Men's Health Archive

Extra fat that accumulates around the abdomen goes by many names: beer belly, spare tire, love handles, apple shape, middle-age spread, and the more technical “abdominal obesity.” No matter what the name, it is the shape of risk.

Mindfulness meditation can ease stress. It also seems to do a lot more, like help with physical and psychological problems from high blood pressure and chronic pain to anxiety and binge eating. New research shows that mindfulness meditation changes the way nerves connect.

Men have long been encouraged to have routine tests for prostate-specific antigen as a way to detect prostate cancer early. Although early detection should save lives, it doesn’t seem to work that way for slow-growing prostate cancer. The longest-running trial to date shows that PSA testing doesn’t help men live longer.

Doctors use this test to screen for prostate cancer, but it does not provide a definitive diagnosis.

Genitourinary malignancies are a worry for men. In adolescents and young adults, testicular cancer is the main concern. One of the unappreciated benefits of growing older is that cancer of the testicles becomes rare — but as men outgrow that risk, they face the problem of prostate cancer. With these well-publicized diseases to head their worry list, it's easy for men to overlook bladder cancer — but that would be a mistake. In fact, about 53,000 American men will be diagnosed with the disease this year alone, and over 10,000 will die from it.

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common internal malignancy in American men; it is also one of the 10 deadliest cancers, and it saps our strapped economy of almost $3 billion a year. But there's good news, too. Early diagnosis can nip the disease in the bud, and new treatments are improving the outlook for patients with advanced disease. And when it comes to good news, you'll also be glad to know that you can take simple steps to reduce your risk of getting bladder cancer.

A panel discussion at Harvard School of Public Health called “Boosting Vitamin D: Not Enough or Too Much?” highlights the current controversy over the once-overlooked sunshine vitamin. A panel of experts assembled by the Institute of Medicine recommends a daily dose of 600 IU per day for everyone from ages 1 to 70 and 800 IU for those over 70. Other experts think the IOM recommendation is too low. One way to get vitamin D is to spend a few minutes a day outside in the sun, but that’s a hot-button issue because sun exposure is a cause of skin cancer.

That’s a good question, because having an elevated PSA doesn’t necessarily mean that a man has prostate cancer.

Having sex (or performing any kind of physical activity) triples the risk of having a heart attack, according to a new study. But there’s more to the story. The odds of having a heart attack during sex are about 1 in one million; tripling the risk boosts it to 3 in one million. In other words, sex can cause a heart attack, but usually doesn’t. And the more a person exercises, or has sex, the lower the chances of having a heart attack during the activity.

It's no secret that overweight and obesity are big problems in the United States. At present, two-thirds of all Americans need to lose weight, and the number of overweight children and adults is growing at an alarming rate.

And it's no secret that obesity is bad for health. Excess body fat raises levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglycerides while also lowering HDL ("good") cholesterol levels. Obesity impairs the body's responsiveness to insulin, raising blood sugar and insulin levels. But obesity does more than produce bad numbers: it also leads to bad health, increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, gallstones, cancer, osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, fatty liver, and depression. All in all, obesity is a killer; in fact, obesity and lack of exercise are responsible for about 1,000 American deaths each day, and if present trends continue, they will soon overtake smoking as the leading preventable causes of death in the U.S.

The Industrial Revolution changed America forever, and the Information Era has changed it still further. More than ever before, men are working with their brains instead of their backs. It's great progress, but it does have unintended consequences, including global economic competition and unprecedented levels of stress. Another consequence is diminished physical activity. Now that most men don't need to exercise to earn their keep, many view exercise as kids' stuff, the fun and games that fill childhood — or used to in the days before video games and flat-screen TVs.

America has become a nation of spectators. That deprives men of the exercise that improves cholesterol levels, lowers blood sugar, burns away body fat, strengthens muscles and bones, improves mood and sleep, and protects against diabetes, dementia, certain cancers, and especially heart attacks and strokes.