is an individual decision, but the key takeaway is that testosterone matters for women, not just men.