Prostate news article, October 2005
FIRST HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 4TH BIENNIAL WORLD CONGRESS ON MEN'S HEALTH AND GENDER Conference report from Vienna, 30 September - 1st October 2005 Notified by: Professor Roger S Kirby |
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The 4th biennial World Congress on Men's Health & Gender took place in Vienna, Austria, at the end of last month. What follows is an overview of some of the presentations - a full report will appear in the December issue of the Journal of Men's Health & Gender.
Setting the scene in the opening session, professor of men's health Alan White (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK) presented new data from a study of 38 countries worldwide. Reporting figures on deaths from all causes, he noted a marked increase in the ratio of men to women dying, in the younger age groups. Prof. White discussed further findings, drawing attention to "the horrific number of young men who kill themselves" and also the surprisingly high numbers of young men in the 35-44 year age group dying from neoplasms and diseases of the circulatory system.
The formal debate "Is it time for a large trial of testosterone replacement therapy for older men?" aroused much interest. The two speakers presenting the case for "Yes" said that small, short-term studies have already demonstrated benefits and safety, and that it is therefore time to move on to a large, long-term study. Their debate opponents argued "Not yet", questioning the quality of the research to date, and saying that a large trial would be of poor value without first resolving the many outstanding basic scientific issues (including whether hypogonadism in older men is a stable condition). At the end of the four presentations, which are planned to be published in the JMHG, a quick poll of the audience showed a 50%:50% split.
In other sessions at the congress:
- Dr Jean Bonhomme (Men's Health Network, USA) described how a tetrad
approach addressing men, women, children, and minorities, is necessary
to optimise health outcomes. "A failure in any one will
cause failures in the other three," he said.
- Dr Markus Hengstschläger (Medical University of Vienna) described
research on very rare sets of monozygotic twins in which the two individuals
are of different sexes - they are clones, except for their sex chromosomes. He
said preliminary findings suggest that in the brains of such twins, 15%
of genes are differentially expressed.
- Dr John McKinlay (Institute for Community Health Studies, Watertown,
USA) said men's health could be improved by focusing more on prevention,
particularly through national policy interventions. He used
a river analogy to argue that, instead of being downstream, continually "rescuing" drowning
men on a 1-1 basis, "we need to move upstream to see who is pushing
them in".
- Dr Bert-Jan de Boer (Medical University of Utrecht, Netherlands), after
discussing the link between lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and erectile
dysfunction (ED), advised GPs and specialists to "include a question
on ED in history taking in a male patient with LUTS".
- Dr Ulla-Britt Lilleaas (University of Oslo, Norway) presented findings
from a qualitative study of handball players and suggested that homophobia
is relatively common in closed groups of male sportsmen.
- Peter Baker (Men's Health Forum for England) described the Forum's recent
work tackling obesity in men. This included an ongoing "Work
Fit" programme developed for a large British company, in which employees
who sign up are given 16 weekly tasks by email. He said about
14,000 people, three-quarters of them men, had signed up in the first 3
weeks.
The congress ended on a highly positive note, with Dr Ian Banks (president of the European Men's Health Forum) presenting the EMHF's "Vienna Declaration on the health of men and boys in Europe". The 1-page declaration, finalised at the congress, is designed to alert policy makers to the key issues in men's health and also to the solutions. Prof. Siegfried Meryn, congress secretary and president of the International Society for Men's Health & Gender, described the document as a "milestone" in men's health, with the potential to make a real difference.
The Vienna Declaration will be published in the December JMGH, and will be formally and publicly launched by the EMHF in due course (check www.emhf.org for news).
Paul Haines
Medical Writer/Editor
Excerpta Medica, an Elsevier business
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Email: [email protected]