The front man of now defunct band (well, none of the original members are intact except for him), Guns ‘n Roses, Axl Rose, seems to have done something awful and inexcusable to his face, as more and more men are doing under bad judgement in an effort to stay younger looking.  It looks like Axl has gotten a facelift, which is almost never a good idea whether you’re a guy or girl in my opinion.

Recent pictures show Axl, who looks almost like his face has been scarred in a fire or something - it looks as if he got a seriously botched face
lift.  Other celebrity men who appear to have gone under the knife in a serious, and not undoable way are Mickey Rourke and possibly Michael
Douglas, although I will say that Michael’s work looks better on him now that it’s had time to “settle”.

Axl’s been well known to be somewhat of a diva, and he is usually the one blamed in the demise of the trend setting group Guns ‘n Roses, who were just hitting their high peak when I was almost ready to graduate high school.  Axl and his band were kind of like the anti hair band, but also didn’t represent the alternative crew either, so they were almost like a new breed of hard rock meets metal.

It’s a shame the guys couldn’t work it out.  With Slash as one of the best guitarists of our time, and talented guys on bass and drums as well,
they were truly a band to be reckoned with, and their original sound and lyrics made them even more revolutionary.  Stories of Axl’s temper made news a lot, and then he made an appearance a few years ago that was critically smashed at an awards show, where he also showed off his “new face” to horrified fans.

Did you know that men love liposuction just about as much as women?  Well, let me back up a bit here, what I mean to say is that for men specifically, this type of elective cosmetic surgery happens to enjoy a prestigious spot in the top five elective surgeries that men choose to get.  Yes, men are insecure about their extra belly fat and flanks too!  Among other top men’s cosmetic surgeries reported are also eyelid work, to fix drooping eyelids, which is a common problem men have as they age.

There really isn’t anything different about the way liposuction is performed on men between how it’s performed on women though.  The surgeons are still board certified by the plastic surgery board (they better be!), they use a vaccuum type suction to pull the fat out, and under regular liposuction, as opposed to the less invasive smartlipo, they go under general anesthesia, which is probably the riskiest part about full on liposuction, and the reason I’d recommend trying something like smartlipo instead unless you’re looking for a more drastic fat reduction.

The difference between smartlipo and liposuction is that the patient does not need to go under for smartlipo, and a small canula is used rather than a larger tube that sucks more fat out.  A local anesthetic is used in smartlipo, and there is minimal downtime and supposedly not as much bruising, however what smartlipo can do is a bit more limited as far as fat removal, so it is recommended only for spot reduction - say if you have a double chin or something like that you want minimized. 

Liposuction is not anything to be taken lightly, whether you’re a man or a women though.  It has a high incident of infection and a lot of pain, swelling and downtime compared to other less invasive fat removal techniques, but if you need more fat gone it might be the way to go.  Also, going under anesthesia is never preferable since people may have a bad response to it.  Just look at the story about the cheerleader in her teens that died from a reaction to anesthesia.  It’s always best to just try to lose the weight from the belly or wherever else you’re having problems first. 

Men’s health is pretty much the same as women’s health concerns, except when it comes for a few things that women simply don’t have or men simply don’t have, like a prostate or breasts for example.  One of the ways that men and women no longer differ though, when it comes to men’s health screenings and testing now, is bone health. 

It used to be the primary concern in bone health was for women to get screenings for bone density, since due to higher levels of the hormone estrogen in women, women are more susceptible to osteoporosis, which is a condition where the bones becomes porous and are more easily damaged and broken.  I know that the women in my family have not been succeptible to this, so for example, I might be one of the safer ones when it comes to the likelihood of whether I will get osteoporosis.

Not only is there just a bone screening test now, for both men and women (by the way, it’s men over seventy years old who are going to want to be most concerned with having their bone density checked), but they also factor in other variables which may help predict how likely a man or woman is to break a bone in the near future, such as whether or not a parent had ever broken a hip, which would put them in a higher risk category, since genetics is looked at in osteoporosis. 

While post menopausal women are still at the highest risk for osteoporosis, and will be the group most targeted for getting in to get bone mineral density xrays and other tests of the like, men over seventy will still be encouraged to participate as a precaution as well, and also be given men’s health supplements with calcium and other minerals and nutrients which help to fortify bone strength and naturally encourage a denser bone that is less likely to break under pressure from a fall or other similar trauma. 

Boy, do I love my omelets on the weekends.  There’s nothing better than an omelet - made with real eggs, instead of that egg substitute, which is ok but just doesn’t have the same flavor and texture as real eggs sometimes.  Add in some cheese, onions and another big diet no no, bacon, and you’ve got yourself a little slice of heaven on earth for breakfast.  Of course, there’s a load of sodium fat and cholesterol, especially if you used the whole egg yolk, but who’s counting? 

