Men’s Health Article – Men: The Stronger Sex?

MSN’s Men’s Health section published an article on some of the things about being a man that is not good in women. I don’t quite know if that sounds right. Ok, Why it sometimes is better to be a man….wait, that sounds sexist too. Let me try one more time….Men are better than women. There, that’s better. You know I’m just kidding. But for real, it states something about health issues that women may have a harder time with and why, than opposed to men having to deal with them. I’ve broken down the article and only quoted a brief part of it. You can click the link at the bottom to read the entire article.

Migraine Headaches

Women experience migraine headaches far more frequently than we men do, and not just because they have to deal with us. The American Headache Society acknowledges that the cause of the disparity is undetermined but that sexual hormones may play a role.

 

Arthritis

The number of people with arthritis, the leading cause of disability in the U.S., has been steadily increasing in tandem with our aging population. A national health survey completed in 2005 found that a staggering 25.4 percent of adult women had been diagnosed with the condition. Arthritis affected 17.6 percent of men in the same age group.

Asthma

If you plot the prevalence of asthma along two curves, one for men and one for women, you see a curious criss-crossing of lines. From birth to teenage years, and again in late adulthood, males with asthma outnumber females. But in midlife, asthma is more severe and more common among women. No one is quite sure why, but since 2004 pulmonologists have considered the impact of estrogen on the respiratory system.

Eating Disorders

Catch two minutes of a reality show or any commercial for “body spray” and it’s clear that young men today are bombarded with messages about body image, much like their female counterparts. There has long existed significant social pressure—evolutionary pressure, even—for men to be strong and fit. Yet, for every 10 females with an eating disorder, there’s just one male coping with a condition like anorexia or bulimia.

Depression

Depression is so complex a disorder, and often so entangled with other mental and physical conditions, that broad characterizations about gender can be misleading. For example, bipolar disorder affects men and women in equal numbers; women are more likely to have anxiety disorders; and men are far more likely to die by suicide, though women attempt it three times more often.

Men: The Stronger Sex?

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