Gender: Male
Soy-based foods may lower sperm count: study
Eating a half serving a day of soy-based foods could be enough to significantly lower a man’s sperm count, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
The study is the largest in humans to look at the relationship between semen quality and a plant form of the female sex hormone estrogen known as phytoestrogen, which is plentiful in soy-rich foods.
“What we found was men that consume the highest amounts of soy foods in this study had a lower sperm concentration compared to those who did not consume soy foods,” said Dr. Jorge Chavarro of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, whose study appears in the journal Human Reproduction.
Exercise cuts cancer death in men
Men who exercise often are less likely to die from cancer than those who don’t exercise, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet. In the study, the researchers looked at the effect of physical activity and cancer risk in 40,708 men aged between 45 and 79.
Over the seven year period of the study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, 3,714 men developed cancer and 1,153 died from the disease. Men who walked or cycled for at least 30 minutes a day had an increased survival from cancer with 33 per cent, than the men who exercised less or did nothing at all. The researchers also found that a more extensive programme of walking and cycling for between 60 and 90 minutes and a day, led to a l6 per cent lower incidence of cancer. But these activities only led to a five per cent reduction in cancer rates among the men who walked or cycled for 30 minutes day, a finding which could be due to chance.
The researchers surveyed men from two counties in central Sweden about their lifestyle and the amount of physical activity they did. They then scored these responses and compared the results with data officially recorded in a central cancer registry over a seven year period.
Many Men With Low Testosterone Levels Do Not Receive Treatment
The majority of men with androgen deficiency may not be receiving treatment despite having sufficient access to care, according to a report in the May 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Androgen deficiency in men means the body has lower than normal amounts of male hormones, including testosterone, according to background information in the article. Although prescriptions for testosterone therapy for aging men have increased in recent years, treatment patterns for androgen deficiency are not clearly understood in community-dwelling U.S. males.
Susan A. Hall, Ph.D., of New England Research Institutes, Watertown, Mass., and colleagues examined data collected from 1,486 Boston-area men (average age 46.4) from April 2002 to June 2005 to estimate the number of men receiving treatment for androgen deficiency, to explain how treated and untreated men varied in seeking care and to understand potential barriers to health care. Specific symptoms of androgen deficiency include low libido, erectile dysfunction and osteoporosis and less-specific symptoms include sleep disturbance, depressed mood and tiredness.
Overweight Men at Risk of Osteoarthritis of Both Hip and Knee
Men who are overweight or obese are much more likely need a hip replacement for osteoarthritis than men who are of normal weight, finds research published online ahead of print in Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.
People who are overweight are known to be more likely to get osteoarthritis of the knee, but this is the first study to show that being overweight is a risk factor for hip osteoarthritis in men but not women.
Researchers compared the body mass indexes of 1,473 Icelandic people who had undergone hip or knee replacement with those of 1,103 people who had not had joint replacement surgery. All were born between 1910 and 1939.
Aging Men Can Reduce Health Risks Through Physical Activity
Our results suggest that moderate to vigorous physical activity may reduce the risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) or lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) by as much as 25% relative to a sedentary lifestyle. Although the strength of the association appears to be greater with higher levels of activity, there was a non-significant trend toward a protective effect with even light physical activity. Adjustment for multiple confounders in the studies included in this analysis underscores the independence of the protective effect of physical activity on the BPH/LUTS complex.
The notion that physical activity and other modifiable lifestyle factors may alter the risks and severity of BPH and LUTS challenges traditional etiological paradigms and intimates the need for the development of new pathogenic models for the BPH/LUTS disease complex. The assumption that BPH and LUTS are relatively immutable consequences of aging—driven by a combination of genetic predisposition, androgens, and estrogens—underpins prior models. While genotype and hormones are important components, the relationship of physical activity with BPH/LUTS demands consideration of additional modulators of these processes.
It is possible that physical activity influences prostate growth pathways through alterations in hormone levels. However, we believe a more likely explanation is that physical activity exerts beneficial effects through improved cardiovascular health.
Men Seeking Vasectomy Reversals Can Expect High Rates of Success
This retrospective study compared postoperative semen analysis parameters and patency rates of vasovasostomy performed in the convoluted versus straight portion of the vas deferens. This study was undertaken to assess whether or not the perceived increased technical difficulty that may be encountered resulted in a change in success rates.
