Who's afraid of Gregor Dallas?

A slightly off topic post today but it's on a topic which as an author of the sort of books that don't sell very well - ie ones about men's health - is close to my heart.

The Society of Authors, the trade union for British authors, is having the first election for its management committee that I can remember in the entire 15 years I've been a member. You'd imagine there'd be quite a state of excitement but today I got my copy of the Society's magazine and there was barely a word about it (nor is there anything on the Society's website). How am I supposed to make up my mind about the candidates?

I can see from the way the ballot paper is laid out that this is an election for four places between four candidates proposed by the board themselves and one other, Gregor Dallas, who was proposed by three other members.

I know Gregor Dallas and have even read one his books. He is an excellent historian, a passionate speaker and a nice man. Perhaps he is a terrible threat to the Management Committee, perhaps his ideas are, but I would like to have been able to make my own mind up.

The Society of Authors is the organisation of George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf and hundreds of thousands of others who were not threatened by new or different ideas but embraced them. Shame.

The future of health online

We’ve had a successful Men’s Health Week drawing men’s attentions to the benefits of using reliable internet sites to find health information. But changes in the way the internet works mean this may become harder to do in the future.

‘Liking’ something is fine for the latest gadget, music or amusing video but can you ‘like’ the latest war footage or, more pertinantly to us at the Men’s Health Forum, information about erection problems? In an Observer article on his new book the Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser says that what is good for consumers is not necessarilly good for citizens.

He’s also concerned about personalisation. Internet search engines are no longer neutral. Since the end of 2009 Google has been tailoring your results to what you looked at before without telling you. It’s like buying a newspaper a couple of times and then being force fed the same paper every day. This is a partial world picture at best. Essentially you give up a whole load of personal data to your favourite search engine and they filter out the stuff they don’t think you want to worry your pretty little head about while bombarding you with adverts for the things that they think you might want to buy. A Faustian pact for the internet age. What will its impact be on health online?

All 'appening for Men's Health Week

It's all coming in thick and fast now ahead of Men's Health Week which kicks off next Monday at White Hart Lane. This year's Week is all about encouraging men to get online and access quality health information. There's a free iPhone app and the Health Clicks mini-manual. All the Men's Health Week latest is on the MHF website and Twitter.

Listen to the docs

Another shocking neglect of blogging duty on my part! Put it down to Men's Health Week and related activities again (actually, there's a book in this year's Men's Health Week). But the call by Britain's doctors for David Cameron to axe Andrew Lansley's proposed health bill has prompted me back to the keyboard. There is currently what the government calls a 'pause' and everyone involved in health including the MHF have been encouraging the public to make it clear what they think of the bill.

As every patient knows, doctor doesn't always know best but you need to listen very carefully to what he or she says. The government should now do so. If you want to have your say, it's not too late - you've got until 31 May.

Random acts of social media kindness

My colleague at the MHF Aine sent me a tweet from someone - a men's health doctor no less - describing this blog as 'great stuff'.

Now I had a great Easter celebrating my dad's birthday but after the machine that is Manchester City effectively ended the champions league hopes of the attractive-looking, occasionally-brilliant, terminally self-destructive jalopy that is Spurs last night I was in severe need of a lift. This retweet was it. It was even enough to make me update the blog after a month's silence forced on me for a variety of reasons including poor health, Men's Health Week preparation, other writing commitments and bone idleness.

Now the cynical among you might well consider that this tweeter's real agenda is to publicise his own work rather than mine. And you might well be right - Dr Will Courteney has a book to promote. But whatever the reason, it still seems like a - cliché alert - win-win situation. He gets publicity. I feel better about malehealth's pathetic web presence and this blog even gets an update. (All it needs now is some readers!)

We know that random acts of kindness make both actor and recipient feel better. Perhaps this is the real health benefit of social media: it makes these random acts so much easier. So go on, retweet something or post a nice comment today.

The end of 'I'm on the train!!'

I love my computer but I must admit I'm not a big fan of the mobile phone. I have been heard to argue after a drink or two that they're infantilising devices for social control and I'm not entirely joking. But obviously I have one and my preference for texting rather than calling will be increased by a new review of the mobile phone safety research: Keep phone away from ear to reduce cancer risk.

In 2007 we ran a story on malehealth in which Professor Lawrie Challis, then head of the government's committee on mobile phone safety, suggested that mobile phones and electromagneticism in general could be the cigarettes of the 21st century. Since then smoking has been banned in public places. Is it possible that one day something similar will happen to mobile phones?

The pies have it: salt

Coming from south London, I'm a big fan of pie and mash. In places like Manze's and Goddard's, the pies are as crusty as the bloke behind the counter and the nearest thing to a vegetable is the motes of parsley in the liquor sauce.

