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BLOKE-HEALTH
Here’s the latest health news about blokes,
especially about bellies: up-front with no sugar-coating. Its news you can use
to make positive changes for a longer, happier life and a better body.
Blokes naturally store fat in their belly
(women tend to store it around their hips and thighs). A big belly is known
as ‘central obesity’ and it’s the worst place to store it. Belly fat
is also called visceral fat and carries the highest risk for disease.
How big is
too big?
A healthy waistline for blokes is less than
94cm (37 inches)
(less than 80cm – 31½ inches for women)
Blokes are at significantly greater risk of
disease if their waist is greater than 102cm (40 inches)
This means many blokes – including you – are
dicing with disease. It’s a common problem but this doesn’t make it any less
dangerous (although it does help you to blend in with your bloke-friends and
colleagues). And we didn’t just pluck these numbers out of the air, these are
used by health authorities around the world.
What are
the risks of a big belly?
High cholesterol
High blood pressure
High triglyceride level (fat in the blood)
Fatty liver (abnormal liver function due to
too much fat stored inside)
Heart attack and stroke (cardiovascular
disease)
Metabolic Syndrome (increasing risk of all of
the above)
Type 2 diabetes (the most common kind)
Erectile dysfunction (erection problems, or
impotence)
Low testosterone (sex hormone) levels
Size matters...but shape matters more
Where you carry fat on your body is
more important than how heavy you are. A ‘pear’ shape tends to carry fat around
the hip and buttocks area. If you are an ‘apple’ shape, you tend to carry fat
around your stomach. Most men are an
‘apple’ shape. Studies show that ‘apples’ are at a higher risk of dying from
heart complications. A simple way to stay healthy and avoid heart trouble is to
have a healthy weight and a small belly.
Bust your belly for your heart
A large study found that blokes
with a big belly are at a higher risk of death than people who store fat on
their legs or bum. “What seems to be more important is how the fat is
distributed on the body,” says Thais Coutinho, M.D a cardiology fellow at Mayo
Clinic. Fat around the stomach area is more dangerous because it causes harmful
changes to cholesterol levels, blood pressure and blood sugar.
Good health keeps up testosterone
levels
Testosterone
is the male sex hormone involved in libido and sex drive. It was once thought
that old age reduced testosterone levels, but it has now been shown that older
men who are in good health have no problems with lower testosterone levels. Age
itself doesn’t matter. Looking after yourself and living a healthy lifestyle is
the best way to keep your motor runnin’. Testosterone supplementation in older
men is only needed if you have a disease of the pituitary gland or testes.
Drop
the salt to keep ‘up’
Erectile dysfunction can be caused by eating too much salt.
This is because salt increases blood pressure , including in the blood vessels
of the penis. A good place to start is cutting down on processed foods and
looking for salt-reduced products. Jacqui Webster, from The George Institute
for Global Health said that around 80% of the salt in Australian diets comes
from processed foods, rather than the stuff you add yourself.
Business travellers alert
A study has found that business
people who travel the most (at least 20 days a month) have poorer health than
light travellers. Frequent travellers were found to have higher blood pressure,
higher rates of obesity, lower levels of ‘good’ cholesterol in their blood and
more likely to rate their health as poor. This may have something to do with
the fact that most business travel too much fattening food . Of course the
healthiest folks stayed at home, but this isn’t an option for many blokes. See
our tips at Man vs food – Away on
page 62 of Belly Busting for Blokes
The brew for you
Blokes who regularly drink coffee appear to have a lower
risk of developing a lethal form of prostate cancer according to a study lead
by the Harvard School of Public Health. Blokes who drank 6 or more cups of
coffee a day had nearly a 20% lower risk of developing prostate cancer. Even
drinking 1-3 cups of coffee per day can lower the risk of lethal prostate
cancer by 30%. It doesn’t even have to be regular coffee, decaf has the same
effect.
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Bloke Health
