The second week of June is National Men's Health Week. The week was developed to heighten the awareness of preventable health problems and encourage early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys. Jason Wilbur, MD, family medicine physician at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, talks about men's health:
Men's health covers a large amount of information for a short radio interview. In an effort to cover as much as possible in a little time, I'd like to list health events in any man's life and have you briefly tell us why each is important in their overall health:
At what point in a young man's life should they routinely see a physician?
I think that young men should be seen by a physician probably every 18 to 24 months and that should start after they get out of their teens and are in their 20s and 30s. By the time a man is 40, he should probably see a doctor every year to be screened for things like blood pressure problems, diabetes, cholesterol problems, to have a general physical exam, and to discuss some preventive health issues and for some people, immunizations will be appropriate and other health issues might come up.
Is there a certain age that is considered the baseline for men as far as their physical well being ?
I think there are some milestones we look at. Young men in their 20s are generally pretty healthy. They don't come to the physician very often—we try to encourage them to come in when they are healthy. In their 20s and 30s, we are concerned about the rising prevalence of things like high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol.
This is the time in a man's life when he's at highest risk for having testicular cancer—the most common solid tumor for men in their 20s and 30s—so that's another reason to come in and have a physical exam.
When men get to be 40, as they age, they have more chronic disease issues develop, so we ask them to come in once a year and continue that habit throughout their life.
When men get to be 50, we start looking at other preventable diseases and try to detect or screen for diseases in early stages like colon cancer and prostate cancer, and certain immunizations become appropriate at that time.
When is it important to start prostrate screening?
That depends on the individual. For the general population, by about age 50 or so men should come in annually or every other year for prostate cancer screening. That's usually done via a blood test and also by exam. If he's part of a special population at higher risk for prostate cancer—including men who have two relatives with prostate cancer or African-American males—then he might start screenings earlier, maybe screening 10 years earlier or around age 40.
When should men be screened for colorectal cancer?
Again, it depends on the individual, but for the general population, for people who don't have relatives with colon cancer in their family, you want to start at age 50. And there are several ways it can be done. At The University of Iowa, we do a colonoscopy because the whole colon can be visualized. But there are other screening tests available as well. For men who have had relatives with colon cancer (depending on how close that relative is), they might want a form of colon cancer screening done earlier. If an immediate family member has colon cancer, look at five to 10 years before that family member had colon cancer to start screening for yourself.
As men age, are there dietary supplements they should consider taking ?
There are a lot of dietary supplements on the market and you have to be careful. There are some things that men use for certain problems (the benefits of many of these things have not been well studied) like sol palmetto for prostate health. That's not been studied to see that it does a lot of good for preventing prostate cancer or reducing problems with benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Some people will use St. John's wart for depression. I think it's probably more important to have a well balanced diet and have a plant-based diet. My experience in our community has diets that are more meat-based. It's definitely been shown that a plant-based diet high in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains reduces the risk of heart disease and different forms of cancer.
Should men consider taking a multivitamin daily?
It depends on the person's diet. If you have a well-balanced diet, you may not need a multivitamin. The one vitamin that we in Iowa don't get enough of, probably, is vitamin D, so you might consider taking a supplement of vitamin D. You could get that from a multiple vitamin or you could get it alone. And the amount of vitamin D that you would want to take would be 400 or 800 IU (international units) per day. Men should not take extra iron as a general rule, so you have to be careful when you're looking at vitamins to make sure that it's a vitamin for a man and doesn't have iron in it, because some vitamins will have iron.
What is your best advice for all men to stay healthy throughout their lives?
The best thing is be active. Get involved in physical activity. Eat a healthy die. Avoid things like smoking that can cause problems down the road. Drink alcohol in moderation or not at all.
I think just being active, healthy, and engaged is probably the best thing that you can do for long-term health and a long life. There have been studies that look at men over decades that show that things like an active life style, a lot of exercise, a higher education tend to prevent disability or be associated with less disability and longer lives. |
