Dr. Steven Lamm leads a complete center for men’s health at the Nyu Langone Medical Center in New York.
Ashley Milne-Tyte for NPR
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Ashley Milne-Tyte for NPR
It is a well -known statistic that men do not live as long as women. Life expectancy For an American is almost 76Against 81 for a woman. But it is not only older men who die earlier: these figures are influenced by other deaths that come earlier in life.
Derek GriffithProfessor of health and health equity population at the University of Pennsylvania, would like to see much more attention to the health of men.
It is well aware that women’s health has been sidelined for years. Until the last decades, most clinical studies have been carried out on men.
“Women’s health has been sub-studied,” he said. “We do not understand the health of women because we have not invested in it. I also say that the only thing we understand with the health of men is biology and genetics.”
On the other hand, says Griffith, we know very little how the economy, stress and other factors affect the health of men. He says that given the shorter lifespan of men, we should be invested to find out more about it.
“It’s not a zero-sum game,” he said. “We can promote equality of women, equity, opportunities, while really focusing on the health and well-being of men.”
Griffith is doing research on the health of men for decades, with a particular accent on black and Latinos men. It is alarmed that the gap of longevity between men and women in the United States has expanded over the past two decades. He says that more research is necessary on why. Of the 15 main causes of death – from cancer and heart disease to accidents and suicide – he says that men are getting out of 13 of 15. And they are not the only ones affected.
“If men fight with their health, their well-being and so on,” he says, “who tends to put not only a burden for these men but on women of their life”, who must take over economical and emotional.
Motivations and judgments
He says he takes an example, men are known to eat less healthy than women, which can contribute to chronic diseases. Some observers obtain Judgy on this subject, he says, saying that if men do not do the right things, they must accept a certain responsibility for the consequences. But Griffith says that sight is very much lacking on the reality of most men.
“We tend to suppose from a public health and health point of view that people wake up and that their goal is to be healthy,” said Griffith. “But that is generally not the reason why we wake up.” His research has shown that men focus on their work and their families. Food is a way to reach an end, especially for less rich men.
He says that men say to him: “The goal is to go back to work, to contribute to my house and if this meal will make me quite full, then I will eat this”, regardless of what is. He adds that food can also counter feelings of stress.
Griffith says that for everyone, there should be more emphasis on the many factors that affect the physical and mental health of men, and what can be done to improve health results.
Complications and convenience
There are men’s health centers in the United States, although many focus only on sexual health. Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men’s Health in New York, which is part of the Nyu Langone health system, offers complete care. Dr Steven Lamm Direct the center. He says they aim to make things practical for men, who generally do not want to spend a lot of time with the doctor. The center has specialists in several areas and allows patients to do most things at that time.
“You should remove obstacles for men’s care,” says Lamm. “It’s like that.”
The Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men’s Health reception area in New York.
Ashley Milne-Tyte for NPR
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Ashley Milne-Tyte for NPR
He says that traditionally, men have not gone to the doctor as often as women. Societal pressures meant that many associated men paying attention to their health with weakness. But Lamm says it changes. Many men, especially the youngest, now use smart applications and watches to follow stages and sleep habits and are impatient to stay in shape.
“If you see a man in their twenties rather than seeing him in the fifties, it is an opportunity for preventive care and early diagnosis, or to prevent certain diagnoses,” he said.
Today, he sees more young men for controls than ever, which gives him hope for their future. However, he said, for many guys under economic stress, health is not their priority.
“They don’t have time to take care of themselves,” he said. “They will not approach their weight. They just find it difficult to pay the bills.”
Lamm tells his patients that if they can take care of their health in their youth and their gerged progress in medicine.
He says that medical research and advances are changing much faster than when he started his career. Lamm says he says to his patients: “If you can just hang on and not spoil when you are younger, we have a chance to keep you young and vital and alive as you age, because we are going to be able To prevent Alzheimer’s, to treat parkinson and to do much better with diabetes and renal failure, cerebral accidents and heart attacks.
Lamm says that these improvements could occur in the next five years.
Given “Superman”
But for many men, thinking about their health, especially if something is wrong, is uncomfortable.
Jack Rainer de Toryon, in North Carolina, is 70 years old now. He says that when he was a child, he devoured Superman’s comics. “And we learned how the steel man could do all things, and it is therefore in many ways how I learned psychologically what it meant to be male,” he said.
Jack Rainer
Rainer family
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Rainer family
Rainer, a semi-retired psychologist, treated older men who find it difficult to reconcile with serious health problems. It was therefore a shock to discover a few years ago that he was now one of them. He discovered that he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Part of the treatment involved withdrawing testosterone from your body, and the effects took it off guard.
“The withdrawal of the feeling of masculinity left me without what I called GOPPTCE,” he said.
He felt vulnerable in a way that he had never had before, not moored and unmanned. Widowed, Rainer says that friends helped him pass the treatment.
Today, he is without cancer. But he says that he must accept that he is not as dynamic as in 40 years. And it’s difficult.
“I am really considering what it means to be 70, reasonably in good health, and how I want to live in the next iteration of the trip,” he said.
He says that being at this stage of life feels like entering the unknown.
This story was written with the support of a journalism scholarship from the Gerontological Society of America, journalist Network on Generations and John A. Hartford Foundation.