Men’s Health

A man dies of prostate cancer every 17 minutes!

If you are a man and are least interested in going to the doctor for those little ailments you have, its time you took notice. According to experts areas like cancer, heart disease and other lifestyle related diseases affect men two times more than women. This disparity is also seen in the national health programmes that focus mostly on communicable diseases and on children and women. ‘Men’s Health remains neglected and is not a focus of any national programme as most of them focus on mostly on communicable diseases, child and woman health’, say doctors. ‘The average life span of man is five years shorter than that of a woman in India,’ said Dr Rajeev Sood, head of department of Urology in RML Hospital,

He said cancer, stone disease (like kidney stones etc.) as well as those of heart and life style grip men 2-4 times more than women. To address the issue and discuss health programmes that can be framed for them on a national scale, the Urological Society of India is all set to host the 47th annual conference here from tomorrow.

‘Studies have shown that the incidences of prostate cancer are growing by one per cent every year. A new case occurs every 2.5 minutes and a man dies from prostate cancer every 17 minutes. ‘It has become the second most frequently diagnosed cancer after lung cancer. Of the 7.6 million deaths due to cancer worldwide, one-sixth are caused by prostate cancer,’ said Sood who is organising secretary of USICON 2014. Could you be at risk of suffering from the disease?

The conference aims at enhancing the skills of urologists in the performance of advanced urologic endoscopic surgery. The five-day conference will be attended by over 3000 urologists across India, SAARC countries, US, Europe (UK, France, Germany, Spain) and Australia.

India has a population of over 1.3 billion, but only a handful of Urologists to cater to urological problems. It will also address numerous important issues of national concern like organ donation and urinary genital cancers among others.

The conference will begin with the pre-conference live workshop which will feature robotic and laparoscopic surgeries in 3D. The focus will be the technological advances like Fusion Biopsy and Photodynamic therapy for focal ablation of prostate cancer and pharmacological advances in terms of newer molecules that can be disease altering. Recently scientists also discovered a way to assess the risk of prostate cancer recurring.

Here are some facts about the disease:

One new case of prostate cancer occurs every 2.5 minutes, and a man dies from prostate cancer every 17 minutes.

A non-smoking man is more likely to get prostate cancer than lung, bronchus, colon, rectal, bladder, lymphoma, melanoma, oral and kidney cancers combined.
Because prostate cancer is a relatively slow-growing cancer, the 5-year survival rate for prostate cancer survivours – at all stages – is 98%. The relative 10-year survival rate is 84% and the 15-year survival rate is 56%.

In the West, where a number of celebrities and high profile people have spoken publicly about the disease, awareness has steadily risen. Hollywood stalwarts Robert De Niro andMichael Douglas have undergone treatment for prostate cancer, so have South Africa’s iconic former President Nelson Mandela and former US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Age, genetic predispositions and diet all seem to have a direct correlation with the risk of prostate cancer. Some studies have also indicated that men with sexually transmitted diseases too, have a higher chance of getting afflicted with prostate cancer.

Of the 7.6 million deaths due to cancer worldwide, one-sixth are caused by prostate cancer which is also today the second most frequently diagnosed cancer type after lung cancer.

In India the awareness about the disease still remains low.
Wondering how you can prevent it? Here are some essential dos and don’ts to help you keep prostate cancer at bay:

Do’s

Exercise: Regular exercise and a constant weight go a long way in fighting diseases, especially prostate cancer. All you need is a brisk walk every day, find out how.
Eat healthy: Include cereals, fish, green leafy vegetables, and green tea into your diet. They help fight the ill effects of anti oxidants and prevent the onset of the disease.

Don’ts

Ignore the symptoms: The signs of prostate cancer are very easy to overlook. Don’t ignore the symptoms. Get then checked as soon as you notice anything amiss. An early diagnosis is the best way to successful treatment.

Eat fatty foods: Avoid red meat (as it contains a lot of fat that can lead to prostate cancer) and sugary and starch rich foods (both these components lead to inflammation and can speed up the process of formation of the cancer). Read about the top 5 ways to prevent the onset of prostate cancer.

