Contraception and birth control Archive

Discomfort with intercourse happens to men, too. But most obstacles can be overcome.

To most men, an active sex life is essential. If you go by what you see in the health press, the only thing standing in your way is erectile dysfunction (ED), the inability to get and keep an erection sufficient for intercourse. The drugs approved to treat ED all work to a greater or lesser extent for most men with erectile difficulties, and there are other options if they don't.

Is brain damage an inevitable consequence of American football, an avoidable risk of it, or neither? An editorial published yesterday in the medical journal BMJ poses those provocative questions. Chad Asplund, director of sports medicine at Georgia Regents University, and Thomas Best, professor and chair of sports medicine at Ohio State University, offer an overview of the unresolved connection between playing football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a type of gradually worsening brain damage caused by repeated mild brain injuries or concussions. The big question is whether playing football causes chronic traumatic encephalopathy or whether some people who play football already at higher risk for developing it. The Football Players Health Study at Harvard University hopes to provide a solid answer to that and other health issues that affect professional football players.

Here is a table that contains the many different radiation therapy options for prostate cancer. It includes who the ideal candidates are, recovery time, possible side effects, and the advantages/disadvantages for each.

Be skeptical and get the big picture from multiple sources.

When you need to find a hospital or medical center to have non-emergency surgery or a diagnostic procedure, you often have a choice—assuming you clear it with your insurance provider. How do you figure out the best place to go?

Many men consider taking a daily low-dose aspirin to reduce the chance of having a heart attack or stroke. You should do so only if the chance of being helped outweighs the chance of triggering unwanted bleeding, since aspirin interferes with normal clotting. But about one in 10 men who take protective aspirin may not really qualify, according to a national study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Experts recommend that aspirin might be considered in someone whose chance of experiencing a cardiovascular problem is at least 6% in the next 10 years. At that tipping point, the chance of being helped is great enough to justify the risk of unwanted bleeding.

Q. There seems to be agreement that supplements are worthless in supporting good health. I've been taking a multivitamin for older women for many years. I also take a calcium supplement since I am lactose intolerant. Should I discontinue the multivitamin, the calcium, or both?

A. You are definitely right about the recent consensus that most supplements, and certainly multivitamins, provide very little, if any, benefit to our health. So yes, stop taking the multivitamin. A far more important strategy to maintain good health is eating a diet containing lots of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, unsaturated fats, and small amounts of protein. Our bodies were designed to absorb nutrients from food, and that continues to be the best way to get them in our systems.

Changes in the aging eye may alter your night vision, but a few strategies can help you take to the road with confidence.

If you're over 50, you may be wondering if you should restrict your driving to the daylight hours. You may have read that your night vision declines at this age, or you may have noticed a little difficulty seeing in dim light. You may find glare from headlights bothersome.

A woman’s use of a testosterone-based vaginal cream may have contributed to a spike in her husband’s prostate-specific antigen and testosterone levels after he had his prostate removed to fight advanced prostate cancer.

Long trips come with an increased risk of blood clots deep in the leg veins, which can have serious complications.