Entries for March 2008

For decades, experts and pundits have been predicting that a male birth control pill or breakthrough men's contraceptive was just a few years away. This week, for example, the Washington Times is reporting on the latest supposed breakthrough that researchers published this week in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

The line this time is that a combination of testosterone and progestin holds the key to developing a male pill. Interesting, but don't hold your breath; there isn't much new here, and the researchers acknowledge there are still many kinks to work out. The study is actually a reanalysis of previously completed research—and there's nothing to suggest it will circumvent the problem that has previously stalled promising work in this area, namely the perception among drug companies that there's little money to be made in making a male contraceptive. In fact, that's one of the main reasons that the pharmaceutical firms Bayer and Organon jettisoned their male pill programs last year, according to Chemistry World.

With cosmetic procedures as popular as ever among women, some experts are wondering whether the seemingly endless push toward aesthetic perfection has a downside. At least one even suggests that a "new anorexia" may be emerging among some women in their quest for everlasting youth.

Might men be succumbing to the same pressure? It certainly seems possible after reviewing recently released reports from the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery and the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Both reports showed men have a growing appetite for noninvasive cosmetic treatments.

Many men must cringe when choosing among prostate cancer treatments. I know I do, at least, when reading about the various options available to cut out, fry, or freeze (a technique that recently got a boost from this research) the offending cells. Yet it's a choice many of us will have to make: 1 in 6 men gets the cancer, and it's no secret that going after the tumor aggressively with surgery or radiation can leave our plumbing malfunctioning permanently.

Obviously, then, it's a decision we should make armed with good data on the possible cure rates and side effects of treatment. But, for various reasons, that data have been largely unavailable. (I've blogged before about the confusing and muddled science that men face when it comes to choosing a treatment.) Well, this week, we got at least a glimmer of clarity. The New England Journal of Medicine has published a nine-center study that offers men some insight on what to expect as far as quality of life goes for three of the major treatments—prostatectomy, external-beam radiotherapy, and brachytherapy. Here are the percentages of men receiving the various treatments who reported worsened urinary, bowel, or sexual function after treatment.

The National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health's Office of Research on Women's Health announced a new Web resource this week that should make it easier for women to get their hands on quality research about everything from pregnancy to breast cancer to hormone therapy. Might a similar resource about men's health issues benefit men? Possibly. But efforts like these are in the most nascent of stages—if they exist at all. And even if they existed, we probably wouldn't use them anyway.

Until about 15 years ago, it was women who lacked information; traditionally, the standard patient in all kinds of medical research on disease and treatments had been the white male. In 1991, the Women's Health Office was created in the Department of Health and Human Services to promote gender equity in research and raise awareness about conditions such as breast cancer, osteoporosis, and depression. Since then, men's activists have been grousing that it's men who aren't getting a fair shake from the federal government. A bill calling for the establishment of a Men's Health Office to tackle such urgent male concerns as prostate cancer, accidents, and suicide has been languishing in congressional committees for years.

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot hover somewhere around 1 in 146 million. So the thinking man wouldn't spend a dollar to play unless the jackpot was at least $146,000,001, right? Well, let's face it, when it comes to sizing up odds, a lot of us guys aren't always thinking that clearly. Significantly more men than women gamble, after all, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling.

Erik Rifkin, a coauthor of The Illusion of Certainty: Health Benefits and Risks, wants to help us be a bit smarter about how we play the odds, at least when our health, rather than our wealth, is what's at stake. Rifkin's primary objective in writing the book was to help people—including men—do a better job of understanding the health statistics constantly being heaved at us about risks and benefits. He and I came up with five ways you can avoid misinterpreting risk.