I've no idea what's in the pies and I have always thought it best not to ask. Now, thanks to the Consensus on Salt and Health (CASH), we know a little of the answer: there's a lot of salt. Of course, they didn't test traditional pie and mash shops - they stuck to pubs and supermarkets - but I doubt the results would be much different. The bottom line is this: we should eat no more than 6g of salt a day (about a teaspoon) and even the best pie meal in the test contained nearly 4g. Fortunately CASH have provided tables showing the healthiest and unhealthiest options and tips for enjoying pies without piling on the salt. So I won't have to give up the pie and mash just yet.

I don't know, they'll be telling us that eels aren't good for you next.

The curious case of the recidivist stammerer

Although I don't have a stutter, I found myself identifying with a lot of things I learned while writing our new section on Stammering.

David Seidler, the writer of the Oscar-winning film The Kings Speech which deals with King George VI's stammer, says that he took up writing because his own stammer made speaking such a nightmare. I too am writer in part because I hate public speaking. I've sat through innumerable meetings, classes and conferences without uttering a word. Shortly before I went freelance, my voluntary sector employers organised a senior staff 'away-day' at which we were all to make a presentation. I nearly passed out after mine having forgotten to breathe. I realised that any career that involved presentations - Powerpoint was just beginning its ascent - and chairing meetings was not for me.

My interview with Donald, a retired actuary, revealed, as he puts it, what a 'curious' condition stammering is. Donald stammered as a child, spoke fluently at work and then started stammering again when he retired to France. I too speak French very poorly for someone who has spent so much time there and get more tongue-tied the more people there are in the room. Donald says he suddenly becomes fluent if he's interested in the subject and I have noticed how much easier it is to discuss le foot and l'incroyable Garett Bile (French for Gareth Bale) than the latest trial (or not) of Jacques Chirac.

The head of the British Stammering Association Norbert Lieckfeldt told me 'there is no cultural element to stammering, and very little difference between nations, ethnic groups and cultures' but when I see the confidence with which some of today's children express themselves, I wonder. Yes, it may be a pain listening to interminable stories about their over-indulged classmates or ill-informed opinions on your clothes, haircut or gay taste in music but you have to be impressed by their stamina. They do it without hesitation, repetition or deviation and for far more than just a minute. Is stammering a condition that will die out with the stiff upper lip?

Does male happiness all come down to the job we do?

Psychiatrists are saying that male depression will get worse during the course of the 21st century.

Currently, women are twice as likely to get diagnosed with depression as men but men's health campaigners have always contended that this not because men are twice as happy as women but because unhappy men are far less likely to go to the doctors for treatment. They're more likely to self-medicate with booze or drugs. The fact that men are three times more likely to take the final step down the path of mental misery and kill themselves is surely evidence enough of male unhappiness. (In 2009 there were 4,304 male suicides - 17.5 per 100,000 of population - and 1,371 female suicides - 5.2 per 100,000).

The American shrinks identify two main causes of this increase in depression - the decline in male jobs and the fact that society encourages men to talk about their feelings more or, as they put it, to 'stop being so tough and stoic'.

Now, the latter may be a reason why men are more likely to be diagnosed with depression since they're more likely to feel able to talk to someone about it but it is surely not a reason for depression in the first place.

This leaves just one cause: the changing job market. Does it all boil down to work? Men are in big trouble if it is. We need to find a different way of living in the 21st century or 50% of the population are going to be very unhappy with, if the experience of the previous 20 centuries is anything to go by, thoroughly unpleasant side-effects for the other 50%.

Sick as a parrot

What's the link between football and men's health? Rather more than you might imagine, I think, if a recent unpleasant experience of mine is anything to go by. It's all on malehealth: Cold Turkey at Tottenham

The problem with breasts

(That's not a headline I ever imagined writing.)

Breast cancer awareness-raising has been brilliant. Every female this side of Venus knows all about it (and most blokes this side of Mars). It is estimated that screening saves about 1,000 lives a year.

High fives all round? Not exactly. A lot of women have become the worried well. Breast cancer remains rare among young women - 4 in every 5 breast cancers are diagnosed in women aged 50 and over. But you wouldn't know that from the media coverage or to hear some folk talk about the disease. It is one of women's major health fears despite the fact that 96% of them will die of something else - heart disease or another cancer probably. (A 2005 survey in the USA found it was the biggest fear of all: Women's Health Fears Often Don't Line Up With Reality)

Inspired by this, some campaigners have tried to get the prostate to do for men's health what the breast did for women's. Instead of pix of pouting beauties cue images of handsome hunks. This has been pretty successful - look at the excellent Movember. But is there a danger of men's health being seen as all about the bits just as women's health now is? Both are partial and dangerous pictures. Smoking is the biggest killer whether you've nice boobs, a cute prostate, neither or both.

