Men's Health Archive

Recreating the workplace dynamics helps older men strengthen their social bonding and thinking skills.

 <Image: © Highwaystarz-Photography/Thinkstock/p>

Men who retire are often happy to leave behind their work life, but one aspect they still need is the workplace's packlike male bonding. Group lunches, team projects, watercooler banter — all these help men establish social connections that keep their brains and bodies active and healthy.

"Women tend to make friends across their life span, while men acquire friends in clumps through shared experiences like sports, the military, and work," says Dr. Richard S. Schwartz, a psychiatrist with Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital. "When one source is eliminated, men tend to lose some of those friends over time and have to find other ways to connect with people and fill those missing gaps."

In the journals

Observation only may be the best medicine for men with early-stage prostate cancer, suggests a 20-year study published online July 13, 2017, by The New England Journal of Medicine. Early-stage prostate cancer means the cancer is small, confined to the prostate gland, and can only be detected with a biopsy.

Researchers randomly assigned 731 men, average age 67, with localized prostate cancer to receive either surgery or observation only. At the 20-year follow-up, 62% of the men who had prostate cancer surgery had died of other causes, while only 7% died from prostate cancer. In comparison, 67% of the men assigned to observation died from other causes and 11% from prostate cancer. The absolute differences in mortality were not significant.

On call

 Image: © Ridofranz/Thinkstock

Q. I was an active runner before my hip replacement. Is it okay to return to jogging several times a week?

A. Hip replacements help relieve pain and improve function for people with worn-out hip joints. However, replacement joints also can wear out over time and require what's called a revision surgery. Therefore, activities that may increase stress or wear on the joint are often discouraged.

On call

Q. I am 72, and over the past year I have begun to lose my sense of smell. Is this a normal part of aging?

A. Some loss of sensitivity to smells — also known as anosmia — is normal as we get older, but there may be another explanation. The ability to smell depends on a healthy lining of the nasal cavity, open nasal passageways, and normal function of the olfactory (smell) nerves. A problem with one or more of these can lead to loss of smell. The most common causes are nasal problems, like nasal polyps, blocked sinuses, and seasonal allergies. These can be detected by a routine examination, although you may need to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist for a more extensive exam.

When you live with physical pain, changing your reaction to it can help you better manage discomfort and obstacles.

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Dealing with chronic physical pain, no matter the source or severity, is a constant challenge, but sometimes the emotional pain that comes with it can be just as trying. In fact, more than half of people with pain feel they have lost control of their lives, according to the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

"In general, men tend to be less verbal about seeking help with their physical pain," says Dr. Ellen Slawsby, director of pain management at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital.

A certain amount of healthy fat is good for your heart.

Low-fat, no-fat, fat-free. Fat has been shamed for so long, it's easy to think there's no place for it in a heart-healthy diet. But the opposite is true. "It's a myth that lowering fat intake is healthy," says Dr. Frank Sacks, professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "The key is to use more healthful unsaturated fats and less of the detrimental saturated fats."

The good and the bad

To understand the role of fat in heart health, you first have to look at where it's found in food. There are two types of fat: saturated and unsaturated.

In the journals

The erectile dysfunction drugs collectively known as phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors, such as sildenafil (Viagra), may not cause melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, according to a study published online May 19, 2017, by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

In 2016, the FDA put PDE5 inhibitors on its watch list of medications with possible safety issues after some studies suggested they might increase the risk for melanoma. In response to the FDA's action, researchers analyzed data from five large-scale studies of the issue, involving 866,049 men, published between 2014 and 2016.

The results of two studies found that using the drug abiraterone in combination with other hormonal therapy drugs to treat aggressive prostate cancer produced more favorable results than the first-line therapy alone.