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Why Does Asthma Treat the Genders Differently?
Tweet Share on Facebook August 15, 2008 Comment (4)Asthma, which plagues about 20 million Americans, cuts a curious path across gender lines. During childhood, the disease is more prevalent and more severe among males. After puberty, the opposite is true: Prevalence tilts female, and women face the higher risk of severe cases. For many boys, in fact, asthma symptoms taper off as puberty hits, while for girls that's often when the problems first emerge.
Nobody has determined why this flip-flop exists, but intriguing theories circulate. A study published this week in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine touches on some of them. One school of thought: Changing levels of the hormones progesterone and estrogen make women more susceptible to attacks, while rising levels of testosterone among boys exert a protective effect. A second: Anatomical differences drive the disparity. Women, for example, are known to develop smaller airways in proportion to a given lung volume than males do. A third: Exposure levels to outdoor environmental triggers have an influence on the shift.
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9 Notable Findings From a Sex Survey of Men
Tweet Share on Facebook August 14, 2008 Comment (36)A large survey released Wednesday, funded by the National Institutes of Health, queried adults ages 57 to 85 about their sexual problems. Most media reports, such as this one from HealthDay, have focused on the finding that a healthy sex life can extend well into the 80s, emphasizing the importance of overall health to sexual health. I decided to look more closely at how men responded to the survey. What I found ranged from the predictable to the intriguing to the outright surprising. Here are three of each.
Predictable
1. Getting erections and having orgasms become more difficult with age. Men ages 75 to 85 were 2.4 times as likely to report being unable to orgasm and 1.9 times as likely to report difficulty maintaining an erection as men ages 57 to 64. The good news: The older men didn't report significantly less interest in sex or pleasure during sex.
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27 Erectile Dysfunction Treatments You Can Do Without
Tweet Share on Facebook August 11, 2008 Comment (2)Federal agents are on the prowl for dietary supplements that purportedly enhance erection function but may in fact pose health risks. Two weeks ago, U.S. marshals seized from a Florida warehouse some $74,000 worth of Xiadafil VIP tablets, which the Food and Drug Administration says were being marketed illegally and contain an undeclared ingredient similar to the active ingredient found in Viagra, a popular erectile dysfunction medication. Another company, with FDA prodding, has recently recalled its Viapro 375-mg capsules. July also brought a voluntary recall of Rize 2 The Occasion and Rose 4 Her brand supplements. And, earlier this spring, the FDA warned consumers not to use the supplements Blue Steel and Hero.
Regulators are concerned that people may view dietary supplements that are marketed as treatments for erectile dysfunction as safe and natural, even though some are laced with prescription drugs that can cause adverse reactions when taken with other medications. Some supplements, for example, contain substances similar to those found in Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra. These so-called PDE-5 inhibitors are known to interact with nitrates, which are widely used as medications for chest pain. "You simply don't know whether many of these supplements are laced with PDE-5 inhibitors," says Ira Sharlip, a spokesperson for the American Urological Association.
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5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Men and Car Crashes
Tweet Share on Facebook August 8, 2008 Comment (8)Corrected on 8/11/08: A previous version of this article misstated the interval during which rates of fatal crashes decreased. The decreases occurred between 1977 and 2001.
Morgan Freeman, star of The Dark Knight, has been released from the hospital after undergoing surgery to treat serious injuries he sustained in a crash last Sunday. Freeman, who was reportedly wearing his seat belt and was sober at the time of the wreck, is fortunate. Andrea Pininfarina, a famed Italian car designer, was not. He died Thursday in Turin when the Vespa scooter he was driving struck a car that hadn't stopped at an intersection. For all except the oldest men, motor vehicles accidents are the leading cause of accidental death. (Falls overtake crashes among men older than 75.)
Here are five facts you might not know about men and traffic accidents:
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What Eric Shanteau's Cancer Means for All Men
Tweet Share on Facebook August 1, 2008 Comment (8)It's hard not to admire the courage and composure of 24-year-old Eric Shanteau. A week before the Olympic trials, the swimmer from Lilburn, Ga., received staggering news from his doctor: Shanteau had testicular cancer and needed surgery.
He could have—some doctors have reportedly argued he should have—abandoned his Olympic dreams to aggressively pursue treatment. Instead, Shanteau chose to delay surgery, swam in the trials, and snared himself a spot on the American team with an upset second-place finish.
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