On 2015 Dec 22, John Tucker commented:

While addressing the important issue of commercial influence in the practice of medicine, the article's treatment of the issues surrounding "lifestyle drugs" relies too heavily on the values and stereotypes of the authors. Arguably, the most defining feature of "maladies" such as obesity, impotence, hair loss, and diminished libido is the wide range of importance attached to them by different people. The authors' failure to recognize that the values of others may differ from their own results in a paper that mostly misses the key issues in this controversial area.

The shortcomings of this approach become apparent in a striking way in the article's introduction, in which three female authors, two of which are apparently under 40 years of age, pronounce impotence "a normal part of male aging". This view conflates "commonplace" with "unworthy of medical intervention", and if applied consistently would suggest that we should not develop drugs for the treatment of other diseases of aging such as arthritis and macular degeneration. It dismisses the desire of many older couples to maintain an active sex life, and appears rooted in stereotypes of what is appropriate behavior for older people.

Likewise, the development of drugs that treat low sexual desire in women is criticized based on the argument that "there is no reliable evidence that hypoactive sexual desire disorder is a real medical condition". Unfortunately, the authors provide no definition for what constitutes "a real medical condition", and thereby dodge the central issue of what is an appropriate subject for pharmacological therapy. They simply appear to have decided that the concerns of women who are troubled by their lack of libido are invalid, and they "shouldn't worry about it". This is a remarkable value judgment to make on behalf of others.

There are complex issues here, and they are worthy of address in greater depth than the intellectual shortcuts taken in this paper.

On 2015 Dec 22, John Tucker commented:

While addressing the important issue of commercial influence in the practice of medicine, the article's treatment of the issues surrounding "lifestyle drugs" relies too heavily on the values and stereotypes of the authors. Arguably, the most defining feature of "maladies" such as obesity, impotence, hair loss, and diminished libido is the wide range of importance attached to them by different people. The authors' failure to recognize that the values of others may differ from their own results in a paper that mostly misses the key issues in this controversial area.

The shortcomings of this approach become apparent in a striking way in the article's introduction, in which three female authors, two of which are apparently under 40 years of age, pronounce impotence "a normal part of male aging". This view conflates "commonplace" with "unworthy of medical intervention", and if applied consistently would suggest that we should not develop drugs for the treatment of other diseases of aging such as arthritis and macular degeneration. It dismisses the desire of many older couples to maintain an active sex life, and appears rooted in stereotypes of what is appropriate behavior for older people.

Likewise, the development of drugs that treat low sexual desire in women is criticized based on the argument that "there is no reliable evidence that hypoactive sexual desire disorder is a real medical condition". Unfortunately, the authors provide no definition for what constitutes "a real medical condition", and thereby dodge the central issue of what is an appropriate subject for pharmacological therapy. They simply appear to have decided that the concerns of women who are troubled by their lack of libido are invalid, and they "shouldn't worry about it". This is a remarkable value judgment to make on behalf of others.

There are complex issues here, and they are worthy of address in greater depth than the intellectual shortcuts taken in this paper.