Such a fascinating topic! We men have always behaved as if this does not concern us. Preventive medicine is something for women to worry about. And yet men’s health is a very complex issue. Not just hormonally. Obviously we do not talk about our “menopause”, despite the fact that we have one. We call it our “anthropological years”. And it affects us in our own way, e.g. potency problems. A topic that somehow doesn’t get discussed much in polite company. The medical term for this is “erectile dysfunction”, i.e. when we men are no longer able to perform in bed as we did when we were younger. In most cases, it is due to the arteries, i.e. the flow of blood to the penis is restricted. This is because of deposits in the blood vessels – atherosclerosis, which is genetically determined.
We men first become aware of atherosclerosis when it manifests itself as erectile dysfunction. Why? Because the blood vessels in the genitals are much narrower than other arteries such as those in the region of the heart. Consequently, if we develop atherosclerosis, the blood vessels in the genitals become clogged up many years before their coronary counterparts. A colleague of mine, Professor Summer at the University of Hamburg once summed this up neatly when he described the male “divining rod” as an indicator of the state of the heart. In other words, once we develop difficulties in that region, we can expect complications with our heart at some point in the future, so it makes sense to see a cardiologist right away and find out if there are early signs of problems ahead.