Source: health India

Impulsive people more likely to binge eat, study finds

Impulsive behaviour, which is linked to alcohol and drug addiction, could also lead to food addiction, psychologists say

Impulsive people are more likely to be binge eaters, warns a new study.
Researchers have found the same kinds of impulsive behaviour that lead some people to abuse alcohol and other drugs may also be an important contributor to an unhealthy relationship with food.

They discovered that people with impulsive personalities were more likely to report higher levels of food addiction – a compulsive pattern of eating that is similar to drug addiction – and this in turn was associated with obesity.

Principla investigator Doctor James MacKillop, associate professor of psychology at the University of Georgia in the US, said: “The notion of food addiction is a very new one, and one that has generated a lot of interest.

“My lab generally studies alcohol, nicotine and other forms of drug addiction, but we think it’s possible to think about impulsivity, food addiction and obesity using some of the same techniques.”

Dr MacKillop and his colleagues hope that their research will ultimately help physicians and other experts plan treatments and interventions for obese people who have developed an addiction to food, paving the way for a healthier lifestyle.

The study, published in the journal Appetite, used two different scales, the Yale Food Addiction Scale and the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale, to determine levels of food addiction and impulsivity among the 233 participants. Researchers then compared these results with each participant’s body mass index, which is used to determine obesity.

Dr MacKillop said: “Our study shows that impulsive behaviour was not necessarily associated with obesity, but impulsive behaviours can lead to food addiction.”

However, he said just because someone exhibits impulsive behaviour does not mean they will become obese, but an increase in certain impulsive behaviours is linked to food addiction, which appeared to be the driving force behind higher body mass index (BMI).

The results are among the first forays into the study of addictive eating habits and how they contribute to obesity.

Dr MacKillop’s team now plans to expand their research by analysing the brain activity of people as they make decisions about food.

He said the food industry has created a wide array of eating options, and foods that are high in fat, sodium, sugar and other additives and appear to produce cravings much like illicit drugs. Now his team will work to see how those intense cravings might play a role in the development of obesity.

He added: “Modern neuroscience has helped us understand how substances like drugs and alcohol co-opt areas of the brain that evolved to release dopamine and create a sense of happiness or satisfaction.

“And now we realize that certain types of food also hijack these brain circuits and lay the foundation for compulsive eating habits that are similar to drug addiction.”

Source: telegraph

Marriage at 25 or older good for men’s bones

Researchers at UCLA have suggested that marriage is good for the health of men’s bones, but only if they marry when they’re 25 or older.

In a new study, researchers found evidence that men who married when they were younger than 25 had lower bone strength than men who married for the first time at a later age.

In addition, men in stable marriages or marriage-like relationships who had never previously divorced or separated had greater bone strength than men whose previous marriages had fractured, the researchers said. And those in stable relationships also had stronger bones than men who never married.

Although for women there were no similar links between bone health and being married or in a marriage-like relationship, the study authors did find evidence that women with supportive partners had greater bone strength than those whose partners didn’t appreciate them, understand how they felt or were emotionally unsupportive in other ways.

This is the first time that marital histories and marital quality have been linked to bone health, the study’s senior author, Dr. Carolyn Crandall, a professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said.

“There is very little known about the influence of social factors – other than socioeconomic factors – on bone health,” Crandall said.

“Good health depends not only on good health behaviors, such as maintaining a healthy diet and not smoking, but also on other social aspects of life, such as marital life stories and quality of relationships,” she said.

The associations between marriage and bone health were evident in the spine but not the hip, possibly due to differences in bone composition, the researchers said.

The data suggested several significant correlations between marriage and bone health – but only for men.

The study authors found that men in long-term stable marriages or marriage-like relationships had higher bone density in the spine than every other male group, including men currently married who had previously been divorced or separated, men not currently in a relationship and men who had never been married.

Among men who first married prior to turning 25, the researchers found a significant reduction in spine bone strength for each year they were married before that age.

For instance, the authors said, those who marry young are likely to be less educated, leading to lower pay and more difficulty in making ends meet.

