An enlarged prostate gland in men can often cause many problems, including the infamous “difficulty urinating” problem that men seem unwilling to admit is happening sometimes until it is a little too late and the cancer has spread.  Not always, but I’ve actually witnessed this occurrence before, as I have some stubborn male family members.  That’s why men may want to look into supplements for prostate health as well. 

It is estimated that almost half of men over the age of fifty have some form of prostate enlargement, which can often be a sign of prostate cancer, but also many times is a simple fact of aging.  You’ve heard the common saying that if a man were to live a really long time, if heart disease doesn’t get him, eventually prostate cancer would.  Who knows how true that “scientific” statement is, in fact I doubt it has much real scientific merit to it, but you get the point.  The prostate gland can be our friend or our worst enemy, much like women’s breasts can be if they turn cancerous, I suppose.

While it’s estimated that men over fifty years old are almost half having enlarged prostates at some point, it is also guestimated that men who reach their eighties are nearly 80% likely to have an enlarged prostate gland.  Prostate health in men’s early years has become important because of this reason, to keep it healthy into the later years of aging.   

Difficulty and complications urinating are the biggest signs that a man is suffering from an enlarged prostate gland.  When I say “difficulty” and complications, I mean that the man’s stream may not be coming out so smooth, or may be a very weak stream of urine, or the man may experience some sort of uring dribble coming out uncontrollably.  He may also actually experience pain while urinating.  If you experience this, you should not waste any time and get to your physician’s office right away.

The ways to treat prostate gland enlargement are drugs, which unfortunately do come with side effects, and in the most extreme cases, surgery may be required if the gland has grown uncontrollably large and interferes with other organs and comfort. 

I remember we discussed this shortly a while ago, but also read a new study done independently of the soy industry shows some fairly good evidence that high consumption of soy products and products derived from the soy bean by men in quantity can actually have a negative impact on their sperm count. 

The thought is that the isoflavone count in the soy helps to lessen the sperm production because it has a phytoestrogenic type effect on the male body, which in essence counteracts the male hormone in their body which is responsible for higher sperm counts and healthier sperm production (the male hormone is testosterone, or an androgen, which are male hormones).

The study links soy consumption in men to not only less sperm concentration in semen, but also may be linked to lower sperm quality.  The soy industry is saying that this evidence does not however, match with the data they’ve collected on soy’s effect on male sperm count.  I guess this means that men who are vegetarians may want to get other things to replace their protein, such as beans and legumes and other forms of protein that don’t involve animal fat. 

Only if they’re trying to have a child though probably.  If not, they probably don’t have to worry about consumption of soy.  Also, if you consume it in moderation I’m sure it would be minimally harmful.  The study did mention something abotu the fact that the study subjects did ingest a lot of soy, maybe more than usual.  However, if you are a vegetarian it is easy to consume soy in large portions and several times a day, since it is a palatable substitute for meats and many vegetarians really like it. 

So, this was a rather unusual aphrodisiac for women that I read about the other day, but nonetheless, I suppose it does make sense, figuring as how we humans are still pretty primitive when it comes to sexuality, whether we consciously recognize that or not.  Women were found to get in the mood, in other words, their libido was boosted, when they came into contact with the smells of a woman who was currently breastfeeding a child. 

Call it nature’s way to get women to want to copulate and carry the human race forward, but nature is always a lot trickier than we realize.  That’s why women always want sex more right before their periods, which is typically when they are ovulating and that means they are many times more likely to conceive a child if having unprotected sex with a  fertile guy.  Tricky mother nature!

The study, which must have been performed on the hunch of some scientists that may not have had much better to do, or were doing the study as part of a larger, more comprehensive study, worked like this.  They had women who were currently nursing young infants rub pads on their upper lips so as to collect their sweat (yeah, to absorb their sweat, kind of gross, I know), and when the women who were exposed to this expressed up to 50% more desire to have sex as opposed to the placebo group, they knew they were onto something. 

Scientists think it works, sneakily as usual, to make women more attracted to sex and intimacy at that moment because it triggers a signal to the brain that they are ready to have a baby.  So, see, mother nature has it all in the plans for us.  It’s almost impossible to not want children at some point, as we are all built to eventually get the natural instincts.  Works almost like a pheromone to attract women or something! 

I remember reading about the potential (albeit it is supposed to be a minimal risk) for hearing loss in men who take the most popular, pioneering erectile dysfunction drug Viagra.  The new warnings that will now be on the popular product’s label will include a warning that the drug can cause fairly sudden hearing loss in its patients.  Viagra alternatives should not cause this, but that is a case to be studied by herbalists. 

When I say that the risk for hearing loss is fairly minute, it really is, since only 29 cases of hearing loss have been reported in Viagra patients since 1996.  That is fairly small, considering how long the drug has been out, and how widespread it’s distribution has been thanks to an ingenius marketing campaign, and the fact that the mere term Viagra has been ingrained into our lingo these days with a snigger as everyone knows exactly what it is and what it does. 

