Screening for prostate cancer using the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test for men with no symptoms is controversial: experts are divided, and Australians are not routinely well-informed. Prostate cancer…
Across 38 years in tobacco control, I have been asked countless times in media interviews if I ever smoked. It’s often an early question. I always unhesitatingly explain that I did: I stopped in my mid…
The earlier you begin treatment the better.
Jeroen Bennink/Flickr
Hair loss is no longer an inevitable march to baldness. Medical advances over recent decades mean male hair loss can be treated. And it need not break the bank. The cause of male pattern baldness is well…
Testosterone is important for the physical changes that happen during male puberty, and features typical of adult men, such as facial and body hair.
Dave 77459/Flickr
Testosterone is blamed for violence in males, implicated in sport scandals, linked to sexual prowess, desired by gym devotees, and promoted as a tonic for ageing. But how many of us really understand what…
Beginning in middle age, blood levels of testosterone progressively decrease in some men.
"El Gabo" - Davide Gabino/Flickr
A whole industry has grown around testosterone supplementation for ageing men. But neither the benefits nor risks of the practice are clear yet, and they remain the subject of ongoing research. Beginning…
Discussions of erectile function can be challenging but it’s important for more than your sex life.
Tom Small/Flickr
Erection problems are common but they can be embarrassing for men to discuss with partners and doctors. The sales of erection drugs on the internet or billboard advertising are boosted by keeping erectile…
Some people use steroids to enhance their physical appearance, others to boost their sporting or work performance.
Flickr/Istolethetv
The use of performance- and image-enhancing drugs such as steroids is on the rise in Australia, with more users accessing sterile injecting equipment from needle and syringe programs (NSPs). Between 1995…
Bad news: one study suggests bald men have fewer sexual partners.
Tony Deifell
The suggestion that bald men are more virile than their well-thatched contemporaries is probably an old wives’ tale, but it must be conceded that old wives are likely to be unusually authoritative in this…
Use-by dates: human chromosomes with their telomeres highlighted.
NASA
Men who are unemployed for more than two years show signs of faster ageing in their DNA, according to a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE. Researchers at the University of Oulu, Finland and…
Professional organisations offer conflicting recommendations on the merits of PSA testing for prostate cancer.
Flickr/anaxolotl
The Movember campaign, which encourages men to grow moustaches each November to raise funds and awareness for men’s health, has helped raise the profile of prostate cancer. Statistics such as “one in eight…
Wherever we look there seems to be amazing feats of physical, mental and skilled endeavour in sport. Cycling is often cited as one of the most elite and the climax of the Tour of Britain yesterday saw…
Men with severe erectile dysfunction are 60% more likely to be hospitalised for coronary heart disease and twice as likely to die prematurely than men with no erectile problems, a new study has found…
Ageing men are seen as an especially lucrative niche sector.
Sean MacEntee
Women have long been subject to intrusive biomedical interventions. And the control that modern medicine exerts over women’s bodies has been the focus of much feminist activism. Men are usually seen as…
The study raises a number of questions about what influences puberty onset.
Gideon/Flickr
Boys are entering puberty earlier than previously thought, according to research from the United States recently published in the journal Pediatrics. The largest study of its type, enrolling 4,131 healthy…
Men struggling with the traumatic legacy of child sexual abuse usually suffer in silence.
Jevuska/Flickr
Make a list of ten men in your life — perhaps your father, your partner, your friends, and some of your colleagues. It’s likely that at least one man on your list is struggling with the traumatic legacy…
Steroids have a range of negative side-effects and harms that many may not know about.
arbyreed/Flickr
A recent national survey has found two-thirds of young men who began injecting drugs within the past three years were using steroids, overtaking methamphetamine and heroin use. Anabolic-androgenic steroids…
Around 90% of men with erectile dysfunction have a predominantly physical basis for their condition.
Horia Varlan
It’s perfectly normal for men to have an occasional problem gaining or sustaining an erection. But for some men, these difficulties are frequent and severe, making penetration impossible. This condition…
There’s a clear need to move away from medical and behavioural approaches,
Chaotic Good01/Flickr
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report on men’s health focuses the spotlight on widely unrecognised aspects of male health. This could mean that policy can now address men’s health…