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Why men are so unhealthy - and what can be done
BBC ^ | April 6 | BBC

Posted on 04/06/2025 1:51:17 AM PDT by RandFan

This month the government in England will launch a consultation for its men's health strategy. The move is long overdue, experts say, with men much more likely to die prematurely than women. But why are they in such poor health – and what can be done about it?

Andrew Harrison was running a men's health clinic from a youth centre in Bradford when he heard a knock. He turned to the door, but no-one was there. Then he heard his name being called. He looked around to see a young man at the window asking for condoms.

"I was on the first floor," he says, recounting the story from a few years ago. "The lad (guy) had shimmied up a drainpipe on the outside of the building because he didn't want to go through the reception and ask."

The anecdote, in many ways, encapsulates the challenges over men's health – a combination of risk-taking behaviour and a lack of confidence and skills to engage with health services.

Early deaths

In the UK men are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs and have high cholesterol and blood pressure.

These are major contributors to the fact men have a lower life expectancy than women - by four years - and are nearly 60% more likely to die prematurely before the age of 75, with heart disease, lung cancer, liver disease and in accidents.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Health/Medicine
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To: TheWriterTX
Not putting all the blame on women, but when millions gets poured into fighting breast cancer and a fraction goes to fighting prostate cancer, it just shouts that society doesn’t care about men’s health.

There are two problems with that.

First, men spend billions a year on prostitution and strip bars. That's money that could be spent fighting prostate cancer. I would like to think that men would want to fight this dreadful disease for the sake of their sons, but their priorities seem to be elsewhere.

Second, how are men going to make a case to spend more for men's health when they're out there beating each other up or killing each other over anything or just for the fun of it? Where is the concern for men's health in that?

Saying society doesn't care about men's health covers up the fact that it's men who don't care about other men's health.

21 posted on 04/06/2025 4:48:30 AM PDT by TwelveOfTwenty (Prayers for the US and President Trump)
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To: RandFan

One example is that women don’t do wild boar hunting with knives only, which is a male sport, whether it is an inner city male or a country male, men like to test death, males love that near death experience.


22 posted on 04/06/2025 4:52:47 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: RandFan

Are we talking about the UK? It’s an Orwellian totalitarian state.


23 posted on 04/06/2025 4:55:22 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: RandFan

Being dead is better than living in the UK.


24 posted on 04/06/2025 5:10:49 AM PDT by cp124 (Bring back the Constitution.)
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To: Adder

That is one of my favorite graphics to post...:)


25 posted on 04/06/2025 5:13:35 AM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: daniel1212

I think your interpretations of those verses is a stretch.

Having an office job is not slothful. When I was a husband and dad I did not have the time to spend in the gym or running. Nor did I have the money to spend on myself on those things.
Aging includes various illnesses and yes, you will not got off this planet without experiencing death. Rather, consider the aging process as a means that God uses to change our outlook on desiring to stay on this planet to desiring to be with Him and seeing this life as temporary.
My sermon for this Sunday.


26 posted on 04/06/2025 5:25:55 AM PDT by jimfr
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To: RandFan

Predisposition to type II diabetes and insulin resistance is rampant.

Eat like a diabetic. Cut out simple carbs.
. Restrict complex carbs to vegetables. No potatoes, rice, bread... artificial and sugar sweeteners.mm

The weight will fall off and the threat is greatly diminished.

It’s a bit of sacrifice but it feels good being back in control.


27 posted on 04/06/2025 5:39:01 AM PDT by Clutch Martin ("The dawn cracks hard like a bull whip and it ain't taking no lip from the night before" Tom Waits)
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To: TheWriterTX
Not putting all the blame on women, but when millions gets poured into fighting breast cancer and a fraction goes to fighting prostate cancer, it just shouts that society doesn’t care about men’s health.

I've noticed that. For all the feminists whine, society values women. Men, not so much.

28 posted on 04/06/2025 5:40:19 AM PDT by Lee N. Field ("And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" Gal 3:29)
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To: miniTAX

Women have always lived longer than men, at all times in all societies. That’s basic biology, it’s even the reason why the birth ratio is lower for female than male babies (evolutionnary compensation for higher male mortality).


For most of humankind’s existence, lots of women died in childbirth.


29 posted on 04/06/2025 5:54:46 AM PDT by marktwain
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To: marktwain
For most of humankind’s existence, lots of women died in childbirth.