However, big named Viagra isn’t the only erectile dysfunction male sexual enhancement drug that will be branded with this rather unfortunate distinction, but also others that are chemically similar to the drug, Levitra, Cialis and a few other fairly unknown brands will also have to carry the hearing loss warning. 

Here’s the thing though, they can’t prove that it’s actually the drug that causes the hearing loss, but to be safe, they want to include an explicit warning on the label, just that if men do experience this, they will know that it could potentially be caused by the drug.  Also, there was label prior to this, only it really wasn’t explicitly worded, and to be prudent they would like to be more upfront about the potential that it could be linked to the use of the popular drug. 

I just read the most interesting, if not slightly disturving article on a how a robot enthusiast and researcher as well as inventor has predicted that, unequivocally, he thinks that by the year 2050 humans will be having sex with and marrying robots that look, feel and act much like real humans do.  Sounds like something from a science fiction movie, like oh say, Blade Runner, which I just happened to watch a few weeks ago. 

In the movie, Harrison Ford’s character, a bounty hunter of rogue robots that have run wild and taken on too many human characteristics and become unstable, falls in love with Sean Young’s character, Rachel, who is a replicant (robot) and doesn’t know it.  She is programmed to become more and more human over time, and inevitable, Harrison Ford falls in love with her character even though he knows she is a replicant and their love is taboo. 

The researcher who claims he knows that this marriage and sex with robots thing will come in the relative near future even thinks that it may come sooner than 2050, and he is convinced that it will definitely happen - that is, that people will fall in love with and become emotionally attached to robots that replicate people.  He says he predicts that the first state to legalize marriage between a man or woman and a robot will be Massachusetts, probably since it is more liberal and legalized gay marriage. 

He said that the ethical and moral questions may be far reaching though.  Perhaps some may view this as a perversion of human nature and the human form, or consider sex with a robot to be a perversion and even ungodly in the eyes of religion, as well as implications that sex and marriage and relationships with robots could lead to unhealthy shifts in humanity.  There are other views though, that this relationship between humans and robots could be a good thing. 

It could provide companionship for those that feel lonely and feel they have nothing to offer or are too afraid to date the opposite sex.  It could also provide an outlet for people without getting diseases or cheating on their partners for sex outside a relationship.  Heck, it could even lessen the need to for prostitution.  Those are only a few possibilities, but of course there are still major moral and ethical issues that many will have with this development.  Thoughts?  I’m not sure what I think.  I think it’s kind of scary. 

Boy, I wish I’d thought of this first.  This entrepreneur named Frank Sadlo, who looks like your average American guy (yes, the perfect guy for the job if you ask me), has conceived of the idea that condoms be made as a custom fit instead of currently how they may come in some variations of size, but generally the length is about the same and most of them come with a mentality that men can make them fit or live with it if they don’t “feel right” on their penis.  Hey, they figure they’re birth control, and that’s what they’re used for, not actual pleasure, right?

Wrong says Frank Sadlo.  He’s currently working on a condom that he says is the first ever custom fitted condom.  Cool huh!  He’s the founder of TheyFit and he thinks that these will be in high demand, especially since most men like to purchase their condoms at a lesser length than what is currently the industry standard of just over 6 inches.  There is more deman than there is any sort of product which meets that demand, and he says that his condoms are comfortable and they really fit, and work of course too.

Currently condoms are manufactured as standard sizes, and are greatly measured in effectiveness by an air test to see if they can withstand pressure and not break.  However, there is little thought given to size or comfort, which is understandable, especially since the spread of HIV and other STD’s in poorer nations are prevalent and the concern is to provide condoms of an accurate fit and standard in these countries where good condoms are hard to come by. 

Since the average penis size for men is about five to six inches long, most condoms are standardized to fit this size group, although I beleive there are some extra large sized condoms as well for men that are larger, since breakage is of particular concern for this group.  However, most emphasis on comfort and sexual pleasure in condoms is really placed on ribbing and creams on the condom to enhance male sexual performance, rather than actual custom fit. 

In a study of female strippers, researchers have proven that women are, indeed, sexier to men for reasons that are not outwardly apparent, during certain times of their monthly menstrual cycle.  The findings solidified what was a suspicious of researchers for a while, sort of having to do with the effect that pheromones that attract us to women and other things we can’t actually see might have to do with the “laws of attraction” between men and women, and why there do seem to be certain times of the month when women get more attention.

I’ve often heard women comment that they’re not sure why they start getting more attention from men certainly at indefinite times during a given month.  They say they don’t know what’s different about them but they definitely detect men are giving them more attention, and more than just friendly attention.

