AG Magazine • Health & Nutrition
On September 17, 2026, the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health held its first-ever public workshop dedicated entirely to testosterone and menopause — not hormone therapy in general, but testosterone specifically, distinct from the broader hormone-therapy label changes the agency finalized earlier in the year.
That distinction matters. For a hormone women have produced their entire lives, testosterone and menopause have rarely been studied together with real rigor, and the resulting research gap has left millions of women guessing, often based on wellness-industry marketing rather than data. The workshop opened a 60-day public comment window, and the message from the agency was clear: this is no longer a footnote issue.
If you’re tracking your training, sleep, and recovery through midlife, hormonal health after 40 shouldn’t require guesswork. Here’s what the science actually supports — for women and for men — and what to do with it right now.
What’s Actually Happening to Your Testosterone After 40?
Testosterone doesn’t disappear at menopause. It fades gradually, years before your final period, and the picture is more nuanced than most people realize. A 2025 study of more than 8,000 women tracked testosterone and related pre-androgens across the menopausal transition and found the decline is a long, slow slope tied to age rather than a hormonal cliff at menopause itself.
By the time most women reach menopause, Cleveland Clinic notes, testosterone levels may have dropped by roughly half of what they were in their twenties — a shift that can affect libido, energy, and muscle tone long before hot flashes ever start.
That slow slope is part of why the topic has been so easy to ignore clinically and so easy to exploit commercially. A symptom that builds for a decade rarely gets flagged in a fifteen-minute appointment, which leaves an opening for compounding pharmacies and influencers to promise more certainty than the evidence supports.
Do Men Go Through a Version of Menopause Too?
Not exactly. Men don’t have a defined hormonal transition the way women do; instead, they experience a slower, more variable decline sometimes called late-onset hypogonadism. A foundational review in the International Journal of Endocrinology describes how male testosterone decline accelerates with age and correlates with decreased muscle mass, low mood, reduced bone density, and diminished libido — changes that can be easy to write off as “just getting older” until they’re named.
The practical takeaway: if a man in his 50s or 60s notices a real drop in strength, motivation, or recovery, that’s worth a blood panel and a conversation, not just a new supplement stack — and it’s a decision best made with a clinician who tests before treating, rather than one guided by symptoms alone.
Does Testosterone Therapy Help With Menopause Symptoms?
Yes, but for one specific symptom: low sexual desire that causes personal distress. A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology found testosterone therapy for women reliably improved desire, arousal, and satisfaction in postmenopausal women with this diagnosis — while evidence for mood, cognition, or general energy remained far less consistent.
That gap between what testosterone therapy for women is proven to do and what it’s marketed to do is exactly why the conversation has gotten confusing. If your main complaint is low libido after menopause, the evidence base is genuinely solid. If you’re hoping testosterone will fix fatigue, brain fog, or motivation across the board, the research isn’t there yet — and an honest provider will tell you so instead of writing a prescription to match the hope.
The FDA Is Finally Asking the Right Questions
Here’s the part that makes this news, not just background: there is currently no FDA-approved testosterone product for women in the United States. Every prescription is off-label, borrowed from formulations built and dosed for men, with no standardized way to get the dose right. That’s the gap the FDA’s September workshop is meant to start closing — specifically examining evidence on sexual function, cognition, mood, and musculoskeletal health, and opening a public comment docket that stays open through October 19, 2026. [SOURCE NOT ON ALLOWLIST — editor review]
Why Isn’t There an FDA-Approved Testosterone Product for Women?
Partly history, partly evidence. Earlier drug applications for women’s testosterone products were withdrawn or rejected over safety and manufacturing concerns, and Mayo Clinic notes that because long-term safety data is still limited, testosterone therapy for women remains a careful, case-by-case decision rather than a standard prescription. The FDA’s new workshop is the clearest signal yet that regulators want that evidence gap closed on purpose, using dedicated studies, instead of leaving patients and prescribers to fill it with off-label guesswork.
What the Evidence Actually Supports (and Where It Falls Short)
Strip away the marketing, and the current research supports a narrower picture than the wellness-industry version of testosterone:
Improved sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction for postmenopausal women with a clinical diagnosis of low libido
Modest gains in energy and muscle mass for men with medically confirmed hypogonadism, not simply low-normal levels
Better-preserved bone density and muscle mass when adequate testosterone is paired with consistent resistance training
No established benefit for mood, cognition, or general “anti-aging” energy in people with already normal-range testosterone
No long-term safety data for women, particularly around breast cancer and cardiovascular risk over years of use
Is Testosterone Therapy Safe for Menopausal Women?
For the right candidate, current evidence suggests it’s reasonably safe in the short term — but not for everyone. Mayo Clinic advises against testosterone therapy for women with a history of breast or uterine cancer, or with heart, blood vessel, or liver disease, largely because long-term safety data simply doesn’t exist yet. That’s a clinical decision made with a provider who knows your full history, not a do-it-yourself one, and it’s exactly the kind of question this FDA workshop was convened to help answer with better evidence instead of anecdotes.
⚡ PRO TIP
Whether or not you and your doctor decide hormone therapy is right for you, resistance training is the one intervention with the strongest, most direct evidence for protecting what hormonal decline threatens most: muscle, bone, and mood. A 2023 controlled trial in BMC Women’s Health found structured resistance training measurably slowed menopause-related muscle loss even without hormone therapy, and ACSM’s 2026 resistance training guidelines confirm that consistent training — at least twice weekly, hitting every major muscle group — delivers the bulk of the benefit regardless of your current hormone status. Start there while the research on hormones catches up to the demand for answers.
Advocate for the Hormonal Health You’ve Earned
The FDA’s workshop is proof that testosterone and menopause are finally being treated as a genuine research priority instead of an afterthought — but that only matters if the evidence keeps building, and that requires real people describing real symptoms instead of silence. If you’re navigating hormonal health after 40, the most useful next step isn’t a supplement or a compounding pharmacy. It’s a conversation, backed by real data and a provider willing to have it honestly.
Ask your doctor for a full hormone panel, bring the specific symptoms you’re tracking over time, and ask directly whether your case fits the narrow, evidence-backed use for testosterone therapy — for you or for your partner. Pair that conversation with a resistance training habit you can actually sustain, and you’re covering both what the science already proves and what it’s still working to confirm about testosterone and menopause.