Yeah, but you'd just get yourself another woman and resume where the last one left off.

30 posted on 04/06/2025 5:57:59 AM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”)
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To: RandFan

Men know what to do to get healthy. Unfortunately women elect governments that won’t all it.


31 posted on 04/06/2025 6:04:21 AM PDT by BobL
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To: marktwain
For most of humankind’s existence, lots of women died in childbirth.

Women were responsible for childbirth for thousands of years and the infant and mother mortality rate was more than 40% for first-time mothers. When men got involved, the mortality rate dropped to a fraction of a percent in just a century. Woman had all of history and couldn't figure it out. Men figured it out for them.

32 posted on 04/06/2025 6:19:12 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: 9YearLurker; TheWriterTX; RoosterRedux; Obadiah; Semper Vigilantis; miniTAX; mad_as_he$$; ...

There is a fundamental biological divide in lifespan.

That is different from living a sedentary lifestyle, which both sexes practice.

And yes, men still have the majority of the jobs that are considered to be extremely dangerous, which does lower the average lifespan. And men do engage in dangerous activities at a greater rate than women do. And when men commit suicide, they succeed at a far, far greater rate than women do.

Men don’t engage healthcare the same way women do, just a fact of life. With health related things, we (men) are inclined to bear things until we can’t.

I work in healthcare, closely with breast health, over my career, and have been intimately involved with setting up systems to acquire and process images, other systems to monitor the status of notifying patients and following up on the exams, and setting up and implementing all the workflows to manage breast imaging in that environment. I am often the only man that enters the breast imaging area on a routine basis to troubleshoot issues, and I see the challenges of that special focus on breast imaging because I get to work closely with the women who are engaged in it. And it is, in its entirety, women. Male residents go through to learn how to read, but I have yet in all my years, seen a male resident who chose Breast Imaging as a career. And I understand that. It is so fraught with female biology and emotion that I presume most men conclude it is best to leave that in the hands of women, who as caregivers, are likely to be far more approachable than a man would be. I tend to agree with that sentiment, as I believe it is the correct one. (NOTE: This preceding paragraph does not generally relate to surgeons who may specialize in performing breast related surgeries. I have known physicians of both sexes who do that, and do it well.)

I have thought for some time that it is possible that the return on all the time and money spent on breast care is less than it should be, but it brings us up to the point of the spear in he debate in healthcare: “How much is a human life worth?” As proof of this suspicion that we aren’t getting the bang for the buck, the movement to change the recommendations on annual mammograms is an indication that I am not alone in this. If my wife were saved by early detection on a mammogram, would I consider that money ill spent?

Probably not. And, if I don’t, how can I criticize someone who does think the resources are well spent if it saves only their own mother, wife, or daughter? Well. That is a different question in any case. It covers all of healthcare, and Breast Imaging is just one aspect of it.

It is infuriating to hear some women say things like “If men had breast cancer, it would be cured immediately. The fact that there is no cure is a result of men running medicine and making choices...”

I’m serious. I have heard that with my own ears more times than I can relate. I find it extraordinarily insulting and demeaning towards men.

But I have heard people say it. If they are called on it, they say “Oh, I was only joking...” but when you hear them say it before they deny it, they are not joking.

It is as if any researcher or physician who had their mother, wife, or daughter die of this terrible cancer was too much of a chauvinist pig, and too self-centered on being male that the lives of people they love dearly could be sacrificed by not being interested enough to put money or effort into finding a cure.

The people who work in that sector of healthcare have my respect, because it is such a difficult thing to read and diagnose breast images, and is so fraught with emotion and often unjustified malpractice suits that I am mystified that any physician would enter into that field of being a breast specialist, but they do for their own reasons. And the ones I have known have done their job well. And I have known many of them.

I am retiring after 38 years in one place (a rarity, I know) I will miss many things about the work I did, and I will miss the good and dedicated people involved in delivering breast care, but I will say this: I don’t think I will miss having issues in breast imaging that need my immediate attention.

There is too much riding on it, sometimes a patient’s health, sometimes the stress level of those tasked with delivering the hands-on nuts and bolts of care and treatment, and sometimes, heartbreakingly, the professional reputation and actual career of a physician who is found culpable in a field where there is ostensible culpability in every single dark recess of the specialty, no matter how good, dedicated, and empathetic that physician may be. (NOTE: This is not to say malpractice does not occur. It does. It is just that virtually anything related to breast imaging in a court of law in front of a jury can be made out to be malpractice. And that knowledge is a special burden to bear by good people who don’t deserve that burden on top of their own honest and good principles.)

