For a long time, I thought there was no point in writing about men's health—men aren't interested in it.

But the other day, I attended a webinar on women's health for ages 30+. Mid-lecture, the doctor had to pause: the chat was flooded with questions about husbands. "What if he started sleeping poorly?" "Why is he always dissatisfied with everything?" Women, understanding their own hormones, saw that something similar was happening with their partners.

So I decided to have a "man talk."

Familiar picture? A man 40+. Everything seems fine, but he's slowly turning into a grump. Everything is wrong: the government is bad, the boss is an idiot, traffic jams are infuriating. Plus, sleep is disrupted (waking up in the middle of the night) and snoring appears, even though weight hasn't changed.

This is usually attributed to fatigue or a "midlife crisis." But in preventive medicine, we know: often it's not a bad temper, but a system glitch. More precisely, a drop in progesterone.
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We're used to thinking of it as a female hormone. But men have it too, and it drops first—even before testosterone.
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What is it responsible for in men?
🖤Deep sleep. In the brain, it converts into neurosteroids—powerful natural relaxants. No progesterone—sleep becomes shallow.
​🖤 Swelling and snoring. It tones the muscles of the airways. With deficiency, tissues swell, sag, and age-related snoring appears.
​​🖤 Calmness. It gives a feeling that "everything will be okay." As soon as it drops, the world seems hostile, and the person starts grumbling.
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​Why does the system fail?
After age 40, hormone production inevitably slows down. But the main blow comes from stress.
In integrative medicine, this is called pregnenolone steal syndrome. The body has a basic raw material—cholesterol. From it, either calmness hormones (progesterone, testosterone) or survival hormones (cortisol) are built.
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When a man lives in chronic stress—deadlines, loans, lack of sleep—the body thinks a global crisis has arrived. No time for rest. The system throws all raw materials into cortisol, draining itself.
(Academic science explains it differently: the brain, under stress, simply turns off signals to produce sex hormones. But the essence is the same: progesterone has nothing to build from.)

What to do about it?
Trying to treat it with a vacation is useless. The vacation will end, but the biochemistry will remain.

In a regular clinic, men's progesterone is not checked. This is a task for specialists in anti-aging medicine. They look at hormones comprehensively and can prescribe compensation (yes, men are also prescribed bioidentical progesterone in microdoses).
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Important: hormones are not taken blindly. For women, the gold standard for therapy monitoring is pelvic ultrasound and estrogen metabolites. For men, there is their own safety panel. A competent doctor will not prescribe therapy without monitoring PSA (prostate health marker) and hematocrit (blood thickness). Plus, monitoring estradiol to prevent male hormones from accidentally turning into female ones.

But if done correctly, magic happens🔮: snoring disappears, sleep returns, and instead of an eternally dissatisfied neighbor, you see a reasonable person again.
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Men, if you recognize yourself—don't wait until grumbling becomes your main trait. This is a settings glitch that can be fixed.
Women, well, you get it. Forward this post to whoever needs it.

@nastroi_zdorovie 🎧