|
|
June 2, 2006
It's all about common sense
Art Hister's new book is a witty guide to better aging for men.
PAT JOHNSON
Midlife Man: A Not-so-threatening Guide to Health
and Sex for Man at his Peak
By Art Hister, MD
Greystone Books, Vancouver, 2006.
249 pages. $22.95
Dr. Art Hister, the Vancouver physician and radio host, has revised
his book about male health seven years after his initial edition
explored the awakening of an over-50 man to the challenges and opportunities
presented by advancing age. Now, from the vantage point of a physician
nearing 60, Hister offers an updated handbook for the healthy man
who wants to stay that way.
Hister's humorous, offbeat style, which is chatty in a radio host
kind of way, is an emphatically optimistic reflection on male maturity.
The epigram to the introduction engaged me immediately. The author
quotes Ogden Nash: "middle age is when you're sitting at home
on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope that it
is not for you."
The period between the two editions of the book, Hister writes,
has seen substantial medical advances. When the first edition came
out, Viagra was not quite a household word. Advances in prostate
health have also been significant. Alas, nobody has been able to
improve much on the bifocal.
Hister addresses the reality that many men simply don't pay attention
to their health. Women, who are reminded monthly, if not more frequently,
about their physiology, tend to be more attuned to changes in their
bodies than are men. Hister, perhaps at the behest of his publisher's
marketing department, makes a specific appeal early in the book
to women readers. Indeed, Hister's book seems premised on the idea
that he is preaching to the difficult-to-convert – trying to
convince healthy men that their well-being depends, to apply metaphors,
on maintaining the vehicle before the engine seizes up.
Though Hister makes the case effectively that middle age and older
can be truly the best years of our lives, he does a brilliant send-up
of the conceits of younger men.
"A guy in his 30s is still under the illusion that he will
undoubtedly realize all those conquering dreams he has, that his
magnificent talents will indeed be acknowledged one day and that
he will assuredly rise considerably higher in the employment pecking
order, that he will sans doubt be able to retire before he is an
old geezer of 60, that even in his 60s, he will still be making
love to his spouse (her or him) several times a night – every
night – on the kitchen counter (which, by the way, is why I
never accept dinner invitations from young friends, although my
wife says that's more because they never invite me; she may be right,
but I wouldn't go anyway), that his kids (many still sperm 'n' eggs)
will unquestionably grow up to play for both the Yankees and the
symphony, and that if he has the time and the will, he might one
day allow his name to be entered as a candidate for a head of state
or, even better, head of the NBA or NFL (but never of the NHL –
not worth the headaches)."
Presumably hoping to maintain his audience, Hister launches quite
quickly (Chapter 3) into the issue that is most likely to keep a
man's attention: sex. Hister's metaphor of male physiology as a
high-rise elevator is both apt and amusing.
Happily, he says, "that's usually the way it goes in the early
years: up and down, up and down, on demand, when in demand, zipping
rapidly between floors to deliver its cargo to the luxurious upstairs
suites and requiring minimal maintenance, not even any regular lubrication.
But even the most pampered and well-maintained elevator can sometimes
get stuck between floors."
Hister goes into some detail about prostate health, a challenge
that almost all men eventually face. He addresses one of the most
common fears – Alzheimer's – which he notes, is and will
continue to be a serious issue for the aged but, with rare genetic
exceptions, is not a major factor for people at midlife. Diabetes,
on the other hand, is.
"Weight gain and sedentary lifestyle ... stand out as chief
risk factors," he writes. "In fact, some experts now refer
to the rise in diabetes cases that are associated with obesity as
the 'diabesity' epidemic. Thus, nine of 10 newly diagnosed American
diabetics in 2003 were overweight."
For good health, eating good meals has no substitute, he says.
"I don't believe in pushing supplements, because I just can
see that in a world that has given us cashews and canteloupe and
cauliflower and Camembert, that God or Darwin never intended us
to swallow a bunch of capsules every day instead of eating enough
of the real stuff the capsules are intended to mimic.... So, even
if supplements do a bit of good, and that's a big if for most of
them, taking vitamins E and C and beta-carotene and ginseng and
lecithin and garlic capsules every day is never going to do you
as much good as getting enough exercise and following a healthy,
well-balanced diet that contains large dollops of all those vitamins
and other good things."
Hister also confirms my suspicions about echinacea.
"Nearly every good study has concluded that the study subjects
who took placebo got over their cold in seven days, while the study
subjects who took echinacea felt better in about a week. Case closed."
Hister's "Plan B" – the harder work involved in becoming
healthy – may be tougher to do, but is not difficult to understand.
Controlling weight, getting some exercise, keeping an active mind,
getting appropriate sleep and not smoking are things we all know
we should be doing, but their implementation is sometimes imprecise.
While Hister's book contains some sobering advice to carefree aging
men, it is overwhelmingly optimistic and ends on this positive note:
"A British study concluded that people the world over are plagued
with guilt about smoking, eating, alcohol use and exercise, and
that that guilt is producing lots of stress. So, folks, accept this
absolution from this expert on guilt: don't feel guilty. It's not
worth it. And besides, you're doing your best. Now enjoy your life.
And buy my other books."
Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest, www.mvox.ca.
^TOP
|
|
