May

Ch. 4, Why Do Men Die Sooner and Whose Health is Being Neglected?



Myth: Women just naturally live longer than men.

Fact: In 1920, American men died only one year sooner than women; [i] now the life expectancy gap is 5.3 years (75.8 years for men; 80.1 for women).[ii]

Myth: The government neglects womens health research. Evidence: Womens health research receives only 10% of all health research funding by the National Institutes of Health. [iii]

Fact: Mens health research receives only 5% of all health research funding by the National Institutes of Health. [iv] (The other 85% is for non gender-specific research, such as cellular, blood, DNA, etc.). For example, a man is slightly more likely to die of prostate cancer as is a woman to die of breast cancer.[v] Yet the government spends almost two times as much money on breast cancer as it does on prostate cancer.[vi]

Myth: More of the serious, published research is done on men than on women.

Fact: In the 10 years prior to mid-2017, gender-specific systematic reviews were published on women three and a half times more than on men.[vii] In the same period, the number of randomized controlled trials (the highest quality research) using only women is nearly twice as large as that for men.[viii] Since as far back as major computer searches can access complete records (1965) most gender-specific research pertains to women. (For the four 10-year periods beginning in 1965, bibliographic searches find 16%, 13%, 18%, and 30% more gender-specific research was published on women.[ix])

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In certain areas womens health research was neglected. We were led to believe that is because we didnt care about women. The opposite was true. Men, and especially male prisoners, military men and African-American men, were the most likely to be the guinea pigs for the testing of new drugs because we cared less if men and prisoners died. That is, we used men for experimental research for the same reason we use rats for experimental research.

While dozens of studies are being done on the possible damage of silicone breast implants, the causes of men dying 5.3 years sooner are virtually ignored. Nor are most of us aware of how quickly mens health is deteriorating. In 1993, the gap between male and female suicide was 3.9 to 1; now it is 4.1 to 1 (see table).[x] In Great Britain, there is a recent 339% increase in male suicides by hanging alone.[xi]

Even as we are increasingly hearing that women die of heart disease as often as men, we are not hearing that when most women die of heart disease, men have been long dead. Here are the age-adjusted death rates for the ten leading causes of death[xii]

Male to Female Ratio 1. Diseases of heart 1.5 to 1 2. Malignant neoplasms 1.5 to 1 3. Cerebrovascular diseases 1.02 to 1 4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 1.4 to 1 5. Accidents 2.2 to 1 6. Diabetes mellitus 1.2 to 1 7. Influenza and pneumonia 1.4 to 1 8. Alzheimers disease 0.8 to 1 9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephosis 1.5 to 1 10. Septicimia 1.2 to 1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table 17, pp. 69-76, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf.

Not all of the significant causes of death are neglected. Fortunately, people feared AIDS would affect heterosexuals, and affect women equally to men, and its funding increased. We pay attention to chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis because we believe women are more at risk than menbut in fact, men are more at risk.[xiii] With suicide, most people know it is predominantly a mans method of disposability, so it is the only leading cause of death that is also neglected.

Here is my list of at least 34 neglected areas of mens health exist:

Neglected Areas of Men's Health

1. a men's birth control pill (There is 14 times as much published research on female than male contraception in the last 10 years despite the need and scientific viability for a male pill.)[xiv]

2. suicide

3. PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome)

4. circumcision as a possible trauma-producing experience

5. the male mid-life crisis

6. dyslexia

7. autism

8. the causes of male violence

9. criminal recidivism

10. street homelessness among veterans (85% of street homeless are men; about 1/3rd veterans)

11. steroid abuse

12. colorblindness

13. testicular cancer

14. prostate cancer

15. BPH  benign prostatic hyperplasia

16. lifespan. Why the male-female gap increased from one to seven years; solutions.

17. hearing loss over 30

18. erectile dysfunction

19. non-specific urethritis

20. epididymitis (a disease of the tubes that transmit sperm)

21. DES sons (diethylstilbestrol, a drug women took in the 1940s and 50s to prevent miscarriages; the problems it created in daughters were attended to, while the sons' problems were neglected)[xv]

22. hemophilia

23. ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder)  alternatives to ritalin

24. workplace deaths (94% men)and injuries

25. institutions turning backs on HGH (human growth hormone) abuse among male athletes/body builders, the damage of artificial turf...

26. concussions, and the cumulative damage from multiple concussions (football)

27. male testosterone reduction between 50 and 70

28. infertility (40% of infertility is male; NIH has increased female infertility research, but has no research for male infertility)

29. depression (women cry, men deny; women check it out, men tough it out; women express, men repress). Rand Corporation finds 70% of male depression goes undetected

30. being victim of domestic violence; unwillingness to report battering

31. chlamydia as a creator of heart disease in men between ages of 30-60[xvi]

32. estrogen transference to men during intercourse[xvii]

33. Viagras effect on heart disease, stress, and marital communication

34. LSD (lower sexual desire) Syndrome (seen in more than half of men between 25 and 50)[xviii]

What Our Lifespan Tells Us About Who Has The Power

Life expectancy can be thought of as one of the best indicators of real power. When we learn that non-whites have about 80% of the chance of whites to reach

85,[xix] we know that it is because of the relative powerlessness of non-whites. But...