The study is published online in the peer-reviewed journal Osteoporosis International.

Source: zee news

Blame your genes for your beer bellies

A team of researchers has identified five new genes associated with increased waist-to-hip ratio, potentially moving a step closer to developing a medication to treat obesity or obesity-related diseases.

A person’s measure of belly fat is reflected in the ratio of waist circumference to hip circumference, and it is estimated that genetics account for about 30-60 percent of waist-to-hip ratio (WHR).

The team led by Kira Taylor from University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences conducted an analysis of more than 57,000 people of European descent, and searched for genes that increase risk of high waist-to-hip ratio, independent of overall obesity.

They investigated over 50,000 genetic variants in 2,000 genes thought to be involved in cardiovascular or metabolic traits.

Their analysis identified three new genes associated with increased WHR in both men and women, and discovered two new genes that appear to affect WHR in women only.

Of the latter, one gene, SHC1, appears to interact with 17 other proteins known to have involvement in obesity, and is highly expressed in fat tissue. In addition, the genetic variant the team discovered in SHC1 is linked to another variant that causes an amino acid change in the protein, possibly changing the function or expression of the protein.

The study was published in journal Human Molecular Genetics.

Source: DNA India

Brisk walk can help beat prostate cancer

Exercise may improve the prognosis of prostate cancer patients by affecting blood vessels in their tumours, a study suggests.

Researchers found that men who walked at a fast pace before being diagnosed with the disease had tumours containing larger and more regularly shaped blood vessels.

Better formed tumour blood vessels may in turn inhibit cancer aggressiveness and promote better responses to treatments, the scientists believe.

Physically active men with prostate cancer have a lower risk of recurrence and death from the disease than those living sedentary lives, but until now the reason has remained a mystery.

The new study looked at 572 prostate cancer patients taking part in a US lifestyle and health investigation called the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

Men with the fastest walking pace – between 3.3 and five miles per hour – prior to diagnosis had 8 per cent more regularly shaped tumour blood vessels than the slowest walkers who ambled at 1.5 to 2.5 mph.

“Prior research has shown that men with prostate tumours containing more regularly shaped blood vessels have a more favourable prognosis compared with men with prostate tumours containing mostly irregularly shaped blood vessels,” said lead scientist Dr Erin Van Blarigan, from the University of California at San Francisco.

“In this study, we found that men who reported walking at a brisk pace had more regularly shaped blood vessels in their prostate tumors compared with men who reported walking at a less brisk pace.

“Our findings suggest a possible mechanism by which exercise may improve outcomes in men with prostate cancer. Although data from randomised, controlled trials are needed before we can conclude that exercise causes a change in vessel regularity or clinical outcomes in men with prostate cancer, our study supports the growing evidence of the benefits of exercise, such as brisk walking, for men with prostate cancer.”

Dr Matthew Hobbs, deputy director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “Although this research provides a plausible explanation of how exercise might improve outcomes for men with prostate cancer, much more research is needed to confirm the impact of lifestyle factors on men’s recovery.

“We hope that further research in this area may one day give us a way to improve the prognosis for the 40,000 men in the UK who are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year.”

Meanwhile a separate study suggest a good night’s sleep may also held the condition. Scientists have linked higher levels of the night-time hormone melatonin with a 75 per cent reduced risk of advanced disease.

Melatonin is produced in the dark at night. It plays a key role in regulating the body’s sleeping cycle and influences many other functions associated with the body’s 24-hour clock, or circadian rhythm.

Low levels of the hormone are typically associated with disrupted sleep.

Scientists studied 928 Icelandic men who were questioned about their sleep patterns.

Source: the Scotsman

Men burn brown fat for energy only when they’re chilled

Men burn brown fat for energy only when they’re chilled, researchers have found.

Scientists and drug companies are interested in finding way to increase the amount of brown adipose tissue, also called brown fat, in adults in the hopes of fighting obesity.

They knew that rodents and newborn babies burn calories from brown fat to keep warm. Animals and newborns don’t shiver.

