Men's Health Archive

Q. I am a 64-year-old man. Aside from diabetes, I've been healthy and until now, the only prescription I've taken is insulin. But I've been having trouble with erections, and my doctor just gave me a prescription for Viagra. He also told me to be careful about using other drugs with Viagra but didn't give me a list. Can you please fill me in?

A. Viagra (sildenafil) is one of three widely used medications for erectile dysfunction; the others are Levitra (vardenafil) and Cialis (tadalafil). Although you'd never know it from their advertisements, the three medications are closely related and have similar — and very favorable — track records for effectiveness and safety. They also have similar drug interactions and require similar precautions.

A new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that saw palmetto, a fruit extract commonly taken to treat urinary tract symptoms caused by an enlarged prostate (technically termed benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH), is no more effective in relieving symptoms than placebo, even at high doses. The federally funded study […]

It isn’t easy to get rid of a harmful habit like drinking too much, or to make healthy changes like losing weight and exercising more. Media stories often sugar-coat changes like these, making them seem easier than they really are. In a moving essay in the American Journal of Health Promotion, Michael P. O’Donnell (the journal’s editor) describes his dad’s efforts to become healthier for his sake and the sake of his family. There was no monumental struggle, no epiphany—just a regular guy doing his best each day to become healthier for his sake and for his family. It’s a truly inspiring story.

No part of the human body is immune to the effects of aging. Many men face the double whammy of smaller erections and larger prostates as the clock ticks on. Although both erectile dysfunction (ED) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) become much more common as men age, they are very different problems with separate causes, unique symptoms, and unrelated consequences. Until now, treatments for the two conditions have also been different; in fact, medical and surgical therapies for BPH can sometimes even cause ED. But research suggests that the most popular and effective drugs for ED may substantially reduce the symptoms of BPH.

BPH: A primer

The prostate is a walnut-shaped gland at the base of the bladder. As part of the reproductive system, its job is to produce fluid for semen. But when things go wrong, the gland causes problems with urination, not sex. That's because the urethra, the tube that carries urine out from the bladder, runs right through the prostate.

How healthy are you, and how does your life expectancy stack up against the average? To answer these questions, your doctor will ask about your smoking, drinking, diet, and exercise. He'll measure your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight or waist size. And he may ask if you're happy or stressed and if you sleep well.

These facts and numbers do count; men who rate well in midlife stay healthier and live longer than gents who score poorly. Still, scientists are always looking for additional measurements that predict survival. And research from Denmark proposes an unlikely candidate: semen quality.

Most medications have potentially harmful side effects, such as stomach upset with aspirin. A team from Johns Hopkins and Harvard universities found what looks to be a beneficial side effect for digoxin — lowered risk of prostate cancer. Digoxin, which was originally extracted from the foxglove plant, has been used for decades to treat heart failure and some heart rhythm problems.

Using an automated system, the researchers tested the ability of nearly 3,200 compounds to halt the growth of prostate cancer cells. Digoxin was one of the top five. As a real-world check, the researchers looked at nearly 48,000 men in the ongoing Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Those who had routinely taken digoxin were 24% less likely to have developed prostate cancer over the 20-year period of the study (Cancer Discovery, published online April 3, 2011).

Long before scientists learned to manufacture synthetic medications, folk healers relied on natural compounds derived from plants. Even today, herbal compounds are heavily promoted as "dietary supplements" and are widely used in various forms of alternative, or complementary, medicine. Although scientific studies that demonstrate benefit for plant-based supplements are few and far between, some compounds have become the building blocks of important mainstream medications. One example is acetylsalicylic acid, better known as aspirin; it's a synthetic chemical patterned after the salicylates in the extract of willow bark used by Hippocrates to treat pain and fever, some 2,400 years ago. Other examples include the malaria drug quinine, derived from cinchona bark, and the cancer drug paclitaxel (Taxol), which comes from the Pacific yew tree.

Cannabis sativa is another plant that has found medicinal and ceremonial uses in many parts of the world since ancient times. Think of it by its common name, marijuana, and you'll recognize it as a highly controversial plant indeed. On the one hand, its mind-altering properties have made it an extremely popular drug of abuse. At the same time, advocates of medicinal marijuana tout its ability to relieve pain, combat chemotherapy-induced nausea, and treat glaucoma, among other things.

Potato chips and potatoes (baked, boiled, and fried) were the foods most responsible for weight gained gradually over four-year periods among 120,000 healthy women and men in long-term studies. Other key contributors included sugar-sweetened beverages and red and processed meats. On the flip side, yogurt, nuts, whole grains, and fruits and vegetables were linked to weight loss or maintenance. Potatoes may be a “perfect food” for lean people who exercise a lot or who do regular manual labor. But for the rest of us, it might be safer for the waistline to view potatoes as a starch—and a fattening one at that—not as a vegetable.

The findings were presented at the American Urological Association annual meeting in May 2011.

At some time in his life, nearly every man gets exercised about sex. And as many men get older, they wonder if sex is a good form of exercise or if it's too strenuous for the heart. These questions may sound like locker room banter, but they are actually quite important — and they have solid scientific answers.

Treadmill vs. mattress

To evaluate the cardiovascular effects of sexual activity, researchers monitored volunteers while they walked on a treadmill in the lab and during private sexual activity at home. In addition to 13 women, the volunteers included 19 men with an average age of 55. About three-quarters of the men were married, and nearly 70% had some form of cardiovascular disease; 53% were taking beta blockers. Despite their cardiac histories, the men reported exercising about four times a week, and they reported having sexual activity about six times a month on average.