Well, you should be, especially if you’re a middle aged male.  Apparently studies have shown a link between the consumption of seven or more eggs per week in men and a higher death rate.  Now, seven eggs may not seem like much, but that means you’d be eating two eggs at least for 3 days or more a week, and it should be easy to cut this way back if this is your current practice.  You may need to find a substitute for your breakfasts, or other foods that you may cook with eggs in them, if you want to comply with this new one.

While the study found a definite correlation between high egg consumption in middle aged men and earlier death rates, especially in men who were diabetic who should be able to eat eggs safely, it did not address at all why the eggs may cause earlier death, in other words, why nutritionally they have been labeled as “ok” for consumption.

For some reason they cut off at the odd number of seven, but if you were to eat up to six eggs per week you supposedly, as a man, did not have this higher chance of an early death.  Wow - comforting, right?  Not really.  Hopefully the next step in this study will be to determine what exactly is it in eggs that causes this strange correlation, and why is it just going over six eggs that causes them to suddenly become a danger to your longevity? 

When I first read the headline, and then also saw a sensational teaser on a local news station, I thought wow, a man has truly conceived?  This must be the most amazing thing in human history that’s recently happened.  A medical and anatomical impossibility, right?  Wrong.  What they didn’t disclose in the sensationalistic title of the news story was that the “man” was actually a former female who went through a sex change.

And, further, what makes this story even less interesting is that the former female “man” also didn’t undergo a full sex change, which means all of her female sexual parts were still intact so that she could still become pregnant, even if she were taking hormones, etc.  Not so exceptional a story anymore, huh? 

I have to rant a bit here.  I get really tired of the “news” making headlines that are sensationalistic so much so that they almost lie to the reader, to get them to read what is ultimately a really lame and boring story that is nothing less than un-extraordinary.  This news story I’m sure got clicked on a lot on all the news sites it was on, and also got watched a lot on the news shows that were clever enough to disguise the fact that it was in fact a former female that was pregnant and not a biologically born man, to get you to watch the story in hopes of seeing some new medical anomale.  No, it was really just a farce! 

In the pictures you see the man’s obviously “manly” belly protruding with what looks like an obvious pregnancy, so it does appear the pregnancy is real.  It does make you look twice at the pictures when you see a hairy belly with a protruding pregnant look to it, I have to admit, but that hope that its’ a new medical mystery is dashed as soon as you read further. 

Enough with the sensationalist headlines!  And while we’re at it, can we stop making celebirty’s lives newsworthy?  The obsession with celebrity is really disgusting these days, especially when you see it as the second headline down on major journalistic, supposedly respected news leaders like CNN and MSNBC.

A natural diet aid called “Total Body Formula” and “Total Body Mega Formula” recently have been voluntarily recalled after several men and some women as well experienced effects that included severe hair loss after taking the diet formula which is in liquid form for a little more than a week.  All in all, there were 23 reports, and God knows how many more incidents since probably not everyone experiencing the hair loss, males and females both probably reported this scary side effect.

We all want to get a bit slimmer - guys want to get rid of their beer bellies and women want to shave down their thighs butts and bellies since the spring and summer seasons are fast approaching in many places, but this side effect of hair loss is obviously something that no one would want to put up with in order to shed a few extra pounds for the shorts and tank top season.

Other side effects that were reported when consumers used the peach and tangerine formulas of these diet aids were diarrhea, muscle cramping and joint pain and fatigue.  No word on why it’s just those certain flavors, and it wasn’t mentioned whether those were, in fact the only flavors available in this supplement or not. 

The FDA is thinking that the side effects are due to an abnormally high amount of selenium in the formula, which is a nutrient that is only needed by the human body to stay healthy in trace amounts, not in the amounts showing present in the diet aid.  The FDA is advising anyone who has the product to dispense of it in a trash receptacle outside of the home, and is also working at getting the products that result in the hair loss off of shelves in the hand full of states they are sold in. 

Hopefully the company along with the FDA can mitigate the risks still posed to consumers by taking action early on.  Kudos to the company for voluntarily recalling as well, it could have stayed on the shelf longer if they hadn’t taken immediate action. 

New studies and survey results are showing that when women choose a male mate to settle down with for life, they may want to stop looking in the GQ model arena and start looking more for the average joe computer nerd arena if they want to have a more content and happy marriage.  When women were surveyed who were more attractive then their partners, they reported being happier and more content in their marriage, as did their husbands.

So it seems that when women pick mates that are perceived to be less physically attractive than themselves, they set themselves up for a lifetime of a more peaceful and happier marriage.  Further, men who were surveyed who were more attractive than their spouses were more likely to report feeling unhappy in their marriage, and discontent.