Chris Hiley, a woman who used to work for the Prostate Cancer Charity, understands these issues better than most. In her blog Breasts are a poor vehicle for women’s health: might men’s health now turn to bollocks, too? she puts her finger on the problem.

Would you like to email your doctor?

Personally, I'm not optimistic about the planned NHS reforms. They strike me as ideological rather than about patient care. It's hard to believe the new arrangements will lead to anything other than the further privatisation of much NHS provision either in the short or - in the optimistic scenario - medium term.

But there is possibly one bright note - at least as far as men's health concerned: developing the use of the internet. I'm not talking about gimmicks for mobile phones or little online gadgets to tell you how long you'll live, I'm talking about using the potential of the web to deliver real services: booking appointments, collecting test results, storing records and communications with various health professionals in one place.

Of course security is an issue and the government don't have a great track record here but it must be worth exploring. It seems to me it will make things easier for two categories of patients, particularly: the busy ones who don't consult health professionals often enough and those with long-term and multiple medical issues who otherwise have to consult them too much. What do you think? Tell us in the latest malehealth snap survey.

The real meaning of this study of death

Fascinating stuff on death - always popular with the men's health activist. New research seeking to help answer the question 'why men do die younger than women?' suggests that in the UK about 59% of the gap is down to smoking and 19% to booze. The implication is that men's poorer access to health services - whatever the reason - is not a major factor. This is not so. You can't compare chalk and cheese. Access is not a cause of death in the way that smoking is. Prompt access - seeing your doctor sooner rather than later as women tend to - may mean your smoking-related cancer is cured and you live to die another day from another cause, late access may not.

No, what this research really shows is that the gender death divide is very, very largely about social issues not biological ones. This was a European study and the excess in male deaths varied considerably from 188 per 100,000 of the population a year in Iceland to 942 per 100,000 in Ukraine. Men are biologically much the same in both countries but their behaviour is not. Smoking may be on the decline but I'm sure we men will come up with another way to kill ourselves prematurely - work, for example.

Who really benefits from the 'man flu' jibes?

Happy new year everyone. Apologies for the lack of posts but yes, I've had 'flu. Was it 'man flu'? I don't think so and I'm sure my girlfriend who also had it - worse than me - would agree.

However, the suspicion remains that men make a lot of fuss about nothing. Do we? Frankly I couldn't care less. What does worry me is that men already visit the doctors less than women and the fear of looking like whinging malingerers might deter them further. Our snap survey on the latest Boots advert suggests that many of you agree - although perhaps not for the same reasons.

Much excitement in many news outlets including the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail about a survey suggesting South Korean men 'overrate' the symptoms of a cold. Maybe - but the key point may be found in the final buried paragraphs where the researchers suggest Korean men might get more colds than women because they tend to be the main bread winners, and hence 'may experience higher levels of work-related strerrors'.

The Mail then quotes Dr Olivia Carlton, president of the Society of Occupational Medicine who describea the findings were a wake-up call for employers and Dr John Hobson, editor of the scientific journal Occupational Medicine who says men with colds 'may be under work-related stress, which is something that an employer or manager may be able to do something about.'

Indeed, conspiracy theorists might suggest the whole 'man flu' business is an employers' ruse to get us all into the office when the real issue at this time of economic difficulty is stress at work.

The cost of missed appointments

An NHS survey shows that men are more likely to miss appointments than women - blokes failed to attend 3.9 million outpatient appointments at hospitals last year. This is clearly not good - it costs the NHS money and means other people have to wait longer.

But the the total number of appointments cancelled by the hospitals - 4.9 million - is higher than the number of male no-shows. Yes, we should take more responsibility. Yes, we should be asking why are people not turning up for appointments. But we should also be asking why are hospitals cancelling more than 1 appointment in every 20?

We should also be asking what it costs. I asked both the NHS Information Centre who provided the missed appointment statistics and the Department of Health how much DNAs cost and neither of them knew. The Department suggested I contact Primary Care Trusts or Strategic Health Authorities. Both these bodies will be abolished under the government's latest plans so who will collect this data then? Individual GPs and hospitals? The new NHS Commissioning Board? We really are wading through treacle here yet the question, how much does a missed appointment cost?, is a very simple one. Worrying.

What do you know about the prostate?

If the answer's 'not much' then you're not alone. Here's a brilliantly simple idea from the European Men's Health Forum. Your Prostate is a website where you can ask questions about your prostate - peeing, sexual problems, disturbed sleep, supplements, cancer, anything at all. You can even ask what a prostate does. You'll get fast, free, confidential replies from specialist nurses and doctors.

