Monday, November 26, 2007
Top 12 Most Frequent Issues That Kill Men
Race also counts: in the US, Blacks are more likely to die in an altercation or of HIV, Latinos in accidents, Native Americans of cirrhosis and other liver issues, while Whites are more prone to Alzheimer’s disease, while the Mongoloids to various forms of cancer.
These are the top factors causing men’s death:
1. Heart issues are the main cause of death both in men (28%) and women. But men are more predisposed to hearth failure than women are due to testosterone. They develop these diseases earlier, and 25 % of the victims are aged 35 to 65.
Hearth health is affected by high cholesterol, smoking, alcohol, overweight, hypertension, diabetes but also heredity.
Only minor consume of red wine is recommended. Saturated fats (sausages, pork, diary products) must be replaced by vegetables, greens, fish and some red meat. Light exercising like walking rapidly for one hour daily strengthens the hearth. If allowed, take your daily aspirin.
2. Cancer kills 24% of the men. The most frequent is lung cancer, in 90 % of the cases caused by smoking, but it also can be hereditary or determined by the contact with toxic compounds at work. Combined with alcohol, smoking causes larynx cancer. In one year after quitting smoking, the risk of cancer decreases significantly. The second most deadly cancer in men is colon cancer.
90 % of liver cancers are due to drinking and infection with hepatitis virus C. 10 % are determined by infection with hepatitis virus B or hereditary metabolic conditions. Intensive pills intake, risky sexual behavior and hereditary factors also count.
There is also the autoimmune chronic hepatitis and non ethylic steatohepatitis, which produce lesions similar to the alcohol-produced ones in abstinent persons, due to the mixture of obesity, diabetes and fat alterations in the plasm, linked to the hyper-caloric diets and sedentary life.
Moderate alcohol consume and the vaccine against hepatitis virus B always help.
Prostate cancer is not linked to diseases, lifestyles, or alimentation, but to age and heredity. 80% of the eighty-year-old men have prostate cancer, even if they die of other condition. A small percentage of this cancer is deadly, but it can severely impair one’s life. If there are cases in the family, prostate cancer checks must be made after 50, when the tumor can be detected in initial stages and cured completely.
Penis cancer, almost inexistent, is determined by lack of hygiene and sexual promiscuity. Bladder cancer is triggered by smoking or contact with anilines (colorants) and petroleum.
By avoiding overexposure to sunlight, skin cancer can be avoided.
3. Accidents kill 5,9% of the men. The most frequent are the car crashes that kill twice more men than women, as men tend not to use the safety belts, are more prone to speeding and many times drive drunk, or fall asleep at the wheel.
4. Strokes count for 5.1 % of the male deaths. They are linked to heredity, hypertension, diabetes, fat metabolism diseases and chronic headaches. Regular checks of the tension, controlled body weight, low stress, sport control and low alcohol consume keep them away.
5. Lung obstructive chronic diseases (counting with 5,1%), like emphysema or chronic bronquitis are mainly caused by smoking, which increases the risk 12 times.
6. 2,9% of men die of diabetes. 30% of the patients do not even know they have it. They find it out after severe complications install: impotence, neurological issues, kidney and vision impairment.
7. Flu and pneumonia finish 2,4% of the men, especially vulnerable being those with lung obstructive chronic diseases, asthma or smokers, but also suffering of diabetes, heart or AIDS.
8. Most suicidal people are men. Men are exposed to depression due to medical factors (depressive disorders, alcoholism, or chronic painful diseases) and social causes (old age, loneliness, lack of family support, stressing events). The highest factor that leads to suicide in men is linked to how men experience personal difficulties.
Being generally more rigid, inflexible, introverted and impulsive than a woman, when a man faces a severe difficulty, he can choose the evasive way of acting and commit suicide. Men can’t stand loneliness or matrimonial separation the way a women do and usually they don’t speak about their problems, so they don’t free themselves from the pain. That’s why about 7 % of the men may develop depression, an important risk factor for committing suicide.
Moreover, men live with more stress and anguish from their work, generating more health conditions and anxiety states. Women display depression through sadness and a feeling of uselessness, while men through tiresome, irritability and sleep impairment. Depression can be masked by alcohol and drug consume.
Men should communicate more and have a life project that can be adjusted to reality. If it is shared, it’s better. And they must assume more coherently the ‘response’ to other proposals which the others want to develop.
9. Kidney issues wipe out 1,7% of the men. They can be diabetes linked complications or due to high blood pressure, or drug abuse, like aspirin and ibuprofen, which are toxic for the kidney. People with kidney issues should drink more liquids.
10. Obesity. Women usually accumulate fat on the hips, while men on the abdomen, which is more dangerous, as this is associated with metabolic and respiratory complications: diabetes, apnea, hypertension, vascular conditions, elevated levels of the blood triglycerides (saturated fats) and low levels of the artery-protecting HDL cholesterol and others.
Obesity killed 154,884 US citizens between 2000-2005.
Men must adopt healthy diets, exercise and reject miraculous diets. Family should be supportive on this.
Men with over 108 cm (3.5 ft) around the waist should pay a visit to a doctor to determine the caloric expense and know the disposition of their body fat.
11. Sleep apnea. The high incidence of sleep apnea amongst men is due to the fat accumulation around their necks when they gain weight. As muscular tone decreases while sleeping, the respiratory ways get narrower due to the fat pressure and cannot let the air pass. There are also hormonal factors. Sleep apnea affects the quality of the sleep, turning the person sleepy and irritable during the day, with high risk for traffic accidents.
There are also cardiovascular problems. If during sleep, there are more respiratory pauses of over 10 seconds, at least 10 times per hour, apnea is present. Obesity must be fought against through diet and exercising. In severe cases, special masks that introduce the air to the respiratory paths must be used.
12. Alzheimer’s or senile dementia affects about 4,5 million Americans, men and women. Women experience it more often as they live longer.
Content By: Stefan Anitei
Friday, November 09, 2007
Sunbathing 'slows ageing process'
Sunbathing can slow the ageing process by up to five years, according to new research.
Scientists have found that people who avoid the sun, or have inadequate vitamin D in their diet, are subject to genetic damage associated with ageing and age-related illnesses.
The effect of the damage is so great that those who lack vitamin D - often called the "sunshine vitamin" because 90 per cent of the body's intake is created by exposure to the sun - were biologically five years older than those with the highest levels.
Lead researcher Dr Brent Richards, from King's College, London said: "These results are exciting because they demonstrate for the first time that people with high levels of vitamin D may age more slowly than people with lower levels.
"This helps to explain how vitamin D has a protective effect on age-related illnesses such as heart disease."
Co-author Prof Tim Spector, also of King's College, said the study showed people should spend more time in the sun and eat more foods rich in vitamin D such as fish, eggs, fortified milk and breakfast cereals, or take supplements.
About one-third of the population is thought to be vitamin D deficient. Prof Spector said: "There are scares about melanomas, which do affect several thousand people per year.
"But vitamin D deficiency is making hundreds of thousands of people ill with potentially fatal diseases."
Cancer campaigners pointed out that too much exposure to the sun can cause skin cancer, which kills about 1,800 people in the UK each year.
Henry Scowcroft, of Cancer Research UK, said: "It doesn't take much time in the sun to make vitamin D, and always less time than it takes to redden or burn."