Men’s Health Week 2022
To celebrate Men’s Health Week, let’s take a look at all things impacting the Aussie bloke, and more importantly, what can be done about it to improve mental, physical, and sexual health. To kick things off, let’s have a look at the current state of play for men: (1)
• 16,665 estimated new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in 2017 – that’s nearly 47 new cases per day, and it’s rising
• Risk of being diagnosed with cancer before 85th birthday is 1 in 2
o Most common cancers for men – prostate, colorectal, melanoma & lung cancer – all of which, excepting melanoma, have physical activity interventions
• 70% of men are overweight or obese and 85% don’t meet physical activity guidelines
• 50% of men have one or more chronic disease conditions
o This becomes 86% for men over the age of 65
• 54% of men have experienced sexual difficulty for 3 months continuous in the last 12 months
Despite the clear evidence above, 3 out of 5 of men rate their health as excellent or very good!
I love the confidence guys, but we need to address this disparity between perceived and actual health. And on top of the above-mentioned physical consequences, men experience rates of death by suicide that far outstrip our female counterpart (2).
Brain function and mental health
What do you think is our bodies first positive response to exercise? Big biceps, right? No. Perhaps you can finally touch your toes with increased flexibility? Nope.
The first benefit we get from exercise, for all genders, is improved mood state!
So, what else does exercise do for our mental health?
• Leads to a significant reduction in risk of developing mental health issues (3)
• Is key to help us meet our basic psychological needs satisfaction - Competency, autonomy, and relatedness. (4-12)
o Many positive psychological health interventions are linked to exercise
• Is more effective than drugs for management of mild anxiety & depression (13)
• Lowers blood pressure & cardiovascular response to stress(13)
o Fitter and more active people cope more effectively with stressful life events, this is known as the Cross Stressor Hypothesis (14, 15)
• We get more oxygen delivered to our brain, which improves cognitive function immediately, age regardless (16)
Pretty amazing right, but it doesn’t stop there, exercise literally transforms your brain! Tell me more you ask?
• Just one session of exercise can:
o Increase positive mood immediately through increasing neurological transmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenaline
o Improve your ability to shift and focus your attention, and it lasts for 2 hours post
o Improve your reaction time to anything life throws at you physically and mentally
• Long lasting effects - Exercise changes your brains anatomy, physiology, and function, such as:
o Increasing hippocampus brain cell volume - increases your ability to form and retain long term memory
o Increasing frontal lobe brain cell volume - improves your focus and attention long term
o The positive mood effects are long lasting from the neurotransmitter increases.
• Most importantly, exercise protects our brain! Just like our muscles, the brain gets bigger and stronger with exercise.
o The hippocampus and frontal lobe areas of the brain are the most susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive decline in ageing, thankfully these areas are most positively impacted by exercise!
Amazing right, but what about your physical health?
Remember those chronic disease stats for us guys? Well guess what, the positive impact of physical activity is so wide reaching that Booth et al. (2012) (17) demonstrated that regular physical activity is a primary preventative mechanism against 35 separate chronic conditions!
Do you even lift? You should.
Guys (and for all gender identities), developing and maintaining muscle mass across the lifetime is key, and one of the main reasons is to fight sarcopenia. So, what is it?
• Sarcopenia is the process of losing muscle mass and function as we age
• We can experience a loss of up to 40% in cross sectional area of muscle between the ages of 20 and 60 years old (18), and without well-structured strength training we can see a decline of 25% all strength lost by age 70, progressing 50% by 90 (19). This means loss of independence, falls risks, loss of mobility, osteoporosis, instability, poor posture, increased musculoskeletal pain such as back pain (20).
• And the most morbid stat of all……men, you are 3 times more likely to die from non-natural causes with low strength levels (21)
So, you get it now, big muscles are not just for footy players and bodybuilders, they are key for all. Now let’s have a quick look at your heart health.
• Coronary heart disease and related cardiovascular events are our biggest killer fellas
o Recent high profile deaths – is it at the forefront of your mind after Warney?
• Do not fear, regular exercise reduces your risk by up to 63% in the very active across the life span through mechanisms including but not limited to: (22, 23)
o Reduction in body weight
o Reduction in blood pressure
o Reduction in LDL and total cholesterol
o Increases good cholesterol (HDL)
o Increases insulin sensitivity
Sexual Health in Australian Men – it’s more than just libido
Let’s have a quick chat about your prostate, it is the source of our most common form of cancer, and 1 in 6 of us will be impacted by it in our lifetime. Here are some quick facts about prostate cancer:
• It is a condition where abnormal cells develop within the prostate gland
• It often develops slowly without signs and symptoms
• It is more common in men over 50
• Risk factors for getting it are:
o Family history
o Older age
o History of low fertility levels
o Being overweight or obese
o Low physical activity levels
Now here is the good news:
• Regular exercise reduces your risk of developing prostate cancer by 30-70% - and it’s a dose response relationship. More physical activity = less risk of developing it. (24)
• If you do get prostate cancer, your survival rate rates significantly increase if you are healthier and have good levels of lean mass, as exercise may allow for patients to receive and tolerate a greater percentage of their outlined treatment plan. (25)
Statistics tells us that every other male in Australia has problems with their sexual function (lasting longer than 3 months) at least at some point in their lives. Don’t panic, there’s no need for the little blue pill, as regular exercise is a natural Viagra!
• Physically active healthy men experience little to no risk of erectile dysfunction until much later in life (26)
o Especially important for those who have other cardiovascular risk profiles
• Not currently active? Even better reason to start lifting! (27) In a large study of sedentary middle age men, researchers took the participants through 9 months of vigorous exercise, guess what happened:
o 100% of participants experienced higher sexual frequency, improved function and greater satisfaction
o The great outcomes continued post trial, and a dose response occurred – the fitter they got, the better the sex was!
• Exercise also improves body image which influences sexual desire, arousal, and orgasm, however this is more impactful for females vs males. (28)
• Exercise boosts testosterone levels. Sedentary men experience lower testosterone levels across life span, and there are consequences to this:
o It can impact musculoskeletal health and osteoporosis risks, and is correlated with low self-reported sex drive and libido (29)
So what should you do?
First and foremost, strength training, at least twice per week of moderate to vigorous intensity targeting all major muscle groups close to volitional fatigue. It truly is our magic pill, holy grail, and fountain of youth rolled into one.
• The benefits for all ages and genders, conditions and experience is unequivocal:
o It is the most effective and time efficient intervention to improve overall physical health (cardiovascular, metabolic & musculoskeletal)
o Most impactful intervention for the prevention and/or management of osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, metabolic syndrome, and improving outcomes for patients, pre, during and post cancer treatment (30)
o Creates meaningful symptom changes for people suffering from anxiety (31-38)
o Provides better results than aerobic exercise alone on symptoms of depression (39)
o Improves self-esteem in all populations (35-43), which is strongly corelated with positive mental wellbeing
What about Cardio training?
Yep, that is great too, especially for your heart health.
• Aim to get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week
o 300 minutes of low to moderate or 75 minute of very high intensity also works
• Move in some way 5-7 days per week
And don’t worry if you are not doing that yet, every little bit counts, every bit of movement you do is positive for your physical, mental and sexual health. We all start somewhere, habits take time to build.
To Wrap it Up…
So, there you have it gentleman, get lifting to save your life, your libido, your sex life, and so many additional benefits!! Lift a bar and lift.. ahem, your bar.
To get your training on point for ALL the benefits, get in touch with the experts at Absolute here.
Written by Exercise scientist, Director & Co-Founder David Smith
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