Making news lately is a study indicating a large percentage of postmenopausal women experience a drop in sexual desire, a situation all but a few regard as no reason for complaint.  The complaining few, however, may find some relief in knowing a separate, multinational study has shown testosterone patches are effective in boosting the female libido.

Working from Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States, researchers studied 814 women of postmenopausal age who all complained of a decline in their sexual drives and neither of whom was undergoing estrogen replacement therapy.  About one-third of the study group was randomly chosen to be the control group, getting a placebo patch resembling the testosterone patches the other two groups wore.  One randomly chosen group getting testosterone patches received 0.3 milligrams of the hormone while the third group’s dose was half that.

Patches were worn for 24 weeks, when the women first reported any changes to their sexual routines.  Both testosterone-patch groups reported libidos significantly more lively after the study than before.  The group getting the higher dose said they’d experienced an average of more than two sexually satisfying experiences during the study period, a frequency that triples the rate of sexual encounters reported at the beginning of the study.  These findings led the research team to conclude the higher-dose testosterone patch can improve sexual function in a meaningful way.

Unfortunately, this testosterone titillation comes with some very masculine side effects, most notably hair growth on the face and chest.  There is also some concern about breast cancer but, after just one year of study, it’s impossible yet to form an association between the two.

Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals (PG), a maker of testosterone patches, provided grants and consulting fees for this study.  Three authors contributing to the report are employed by PG.  The PG testosterone patch does not have US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval at this time for marketing the patch to women.