CHICAGO -- Moviegoers laughed when Meg Ryan faked her orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally," but for real-life women, losing their intimacy isn't a laughing matter.

One in three women report that they've lost their sexual desire, reported WMAQ-TV in Chicago. Losing intimacy probably has to do with aging and the hormone declines that come with it.

"You just kind of go with the flow at first, and then it gets to the point where he's over there watching TV and you're over here," said one woman.

The woman's search for a solution led her to Dr. Karen Altay, an endocrinologist at the Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Bloomingdale, Ill., who enrolled her in a study of the controversial supplement dehydroepiandrosterone, commonly known as DHEA.

"The oral DHEA certainly has been touted as the fountain of youth," Altay said.

DHEA has been touted for everything from memory loss to wrinkles. It has been so overhyped that any mention of DHEA raises suspicion in the medical community -- but then a reputable study of DHEA appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. It showed that DHEA pills really did improve sexual desire in women who lack androgen hormones. So Altay decided to offer it in a vaginal gel.

"It stands to reason that if you are able to deliver anything at the direct site where you want it to work, you're going to have a better effect than taking it orally," Altay said.

Altay's small study showed a 50 percent increase in libido compared to a placebo cream, the television station reported. Larger, more independent studies are needed to prove that it works.

Dr. David Cohen, an endocrinologist at the University of Chicago, supports hormone therapy in general, but warned that it can hide other problems.

"You still may be doing the patient a disservice by masking some other, frankly, more serious, fundamental depression or other disorder that should be addressed," he said.