Adults are now known to also carry brown fat, but a big question for obesity researchers was whether that fat actually burns energy.

Scientists in Quebec designed an experiment to find out.

André Carpentier at Sherbrooke University and Denis Richard at Laval University in Quebec City studied six healthy men aged 23 to 42 who wore a water-cooled suit. The experimental set-up was meant to minimize shivering.

When the investigators exposed the men to a radioactive chemical, they found the radioactivity disappeared from the brown fat in just minutes, but the radioactivity wasn’t metabolized in the warm subjects.

Based on the radioactivity findings, the researchers concluded all of the men showed cold-induced activation of brown fat metabolism.
“However, it remains to be demonstrated whether chronic and frequent bouts of cold exposure may contribute to increase [brown fat metabolism] and/or activity and may be a viable adjunct therapeutic strategy to other lifestyle interventions to prevent or treat obesity and its metabolic complications,” they concluded in Tuesday’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

In a journal commentary published with the study, Barbara Cannon and Jan Nedergaard at Stockholm University in Sweden said that increasing the amount of brown fat a person has is unlikely to make him or her slimmer. Instead, what’s needed is a way to make that brown fat actively burn calories.

“What we have to wish for is not only more brown adipose tissue in adult humans — but that it would actually be ‘on fire’ when we eat,” the commentators said.

The researchers acknowledged drawbacks of the study. For example, they were unable to tell whether brown fat was metabolically active during cold conditions in other internal organs such as the heart because of the limited view of the PET/CT scanner.

The scientists took body mass index and diabetes into account, but they said the wide differences in brown fat metabolism they observed suggests that other unknown factors could be important, too.

The study was funded by the Canadian Diabetes Association.

Source: Cbc health

Football ‘can tackle male obesity’

Football participation is a good way to get men to slim down, a Scottish study published in The Lancet shows.

Some 374 overweight soccer fans were invited to take part in a 12-week program of training sessions at their local football club.

A year later, the men had lost and kept off about 11lb (5kg) each compared with 374 overweight fans put on a waiting list for the programme.

The Glasgow researchers say it proves male-friendly weight loss plans work.

All 748 men in the study were offered healthy-eating advice and tips on weight management, but only half were invited to professional football clubs for weekly training sessions.

Thirteen clubs took part: Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee United, Dunfermline Athletic, Hamilton Academical, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Rangers, St Johnstone and St Mirren.

As well as losing weight when they were on the 12-week programme, nearly 40% of men who participated in the programme maintained a weight loss of at least 5% of their original body weight 12 months later.

Co-author Prof Kate Hunt, from Glasgow University, said: “Weight management and dieting are often wrongly viewed as women’s issues, meaning that some men do not want to take part in existing weight management programmes.”

But given the right circumstances, men are also keen to slim, she says.

“Participants really enjoyed being with other men like them, with a shared interest in football and similar health issues to address. They loved having the opportunity to spend time at the club, using parts of the stadium that they couldn’t ordinarily access.

“And they appreciated the chance to be encouraged, trained, and informed by the club’s coaches. This model has real potential for the future.”

Source: BBC news

Heavy drinking in middle age may speed men’s mental decline

Middle-aged men who drink heavily show declines in memory, attention and reasoning skills up to six years sooner than those drinking less alcohol, new research suggests.

European scientists found that men drinking 2.5 or more alcoholic beverages daily at midlife were more likely to experience more rapid mental losses over the next decade than light or moderate drinkers.

Heavy drinking’s effects on women could not be accurately assessed because far fewer middle-aged females participated in the research, the study authors said.

“Heavy alcohol consumption is known to be detrimental for health, so the results were not surprising . . . they just add that [it’s] also detrimental for the brain and the effects can be observed as [early] as 55 years old,” said study author Severine Sabia. “There is no need to be an alcoholic to see a detrimental effect of heavy alcohol consumption on cognition [thinking skills].”

Sabia is a research associate in the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London. The study was published online Jan. 15 in the journal Neurology.