I won’t miss that stress and pressure at all, and my heart will go out to those who carry on and are exposed to that stress and pressure each and every day.


33 posted on 04/06/2025 6:22:06 AM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: rlmorel

Interesting perspective. I suspect not too many women specialize in prostate issues either.

But I also understand that in a sense the body is constantly creating little cancers and resolving them, and the heavy-handed use of prophylactic imaging has both created cancers via radiation and led into treatment many mini-cancers that would have been better resolved without intervention. I believe that is why they have backed off the super-aggressive screenings.


34 posted on 04/06/2025 6:26:10 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker

I am also intimately involved in CT Low Dose Lung Screening programs which are very similar to Breast imaging in how they are graded in the process of interpretation, and how they are followed up afterwards (with reminders to patients and physicians, etc.) to prevent something from falling through the cracks.

However, it does not carry the same emotional baggage that Breast Imaging seems to, I suppose because it involves both sexes.

As for Radiation, there is no such thing as a threshold dose of radiation. That is, a dose where if you remain under it, you are safe, and if you go over it, you get cancer.

Just going out into sunlight once and absorbing a photon can start a cancer, and other people get exposed to a lot of radiation, and don’t get cancer. The human body is quite odd in this respect, partially because radiation has had a role in human development over the eons. We wouldn’t be where we are without radiation-caused mutation, which to a degree, is a normal thing for our species.

But it is best to minimize the chances by keeping the exposures low!


35 posted on 04/06/2025 6:33:47 AM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: TheWriterTX

“men” are old enough to o schedule and attend their doctor’s appt.
Not up to a woman/wife ( maybe mommy!!!) to do this for them if they are truly grown men.


36 posted on 04/06/2025 6:34:49 AM PDT by ronniesgal ( so is it okay that I said that??? GO TRUMP GO!!!!)
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To: RoosterRedux; TheWriterTX

I was the fattest kid in the class in the 60s. First lost 50 pounds in the 9th grade. Began a 45 year battle involving yo-yo diets. Weight bounced between 160 & 190 (5’8” male). Once dieted all the way down to 120 and still had a layer of fat on my waist.

At 60, I discovered Keto. And IF. Lost 35 pounds. Over the last 5-6 years, I’ve lost a bit more while putting on muscle. At Medicare age, I cannot see my abs but it is very obvious where they are! Do pullups, pushups, run and hike. Weight 150.

My problem? For much of my life, I trusted doctors and experts and did Low Fat Diets. None of which were sustainable and none of which address what Dr Fung calls “The Two Compartment Problem” in the video below (36 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk

Someone who has been very fat for a period of years probably has eaten their hormone system out of whack. Until you fix that, you cannot get weight off and keep it off.

Plenty of men are fat because they’ve eaten wrong for years and because, when they try to lose weight, they follow the advice of government, doctors and nutritionists. Most of whom know nothing about losing weight and keeping it off!


37 posted on 04/06/2025 6:41:11 AM PDT by Mr Rogers
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To: rlmorel

As for Radiation, there is no such thing as a threshold dose of radiation. That is, a dose where if you remain under it, you are safe, and if you go over it, you get cancer.


What evidence do you have to support this? There is at least some evidence to dispute the no threshold dose concept.

There is no guarantee a person will never get cancer, as the causes are multiple.


38 posted on 04/06/2025 6:49:10 AM PDT by marktwain
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To: Mr Rogers

My cryptic Post 31 was targeting you and many others here who finally told the medical ‘experts’ to shove it and went low carb, which always means high fat, and almost always means lots of meat, particularly red meat.

The EU is in the process of banning or at greatly reducing the availability of meat (Netherlands comes to mind first), it was in AOC’s Green New Deal (we laughed then...won’t be laughing if her type gets power), and is basically in the back of the mind of EVERY Democrat (although they certainly plan to retain their access to meat). And rationing meat becomes ‘a piece of cake’ once we go to a digital currency.


39 posted on 04/06/2025 6:50:09 AM PDT by BobL
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To: RandFan

Because we can be. A life lead without any dumb #$%^ is no fun.


40 posted on 04/06/2025 6:51:32 AM PDT by discostu (like a dog being shown a card trick)
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