Do standard blood tests indicate whether a woman has low testosterone and is “androgen deficient”?
We don’t fully understand the relationship between testosterone levels and libido. We can measure the amount of testosterone that available in the blood. But our research indicates that this is not indicative of who will benefit from testosterone therapy. So the main reason we measure testosterone is to identify women who should not be treated because their levels are already high enough. Clinicians need to be aware that most methods for measuring testosterone are fairly imprecise and should not be used as a basis for diagnosing testosterone deficiency. They become even more difficult to interpret when blood levels of testosterone are low, such as after menopause or removal of the uterus and ovaries.