Scant research has examined the impact of alcohol consumption on brain aging before old age, according to study documents. The new study, however, included data from more than 5,000 men and 2,000 women at midlife.

Participants’ alcohol consumption was assessed three times in the 10 years before the first of three tests of memory and executive function, which deals with attention and reasoning skills needed in achieving goals. The first test was taken when participants were an average age of 56.

No differences were found in memory and executive function decline between men who didn’t drink alcohol and those who were light or moderate drinkers, consuming up to two servings of beer, wine or liquor each day. Heavy drinkers exhibited mental declines between 1.5 and 6 years faster than those drinking less.

Although the study found an association between heavy drinking in men and earlier decline in mental function, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

“We have lots of clinical experience to suggest that heavy drinking can have adverse effects on cognition. But what was new about this study, at least in men, was that it didn’t seem that light or moderate drinking” was more harmful than not drinking alcohol at all, said Dr. Marc Gordon, chief of neurology at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y., who was not involved in the research.

“A relative strength of this study was that it looked at drinking at much younger ages than waiting until participants were elderly,” added Gordon, also an Alzheimer’s disease researcher at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y. “And nothing in this study [contradicts the idea] that having one drink a day is OK.”

Sabia agreed, saying the results echo previous studies and suggest that moderate alcohol consumption is not likely to harm people’s memory and executive function.

Source: web md

 

Sperm robots on way to deliver babies

Apart from their natural act, sperms are set to be used as biological motors for transporting drugs, genes and other sperms to help treat infertility and other issues.

Called spermbots – sperms turned into micro-robots – they could be controlled from outside a patient’s body to deliver drugs, and even sperm itself, to parts of the body where it is needed, says a path-breaking research.

Researchers at Dresden Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Germany are looking for a way to propel micro-robots through bodily fluids safely.

“We thought of using a powerful biological motor to do the job instead and we came up with the flagella of a sperm cell, which is physiologically less problematic,” professor Oliver G Schmidt, director of the institute, was quoted as saying in Gizmag.com that covers new and emerging technologies.

To create these tiny robots, scientists designed microtubes, which are thin sheets of titanium and iron rolled into conical tubes and having a magnetic property.

They put the microtubes into a solution in a Petri dish and added bovine sperm cells, which are similar size to human sperm, said the report.

When a live sperm entered the wider end of the tube, it became trapped near the narrow end.

The scientists also closed the wider end, so the sperm wouldn’t swim out.

The trapped cell pushed against the tube, moving it forward.

Then, the scientists used a magnetic field to guide the tube in the direction they wanted it to go, relying on the sperm for the propulsion, the report said.

Source: Times of India

Low Vitamin B-12 Levels Tied to Bone Fractures in Older Men

Older men with low levels of vitamin B-12 are at increased risk for bone fractures, a new study suggests.

Researchers measured the levels of vitamin B-12 in 1,000 Swedish men with an average age of 75. They found that participants with low levels of the vitamin were more likely than those with normal levels to have suffered a fracture.

Men in the group with the lowest B-12 levels were about 70 percent more likely to have suffered a fracture than others in the study. This increased risk was primarily due to fractures in the lumbar spine, where there was an up to 120 percent greater chance of fractures.

“The higher risk also remains when we take other risk factors for fractures into consideration, such as age, smoking, [weight], bone-mineral density, previous fractures, physical activity, the vitamin D content in the blood and calcium intake,” study author Catharina Lewerin, a researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, said in a university news release.

It is not known, however, if consuming more vitamin B-12 — which is found in eggs, fish, poultry and other meats — can reduce the risk of fractures in older men.

“Right now, there is no reason to eat more vitamin B-12, but rather treatment shall only be applied in confirmed cases of deficiencies and in some cases to prevent deficiencies,” Lewerin said. “For anyone who wants to strengthen their bones and prevent fractures, physical activity 30 minutes a day and quitting smoking is good self care.”

Although the study tied lower vitamin B-12 levels to a higher risk of fracture in older men, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

This study — published online in the journal Osteoporosis International — is a part of an international research project initiated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health that includes 11,000 men.

Source: Health