Patient age, partner age, obstructive interval, gross and microscopic appearance of the intraoperative fluid aspirated from the testicular portion of the vas deferens, and postoperative semen analysis results were examined. Patency was defined as any sperm in the postoperative ejaculate and was compared for the 2 groups.
There were no significant differences in the postoperative semen analysis parameters of volume, total count, sperm density, motility or total motile count between the 2 groups. The patency rate was 98.1% and 97.3% for convoluted vasovasostomy and straight vasovasostomy, respectively, and was not statistically different.
Prostatitis May Effect Up To One-half of All Males During Their Lifetimes
Estimates on the number of males in the United States who will experience prostatitis during their lifetimes range up to 50 percent. Many urologic disease experts feel that from 5 to 10 percent of males are experiencing prostatitis at a particular time, making it one of the most common urologic diseases in the U.S.
Prostatitis is an infection or inflammation of the prostate gland that causes intense pain, urinary complications, sexual dysfunction, infertility, and a significant reduction in the quality of life Prior to the mid-1990s, very little research had occurred that could lead to improved diagnostic techniques and a cure.
Prostatitis is difficult to diagnose and treat, and has a wide range of debilitating and troublesome side affects. Unlike prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), prostatitis often affects the lives of young and middle-aged men.
Testosterone patch has benefits in aging men: study
Treatment with testosterone can help curb the gain in abdominal fat as well as the loss of skeletal muscle seen in non-obese aging men, according to a new study.
“Though use of testosterone therapy as a means of defying the aging process is gaining popularity, data from scientific trials have been very limited in this area,” study chief Dr. Carolyn Allan, from Prince Henry’s Institute in Victoria, Australia, said in a statement.
Low testosterone in men linked to earlier death
Older men with low levels of the hormone testosterone may die sooner than other men their age with normal testosterone levels, a study suggests.
Researchers found that among 794 generally healthy older men, those with the lowest testosterone levels were 40 percent more likely to die within the 1985-2004 study period.
Pain meds may worsen symptoms of enlarged prostate
Common painkillers like ibuprofen and naproxen may act as a double-edged sword when it comes to men’s prostate function, according to a report in the Harvard Men’s Health Watch.
Recent evidence suggests that drugs such as these, called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), may lower the risk of developing an enlarged prostate and worsen urinary symptoms in men who already have the condition.
Young women less attentive to heart risks than men
Young women with a family history of heart disease may be less careful about following a healthy lifestyle than their male counterparts, a study has found.
It’s well known that people with a parent or sibling who suffered a heart attack at a relatively young age are themselves at higher-than-average risk, so it is especially important for them to maintain a heart-healthy lifestyle—which includes exercising, eating a balanced diet and not smoking.
Migraine linked to heart attacks in men
Men with migraine headaches are more likely than non-migraineurs to experience a heart attack, according to data from the Physicians’ Health Study.
The Physicians’ Health Study is a large study that enrolled men ages 40 to 84 years between 1981 and 1984. The subjects, who had no history of heart disease, cancer or other major illnesses at enrollment, complete questionnaires annually regarding health issues.
Male Breast Cancer: Racial Disparities in Treatment and Survival
A new study shows that among men treated for breast cancer, African-American men are more likely to die of the disease compared with white men. Results of the study are published in the March 20, 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).
The studies by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center analyzed race and other predictors of treatment and survival among 510 men over 65 diagnosed with stage I-III breast cancer between 1991 and 2002. The researchers found five-year survival rates of approximately 90% among 456 white men and 66% among 34 African-American men.
Older Adults May be Unreliable Eyewitness, Study Shows
A University of Virginia study suggests that older adults are not only more inclined than younger adults to make errors in recollecting details that have been suggested to them, but are also more likely than younger people to have a very high level of confidence in their recollections, even when wrong. The finding has implications regarding the reliability of older persons’ eyewitness testimonies in courtrooms.
The study, “I misremember it well: Why older adults are unreliable eyewitnesses,” is published in a recent issue of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
Vasectomy may put men at risk for type of dementia
Northwestern University researchers have discovered men with an unusual form of dementia have a higher rate of vasectomy than men the same age who are cognitively normal.
The dementia is Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurological disease in which people have trouble recalling and understanding words. In PPA, people lose the ability to express themselves and understand speech. It differs from typical Alzheimer’s disease in which a person’s memory becomes impaired.