However, when couples were surveyed where the wife was more attractive than the husband, both the man and the woman reported that they were happier in their marriage. 

Researchers think that this dichotomy is because women tend to pick men more based on their abilities to provide them with offspring and also to provide for and take care of a family, while men are programmed to look for more attractive mates who can provide them more attractive offspring, which is often equated with better health, prosperity and longevity. 

The long and the short of it is that men and women are both stereotypical in how they search for and land life mates, men go more on physical appearance, and women go more on the provider and virility factor I suppose. 

So, it’s long been sort of a cliche that men are the ones who most often have what we call affectionately “beer bellies”.  But beer bellies really aren’t a laughing matter as they used to be a few short decades ago, since now we have medical evidence that show men with large, centrally located fat deposited in their bellies, or guts, have a much higher likelihood of dying earlier than those that do not have fat in this area, and specifically men who have beer bellies are much more prone to heart disease.  But men aren’t the only ones, women with belly fat are also more likely to suffer heart disease, and strokes as well.

While there may not be concret evidence telling us WHY those with more belly fat are more likely to have health problems, the correlation between the two remains.  With about 2/3 of American men being overweight or obese, this has become somewhat of an epidemic in the US today, especially since we’ve seen a staggering increase in the amount of heart disease, diabetes, and associated problems.

Women are more likely to store their excess fat (which is essentially excess calories that our bodies store), they tend to store them more in the buttocks and the thighs, whereas men tend to store this fat in their bellies.  When we store too much fat in one centralized location like this, it tends to throw off our blood glucose levels and this can in turn throw off how we release sugar, our blood sugar, and can lead to problems like diabetes which then of course increases heart risks.

It’s pretty easy to tell if you store all your excess fat in the belly just by looking at your body.  Men can measure their waist to hip ratio at a gym and a fitness expert can tell them how much they need to cut downt their beer guts in order to have a healthy ratio and to help avoid these health issues that are associated with “beer bellies”. 

A British boy who is only two years old has the unfortunate distinction of being somewhat of a rarity, in that he has a condition called pulmonary hyptertension, which causes a constant state of high blood pressure.  Because this can close off the veins and arteries, and Viagra is a male erectile dysfunction and sexual enhancement drug that dilates the blood vessels and dramatically improves blood flow, daily doses of the drug are actually keeping this poor little boy alive. 

The little boy’s mother has actually recently started a petition to stop the government from rationing certain types of medications which happen to include Viagra, and controlling their distribution, because of her boy’s rare health problem.  Call me crazy, but wouldn’t you think the government would make an exception here as a no brainer?  It only seems logical to me, unless things are a little different over there in Britain.  I wonder if herbal male enhancement supplements would provide that same result? 

Viagra actually can be used in other ailments for improving circulation and blood flow, because I have read about this being used in other cases as well, where the blood flow and circulation were impaired, and taking a drug such as Viagra promoted their survival by promoting a healthier circulation of blood throughout the body. 

Ironically, this improved blood flow is also what has some people worried to take the drug, since it can lead to heart troubles for those with pre-existing conditions, because it dramatically increases the volume of blood pumping through the veins at one time, some believe. 

What I believe is the number two male sexual enhancement drug in the US, or at least the most popular alternative to Viagra in trusted reliability and brand name recognition, Cialis, has just been approved by the FDA for a once a day use by men who want to improve their sex lives by increasing their sexual response time as well as making their longevity in the sack longer and providing a better lovemaking session consistently for them and their partners. 

The makers of Cialis claim that by taking the specialized daily dosage rather than taking the drug in anticipation of having a sexual encounter where there is only a window of opportunity to seize the moment, men will not have to worry about having sex within the designated time frame put forth by manufacturers and instead will always have lower doses of the sexual enhancement drug in their system, so that they are, so to speak, always ready for action at the drop of a hat.

The specilized daily dosage of Cialis is to be for men who anticipate having sex twice or more a week, so that they don’t have to worry about popping the pill for every little sexual encounter.  It is not said how this new daily dosage would affect sales of the drug, or affect quote unquote “recreational usage” of the sex drug for men, but makers are confident that men will be happy with the daily dosage and how it affects their worries on timing for having sex.  After all, timing is everything, and it’s nice to have that spur of the moment sex that seems so much sexier than planned sex once in a while, isn’t it? 

Of course, news of the FDA approval of the daily dosage helped to spike the company’s stock price, even though they are not specifying the pricing of the daily dosage and whether it will significantly increase their profits.  Pretty impressive, considering the stock market’s been in the dumper lately that the stock spiked.