Men’s preventive health knowledge

There is no need to pursue sky-high-priced supplements or folk remedies for men’s health care. The core principles are three: avoid daily bad habits that often damage health, do targeted physical examinations according to age groups, and don’t force yourself to take medications if you feel uncomfortable. Doing these three points is 10 times more effective than spending tens of thousands of dollars on health care products.

Speaking of random supplements, I just met a 32-year-old programmer from an Internet company in the outpatient clinic last week. He said that he had been suffering from backache and weakness recently. He checked online and found that it was due to kidney deficiency. He bought Liuwei Dihuang Pills and took them for three months. As a result, he had diarrhea every day and his complexion was very bad. When I checked, he had a typical constitution of yang deficiency. Taking the wrong medicine to replenish yin only aggravated the problem.

In fact, there are indeed differences in the views of Chinese and Western medicine on the matter of supplementation. There is no concept of "kidney deficiency" in the Western medicine system. Most people say that backache, fatigue, and lack of energy are either muscle strain caused by long-term sitting, or a sub-health state caused by lack of sleep and hormone fluctuations. As long as you adjust your work and rest, exercise appropriately, and take extra vitamin D and high-quality protein, you can alleviate it. There is no need to take special supplements. However, in the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, there is indeed a saying of kidney qi deficiency, but conditioning requires syndrome differentiation. The prescriptions corresponding to kidney yin deficiency, yang deficiency, and qi deficiency are completely different. There is no "universal kidney-tonifying magic medicine". If you really feel uncomfortable, go to the correct medicine. Going to a doctor to check your pulse at a regular public hospital is much more reliable than blindly buying nourishing ointments and kidney-tonifying pills from Wechat merchants. Many of those three-no products secretly add banned ingredients. Eating too much can increase the burden on the liver and kidneys, or cause cardiovascular problems in severe cases. It is really not a mistake.

In addition to random supplements, most men's health problems are actually caused by daily bad habits. Don't think that holding in your urine is a trivial matter. Recently, a 28-year-old boy was admitted to the emergency department. He played ranked all night and won 5 games in a row. He held his urine for 4 hours and did not dare to go to the toilet. In the end, he couldn't urinate. He was in pain and sweating. He was diagnosed with acute urinary retention and needed a urinary catheter for three days. People who hold back urine for a long time have a risk of prostatic hyperplasia and cystitis that is three times higher than that of ordinary people. This is the consensus of urology departments. Don’t just play games or drive on an unfinished highway. Just go and pee when you feel like it. There is nothing embarrassing about it.

There is also sedentary life. Eight out of ten patients I come into contact with who have bad prostates are programmers and designers who sit in offices for a long time, or truck drivers who drive long distances. They sit for six or seven hours at a time, with their buttocks glued to the chair and unable to move. Their prostates are oppressed for a long time, and blood circulation is poor. There are a lot of people in their twenties who suffer from frequent urination, urgent urination, and perineal swelling and pain. The advice I usually give to these patients is very simple. Get up and take two steps every 40 minutes, even if it’s just to get a drink of water or stand and watch short videos for half a minute. It’s much more effective than the prostate cushion you spend hundreds of dollars on. Oh, by the way, there is also the option of underwear. Don’t always wear those tight chemical fiber underwear. Especially in summer, the local temperature will be high and the sperm activity will be reduced. I have met several young men who were preparing for pregnancy. After three months of adjustment, they changed to loose cotton underwear and the sperm quality improved directly. It is much more effective than taking any zinc supplement.

After talking about daily habits, let’s talk about the physical examination that many people ignore. Many men always feel that they are strong and do not have a physical examination every three to five years. If they are really found out, the problems will be serious. The focus of examinations at different age groups is actually different. For young men in their early twenties, don't just check blood and routine chest X-rays. If you often feel that your scrotum is swollen, it is best to get a B-ultrasound of the reproductive system to check for varicocele. The incidence of this disease is quite high in young men, and it can seriously affect fertility. Many people only discover it after military physical examinations and pregnancy preparation examinations. If early intervention is done, there is no need for surgery at all. After the age of 35, if you often socialize outside, it is best to get tested for Helicobacter pylori every year. The Helicobacter pylori infection rate among men in my country is close to 50%. Long-term infection is a high-risk factor for gastric cancer. If it is positive, it can be cured by taking medicine according to the course of treatment. Don’t take it seriously. Men over the age of 45 should undergo PSA (prostate specific antigen) and colonoscopy every year. The incidence of prostate cancer and colon cancer in men is much higher than that in women. If diagnosed early, the cure rate can reach over 90%, which is much more cost-effective than late treatment.

Oh, by the way, there is another question that everyone has been arguing about for many years: "Should men take folic acid supplements to prepare for pregnancy?" ”In fact, there is no completely unified conclusion in the academic circles. One school of thought believes that men’s folic acid supplementation can improve sperm quality and reduce the risk of fetal chromosomal abnormalities. The other school of thought believes that as long as the daily diet is balanced, eating more green leafy vegetables and animal liver is enough, and no additional supplement is needed. My general advice to couples preparing for pregnancy is that if the man is a picky eater and rarely eats vegetables, there is no harm in taking supplements. It is not expensive anyway and has no side effects. If he has a balanced diet, it is completely fine if he does not take supplements. There is no need to worry about this matter.

In fact, after all, there is really nothing complicated about men’s health care, and it doesn’t require you to spend much money. Stay up less late at night than necessary, drink less alcohol that you can't push away, don't use "men are not afraid of pain" as a cover to deal with minor problems, and don't believe in the folk remedies on the Internet. Spend half a day every year for a targeted physical examination, which is enough to screen out most health risks. Oh, by the way, one last reminder, don’t think that sun protection is just for girls. Many men don’t even wear hats when they go out in the summer. Long-term ultraviolet exposure will not only cause age spots, but also increase the risk of skin cancer. It’s really troublesome to apply sunscreen, so you can always wear a hat, right?