The Testosterone Tipping Point
Your car is not running well. It just doesn’t have the pick up it used to have. It’s low on gas so you fill it up, but it runs the same. OK, so it’s not the gas…it must be something else, so you begin looking for other causes. Yes, I’m an “old car guy,” but there is [...]
read moreThe Nation’s Doctors Join Together to Encourage Smokers to “Talk With Your Doctor” for Help Quitting for Good
The “Talk With Your Doctor” initiative designed to motivate people to stop smoking was unveiled today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and groups representing nearly 600,000 physicians to encourage smokers to talk with their doctors about quitting smoking. The “Talk With Your Doctor” initiative is part of CDC’s national tobacco education [...]
read moreWhy Is Sex-Ed in Schools “For Girls Only?”
Forty-nine percent of boys have had sexual intercourse by the time they finish high school. One in four has an STD. Yet sex ed by and large still focuses on the needs of girls. How do we teach in ways that resonate with all students, regardless of their gender? If you’re an educator–or anyone who [...]
read moreBoxers vs. Briefs—Can your underwear lower your sperm count?
The wish to establish a family is a primal desire; however for 10-15 percent of couples in the United States this may not be possible. Every year over 1.2 million patients seek help in the arena of conception, often frustrated and confused. Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive following 12 months of regular [...]
read moreBeing Obese in Your 20s Can Cut Your Life Short–by a Lot
We all know that being obese increases your risk of developing all sorts of potentially deadly health conditions, including blood clots, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and more. Most people think that those risks might reduce your lifespan by a few years—apparently not enough to shock overweight and obese people into changing their behavior. But new [...]
read moreViolence and Gun Control: More Evidence That Too Many Schools Aren’t Clear on the Concept
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about gun control and a number of cases where children had been expelled or charged with crimes for bringing “weapons” to school. In one case, the instruments of violence were plastic toy soldiers; in another, a boy had chewed a pastry into the shape of a gun. I was hoping that we’d heard the last of these cases of good intentions gone completely crazy. In a variation on gun control run amok, a 10-year-old California boy was suspended and threatened with expulsion after he brought a Swiss Army Knife on a...
read moreSperm Stories, Part II
In Part I of Sperm Stories, we talked about how temperature—both cold and hot—affects sperm production, swimming speed, and quality. In this article, we’ll take a look at several recent studies explore non-temperature-related factors. Turn off the tube. Men who watch 20 hours or more of TV have half the sperm count of men who [...]
read moreA Bank Account to Empty
“You tell me I need to lose weight. How do I do it, Doc?” “My dear patient, it’s simple: treat your body like a bank account, but one that you should empty. Put less in and take more out.” Obesity in America You’ve heard the rumors; here are the facts: The United States is one of the most obese [...]
read moreSolutions and Cures for Passivity
The bottom line is: Passivity is the compulsion to try to get what we are desperately longing for, while doing all the wrong things or nothing to get it. (Note: This should not be confused with patience, which is knowing something worth waiting for is just around the corner — and taking appropriate steps to [...]
read moreChild Safety, Part II: Even More Accidents Waiting to Happen
In Part I of our series on child safety we talked about risks associated with bouncing around on those seemingly innocent horsey rides at stores or in bouncy houses. Speaking of bouncing, let’s talk about those backyard trampolines. The American Academy of Pediatrics. a group that’s always concerned about child safety, now recommends against using trampolines. Their data show that 70 children per 100,000 are injured on them (compared to only 5 per 100,000 who are injured in bouncy rooms). The majority of the injuries happen when...
read moreTwo Flights Of Stairs A Day — The Heart Healthy Prescription For Sex
Heart disease is pervasive in the United States, representing a substantial health concern. Over 17 million Americans have the condition, including 8.5 million people who have had a heart attack. In fact, heart disease is the number one cause of mortality for women. For the many that live with heart disease, questions frequently arise regarding [...]
read moreMice Sperm in a Dish
It’s not the mother load of discoveries in our field, but it’s pretty close. It tells us that the mother load is definitely out there…and within reach. Yup, the good news is that real. live, old-fashioned sperm were made in a dish… at least for mice. The Holy Grail: Artificial Sperm For the 55,000 reproductive age cancers survivors annually in the [...]
read moreStereotypes 101, Part II: Women Prefer Big Men with Deeper Voices (and Men Prefer the Opposite in Women)
Okay, we’ve established that women find men with heavy stubble most attractive and men with full beards as the most masculine and best-suited for fatherhood. Since you’re going to be shaving less, consider spending all that free time working on dropping your voice an octave or two. Turns out that women prefer men with husky, [...]
read moreModern Fatherhood: Changing, but Not Necessarily for the Better
Two of the most cherished parts of becoming a modern father—witnessing the birth of his baby and cutting the umbilical cord—are coming under attack. In the first case, researchers at Oxford University found that some dads who witnessed life-threatening, traumatic, or especially complicated labors and births were more affected by what they’d seen than the women who actually went through it. So affected, in fact, that they were diagnosed with PTSD, a condition that’s usually associated with combat veterans or people who’ve undergone...
read moreSperm Stories, Part I
No one is quite sure why, but over the past few decades, there has been a major decline in the quality of men’s semen (the fluid that contains the sperm) and fertility rates throughout the industrialized world. As you might expect, there’s no shortage of theories, explanations, and proposed solutions. In this article, we’ll look [...]
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