With decreasing fertility rate and increasing life expectancy, the world is aging-with highest rates in Asia. The socio-economic, financial and medical consequences of the aging population will be even more pronounced due to the limited resources of many Asian countries. During the First Asian ISSAM Meeting on the Aging Male distinguished speakers depicted the scenario in the various countries and proposed solutions of how to manage the aging populations. The main goal should be healthy aging with an as short as possible disability period-which means in other words: to prevent the preventable and delay the inevitable.
    More than 400 delegates heard that Indonesia has the fastest growing aging population (65 years) and in 2025 it will be increased by 414%, followed by Kenya (347%), Brazil (255%), China (220%) and Japan (129%). The greater part of those seniors of tomorrow will be women, since they survive longer than men for roughly seven years. The reasons for this fact are not entirely clear, but indisputably female care more for health, and seek medical advice more often. Whereas postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy is widely accepted, the consequences of the gradual decrease of male sexual hormones did not attract serious attention in Asia. This attitude is hopefully bound to change, as the key lectures suggest that the replacement of testosterone in proven cases of androgen deficiency can contribute to improve the quality of life of the individual.
    
    Sex hormones, besides being essential for well being, form the only part of the instruments in the orchestra of aging. The concert of longevity will only harmonize if health expectancy, and not life expectancy regardless of the consequences is the leading theme. As Professor Bruno Lunenfeld pointed out: We have to promote aging with dignity and function. This can only be achieved by enabling older persons active participation in social life, fostering community integration and inter-generation understanding, moreover by allowing a prolonged working life, and last but not least, medical intervention including replacement therapies.

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