Experience in training on male preventive health care knowledge

My biggest gain from participating in the men's preventive health knowledge training organized by my unit this time is that it completely broke the previous stereotype that "men's health equals kidney replenishment and targeted sexual function maintenance." The core logic is actually life-cycle lifestyle intervention + targeted early screening. There is no "magic prescription" that is universally applicable. Only programs that adapt to one's own physiological characteristics and work and rest rhythm are truly effective.

To be honest, before I went there, I thought this training was just a formality. After all, most of the relevant content I read on the Internet was related to "strengthening" and "kidney nourishing." I had back pain due to overtime work in the past two years. I also followed the trend and bought a kidney-tonifying tea from an Internet celebrity. After drinking it for a week, I got angry and had nosebleeds. Finally, I threw it in a drawer and never touched it again. This training was conducted by two teachers from the Andrology Department of the Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. They spoke from the perspectives of traditional Chinese medicine and modern medicine respectively, and did not shy away from controversial points in the industry. It sounded very down-to-earth.

For example, the issue of work and rest has been quarreling for many years. There have been two schools of thought arguing fiercely: one group insists that "going to bed early and getting up early is in line with the body's rhythm, and staying up late will damage testosterone." The other group believes that as long as the work and rest are fixed and the corresponding length of sleep is sufficient, going to bed late and getting up late will not have much impact. I work in back-end development, and it’s common for me to stay up until two or three o’clock in time to catch up with version releases. I used to force myself to go to bed at 11 o’clock, and I couldn’t fall asleep until three o’clock after tossing and turning. On the contrary, I was even more confused the next day. During this training, the teacher didn’t say which one was absolutely right, only that “it suits your own rhythm.” During this period, I tried to go to bed at 1 a.m. and then wake up at 8 a.m., and then lay down for 20 minutes at noon. Calculating, I got 7 hours of sleep every day. I stayed up for two days in a row to catch up on the version this week, but I didn’t recover from the slowdown for several days like before.

The controversy about exercise is also quite interesting. I have always seen bloggers say that "men must practice strength and leg training to increase testosterone." Last year, I applied for a fitness card with a colleague. When I weighed 160 kilograms, I squatted 100 kilograms on the bar. After squatting, my knees hurt for half a month. I went to take a film and said that the meniscus was worn. It was also mentioned in this training that there are indeed studies proving that regular strength training can increase the level of free testosterone, but the premise is that the movement standards and intensity are adapted to one's own foundation. People who are heavy and rarely exercise usually go for heavy weights. On the contrary, it will increase cortisol (stress hormone), which not only reduces testosterone, but also easily injures joints. I haven't touched a barbell in the past three months. I walk briskly around the neighborhood for 40 minutes every day after get off work. I have lost 12 pounds. I tried doing squats last week and my knees no longer hurt.

Speaking of the issue of "kidney replenishing" that was most concerned about in the past, the two teachers' opinions happened to correspond to the two mainstream views now: The traditional Chinese medicine teacher said that the "kidney deficiency" that everyone often talks about is a syndrome differentiation concept, which can be divided into kidney yin deficiency and kidney yang deficiency. Some people have dampness and heat, which is not a deficiency at all. Blind supplementation will only aggravate the symptoms. The nosebleed I had when I drank kidney-tonifying tea was a typical case of yin deficiency and yang deficiency.； Western medicine teachers directly said that there is no diagnosis of "kidney deficiency" in modern medicine. The commonly mentioned problems such as backache, fatigue, and decreased sexual desire are mostly related to chronic fatigue, fluctuations in hormone levels, lumbar spine problems, and even prostate inflammation. First, check for organic problems, and then adjust your lifestyle. This is more effective than taking any health supplements. I used to think that frequent urination was caused by kidney deficiency. This time, I did a prostate ultrasound and found that there was a slight calcification. The doctor said that I just hold my urine in normally, so I don’t need to take medicine. I just need to drink more water and don’t hold my urine. I now have a small alarm clock on my desk to remind myself to get up and go to the toilet every hour. The frequent urination has indeed improved a lot this week.

There is also the issue of early screening that many people are embarrassed to mention. There are now different recommendations in the industry: some guidelines say that men over 40 years old should check PSA (prostate specific antigen) every year to detect prostate cancer, while others say that if there is no family history or abnormal symptoms such as difficulty urinating, annual screening can be started until the age of 45. My dad was diagnosed with prostate hyperplasia two years ago. I plan to add PSA to my annual physical examination package when I turn 35. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. If I wait until I have symptoms to check again, it will delay things.

I used to think that "health care" was something that only the elderly or people with poor health should do. After this training, I discovered that those little habits that I don't care about in daily life: don't hold in your urine all the time, drink less high-sugar ice cola (of course, you don't have to stop deliberately if you don't feel uncomfortable after drinking it, I changed to oolong tea because I had diarrhea as soon as I drank it), get up and take two steps after sitting for an hour, which are more effective than any expensive health care products. Don’t believe those “X things men must do” and “magic prescriptions for nourishing the kidneys” on the Internet. You know how your body feels best. There is no need to impose other people’s standards. Comfort and health are better than anything else.

Hey, don’t tell me, this training that I thought would make me doze off turned out to be much more useful than the three months of watching health videos. At least now I won’t pay the IQ tax by buying kidney-tonifying tea blindly.