By asking your question, you'll also be helping with a research project - and this is the bit that's so simple you wonder why nobody thought of it before - to find out what European men want to know about a subject we know we find it difficult to talk about. Yes, instead of doctors assuming they know what we want to know, this time they're asking us first. The results will be used by the EMHF to design some health education materials. To be effective though this project needs as many questions as possible so please, ask yours.

Questions and answers in English, Spanish and German so tell your friends across the world.

Getting it off your chest

I'm not a big fan of cosmetic plastic surgery. It clearly has a role in modern medicine - for transexuals or people in accidents, for example - but you don't have to look at the lamentable state of health care around the world for very long to despair of the waste of resources involved in all this vanity butchery. Despite the recession Americans still managed to spend $10 billion on boob jobs, tummy tucks and the rest last year.

However, it is equally clear that appearance is increasingly important in the world. People lose their jobs because they don't look right and all but the very strongest can entirely resist the advertising industry's drive to ensure that we're all disappointed with our bodies. More and more men are turning to plastic surgery with the most popular operation being the breast reduction. If you're considering this you need to reflect on it very seriously indeed and that's why we've posted all the FAQs on malehealth: Don't be a tit when it comes to breast reduction.

Good Sex writer suggests a Christmas gift

'If you want a male health book to recommend to your readers for Christmas … this slim, jolly and readable text is probably the best male health handbook on the market.' Thanks to Dr David Delvin for reviewing my User's Guide To The Male Body is such glowing terms.

Winner at this year's Medical Journalists' Association Book Award, David is a specialist in Family Planning and Sexual Medicine and author of 32 books on family health and sexology including the Good Sex Guide and Backache. (I imagine you can buy the two as a pair on Amazon.) So he knows what he's talking about on many subjects of particular importance to men. Indeed, the top story on Google when you search for 'Dr David Devlin' is Facts about penis size. And there's not many men who can say that!

(If on the slim chance you are interested in this topic there is a Penis Size FAQs article on malehealth.)

Blackberry back? Working is STILL making us ill

I heard today that a friend, another journalist, had RSI - repetitive strain injury. I've had some problems with this myself. They severely affected my ability to work so I know how nasty - and painful - RSI can be. I found the page I wrote on malehealth on FAQs about work and health as I thought it might useful for him and was surprised to discover that although I put it together in 2003, it was still almost entirely relevant. Nothing has improved. In fact the way we now use new technologies at work is only likely to increase the risks of RSI or create new ones - stand by for iPhone finger, Blackberry back or Facebook faceache!

Some of the articles the FAQ links to are even older - last century in some cases. Amazing how contemporary they still are. No wonder in 2008, for Men's Health Week, malehealth ran an article showing that work was the main cause of ill health in developed world. With unemployment - a known killer - at its highest level in the EU in more than a decade and the UK coalition's cuts yet to kick in that's probably truer than it ever was.

Hey, what about Twitter twitter? (That's enough new forms of RSI! -Ed)

How healthy is Facebook?

I didn’t know until I saw The Social Network that Facebook began as an exclusive service for Harvard students before being rolled out to other top US colleges and eventually the rest of us. It suddenly made a lot more sense.

I'm on Facebook. But watching the movie, I began to wonder why anyone would want to sign up to the virtual version of a particularly brutal American rite of passage built around the public playing out of popularity. The social network is one of dysfunctional rich kids, dysfunctional geeks, dysfunctional scantily-clad women all dysfunctionally desperate for acceptance by the coolest frat club. Facebook, of course, becomes the coolest of the lot.

Today there are 500 million of us playing out this ritual, day in day out. Driving up and down on the same old strip like the kids in American Graffitti, permanent adolescents, a night that never ends. No wonder all the characters in the film end up suing each other.

The Social Network is written by the brilliant Aaron Sorkin who created the West Wing. Like the characters he writes about he’s very smart and part of the secret of his success is the way he uses detail, very precise detail, to make us believe that this is real. I felt I was at Harvard just as I felt I was in the White House.

The result can be stories that are interesting and exciting on a theoretical or intellectual level but less so on an emotional one. No problem in a series when there’s plenty of time for us to engage with the characters - no problem at all in The West Wing where we're prepared to wait for what, a hundred episodes?, for Josh to finally kiss Donna - but a potential Achilles heel in a film where the audience needs to find someone to sympathise with fairly early on if we’re to be pulled in.

Sorkin seems to deliberately avoid using the obvious candidate for this role – Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin who put up the initial capital – to this effect. Perhaps Aaron’s even cleverer than I realise. The medium is the message and this film is pretty much absent of real emotion – it’s all the anaesthetised synthetic emotion of the courtroom. A mediated second-hand sort of emotion. Sounds a bit like Facebook really.