Item. A boy infant is only half as likely as a girl infant to live to age 85.[xx]

Item. When a man is about 25, his anxiety about "making it" is at its height. Here are the odds of a person living out that year:

Odds of Living This Year (25-Year-Olds) [xxi] Females (White) 1754 to 1 Females (Black) 943 to 1 Males (White) 561 to 1 Males (Black) 311 to 1

Item. Blacks die earlier than whites from 11 of the 15 leading causes of death. Men die earlier than women from 9 of the 10 leading causes of death, and women and men are tied for two of the other 15 leading causes of death.[xxii]

A major reason for mens shorter lives has to do with the loneliness and isolation single men feel as a result of not developing the tools to express feelings, especially to other men. And among married men, it is often from the stress of long work weeks or the manual labor that tears away at their body when they try to make enough income so their children can have a better life than they. This leads less-skilled or educated men to the death professions."

How do we solve these problems? First, by understanding them. One example: the mens birth control pill.

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[i] R. N. Anderson, K. D. Kochanek, S. L. Murphy, Advance Report of Final Mortality Statistics, 1995, Monthly Vital Statistics Report (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, 1997), Vol. 45, No. 11, Suppl. 2, p. 19.

[ii] For children born in 2003, male and female life expectancies at birth are 74.8 and 80.1 years. U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Table 96. Expectation of Life at Birth, 1970 to 2003, and Projections, 2005 and 2010. /Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006./ Ed. U.S. Census Bureau. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2006.

[iii]Interview July 14, 1992, with Vivian W. Pinn, MD, Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health, National Institutes of Health. not rep

[iv]Interview July 14, 1992, with Vivian W. Pinn, MD, Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health, National Institutes of Health. not rep

[v] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table 17, pp. 69-76, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf

[vi] United States Department of Health and Human Services, Estimates of Funding for Various Diseases, Conditions, Research Areas, March 10, 2006, www.nih.gov/news/fundingresearchareas.htm

[vii] Bibliographic search by Steven L. Collins, Ph.D. of PubMeds controlled vocabulary index (MeSH Terms) on June 6 and 7, 2006. Pub Med is a service of the National Library of Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov. A search for male NOT female was considered to be gender-specific to men, and likewise for women.

[viii] Bibliographic search by Steven L. Collins, Ph.D. of PubMeds controlled vocabulary index (MeSH Terms) on June 6 and 7, 2006. Pub Med is a service of the National Library of Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov. A search for male NOT female was considered to be gender-specific to men, and likewise for women.

[ix] Bibliographic search by Steven L. Collins, Ph.D. of PubMeds controlled vocabulary index (MeSH Terms) on June 6 and 7, 2006. Pub Med is a service of the National Library of Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov. A search for male NOT female was considered to be gender-specific to men, and likewise for women.

[x] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table 12, pp. 41, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf

[xi]Dr. David Gunnell, et. al., Sex Differences in Suicide Trends in England and Wales, The Lancet, No. 13, February, 1999, p. 557.not rep

[xii]Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table 17, pp. 69-76, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf not rep

[xiii]USDHHS, Healthy People 2010 Objectives: Draft for Public Comment, September 15, 1998, pp. 25-16 to 25-17. not rep

[xiv] Search by Dr. Steven L. Collins of Pub Meds controlled vocabulary index (MeSH terms) on June 5, 2006. Pub Med is a service of the National Library of Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov

[xv]Pamela Newkirk; A Mothers Nightmare: The Shocking Story of DES Sons, McCalls, February, 1993, pp. 93-164.. not rep

[xvi] Hans-Udo Eickenberg, Androtropia: Diseases Leading to Early Death in Men, paper presented at the 7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February, 1998.

[xvii]Hans-Udo Eickenberg, Androtropia: Diseases Leading to Early Death in Men, paper presented at the 7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February, 1998.Hans-Udo Eickenberg, Androtropia: Diseases Leading to Early Death in Men, paper presented at the 7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February, 1998.

[xviii]Hans-Udo Eickenberg, Androtropia: Diseases Leading to Early Death in Men, paper presented at the 7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February, 1998.Hans-Udo Eickenberg, Androtropia: Diseases Leading to Early Death in Men, paper presented at the 7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February, 1998.

[xix]See the University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, Vol. 8, Issue 1, October, 1991, p. 1.

[xx]University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, Vol. 8, Issue 1, October, 1991, p. 1.

[xxi]Almanac of the American People, Tom and Nancy Biracree, Facts on File, 1988.

[xxii]Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table C, p. 5, and p. 10, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf

© 2010, Warren Farrell (with Steven Svoboda) vs. James P. Sterba



* * * Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim. - Betty Friedan

Warren Farrell, Ph.D., is the author of numerous international best-sellers on men and women, including Why Men Are The Way They Are and The Myth of Male Power . Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and Father and Child Reunion has led to Dr. Farrell doing expert witness work that has encouraged many judges to keep dads in childrens lives. Dr. Farrells released Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap and What Women Can Do About It in 2005 and Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? A debate in 2008.