It seems according to the research that women do indeed have features that subtly change during certain times during their menstrual cycle, and as that sneaky but ultimately genius mother nature would have it, it happens to be during their peak fertility time.  In other words, the features women exude, or even possibly the pheromones they unknowingly emit, are higher during the times of their menstrual cycle when that are the most fertile, or most likely to conceive a child if they have unprotected sexual intercourse. 

Subtle changes occur, it is said, during a woman’s peak fertility time, in her waist to hip ratio, in her facial features, supposedly her lips may be fuller, the face may be slightly shaped more appealingly, and as stated before there may just be an unspoken additional sexiness to the woman’s body during this time, as well as to the “air” she has about her, without her even knowing it. 

The studies were actually done on strippers and it was found that the strippers got more attention and far larger tips when they were at their highest fertility potentials.  It also concluded that women who are on hormone regulating substances such as the birth control pill, do not get as much attention (tips) as those who were not on hormone regulators.  Interesting! 

Well, there’s even more news of the weird on the horizon, and this time it’s about a grandpa, or grandpa to be, who is donating his sperm for what is to be his own grandchild.  Yep, that’s right, this guy’s donating his swimmers to his offspring and partner so that they may use his sperm to create a child, and it would be his grandchild. 

Like you probably are, I was wondering how ethical or socially acceptable this was, but apparently the couple and the grandfather mulled this over with ethics committees and standards committees and all that good stuff before getting the go ahead to do this, which will probably be a landmark occurrence, as there are no other grandfathers who’ve knowingly donated their sperm for artificial insemination of their son or daughters offspring. 

This reminds me of a another story in this same vein that came up a couple weeks back, where a grandmother gave birth to her own grandchildren.  Talk about motherly love, this woman was not only old enough to be a grandmother, but also carried her own grandchildren in her womb for nine months all for the love of her son or daughter (not sure which it was now, I read it a while ago). 

We’re also hearing a lot about women having children at much later ages than what used to be considered non-risky, and they seem to be doing it with fairly minimal complications, as compared to years ago when getting pregnant after a certain age (40 I believe) was basically almost advised against as potentially health complicating and even life threatening for certain women.  Guess we’ve come a long way as a species, eh? 

I thought this was very interesting, and very telling of how much we as humans, no matter where we are from, are dominated by thoughts of sex, and are a generally very sexual species.  And apparently Asian countries are really no different, because with the launch of the new dot Asia extension on domain names which will be tailored specifically for those that do not speak English, but rather an Asian language, the predicted most popular and sought after domain name will be Sex.asia . 

I’m not really sure what it would be used for, perhaps male sexual enhancement products, or female sexual enhancement products for sale, or just a general website that talks about sex and sexual health.  I remember hearing a while back that pornographic websites and material is actually illegal in some Asian countries, so I’m not sure what else this domain name could potentially be used for in Asia, other than something that would be sexually educational or selling something that is a sexual nature. 

They are not sure yet what other dot asia domain names will be in high demand, but the landmark domain name sale is set to take place on Ocotober 9th, and it looks like applications may be taken now for domain names.  Wonder what they do if there are multiple applicants for one domain name?  Perhaps then it goes to a bidding, or they may do some type of lottery drawing.  I bet they take bids, because some of those names would probably go for a quite a bit of money to a high bidder like a corporation who has a lot of interest in getting that name. 

Yep, we talked about this what seems like months and months ago, and now it’s becoming closer to a reality than I thought it would be at this point in time.  Men’s birth control has been something that scientists have been working on for quite some time now, namely because it’s only fair that the option should be available to men as well, since many women either cannot be on birth control, or cannot take it because of adverse effects or health issues that prohibit it.  This gives another option to couples who want to remain infertile but cannot have the woman taking contraceptives. 

However, currently the amount of men who use condoms and also who have vasectomies, which is basically like permanent birth control for men since the tubes that carry sperm are severed and it renders them unable to send sperm to the vagina, accounts for quite a bit more birth control here in the US than one might expect - about one third. 

One of the options is almost like an IUD for a woman (intra uterine device), in that it blocks the man’s cas deferens tubes like a vasectomy does, only not permanently.  It’s basically like putting plugs in the tubes so that the man can have a temporary form of effective birth control. However, there is still research to be done to make sure that a man can then return to being fertile again after that which is still up in the air at this point. 

Then there are also two pills that are being worked on as male birth control pills which have fairly different functions.  One works on the androgens in the male body to deactivate the fertility in sperm somehow, and the other actually is supposed to block the sperm (somehow, not sure how to explain this one) from swimming to the egg to fertilize it.  Both would allow a man to return to fertility, however it might not be right away. 

I’m sure the drug companies are excited about these, as the new wave of birth control options for men hits popularity for partners who need other options that are made for men, and do not want to permanently disable a man’s baby-making abilities!