We all know the story of the little blue pill. Once a source of much giggling and snickering, Viagra is now a monster drug for its maker, Pfizer, and has resulted in numerous spinoffs that all promise men a never-ending sexual youth. And while these medications are generally considered safe, the presence of erectile dysfunction, or ED, should not be taken lightly.

The path by which one develops ED actually has many of the same points of origin as heart disease, which has resulted in some researchers calling ED something of a harbinger of cardiovascular disease. In other words, if the plumbing isn’t working down there, it could be a sign it’s not working somewhere else, too.

Taking a pill to manage ED is one option, but the best bet is to also take a serious look at diet and lifestyle. Researchers in Italy have demonstrated that losing a bit of weight (about 10% of your initial weight, or about 20 lbs on a 200 lb man) and adopting a Mediterranean-type diet, can improve sexual function in about one-third of men with ED, without the use of medications. Need a refresher on the Mediterranean diet? [ read about diet and erectile dysfunction ]

A group of 172 men with prostate cancer that had not spread were treated under general anaesthetic with High-Intensity-Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) has been involved in a trial that took place at two centres - University College Hospital in London and the privately owned Princess Grace Hospital, also in London.

According to the study results, the HIFU therapy using sound waves to kill cancer cells may be able to treat men without surgery and offer fewer side effects

The study conclusion has been published in the British Journal of Cancer.

According to cancer experts at Johns Hopkins, the length of time it takes for PSA (prostate-specific antigen) to double, Gleason score, and the interval between surgical removal of the prostate and the first detectable PSA level, estimate more accurately the risk that the cancer has spread than do other methods and should help determine which patients may benefit from additional therapy when PSA levels rise after prostatectomy.

Findings from the study presented at the June 2009 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) may also help resolve the debate on when and in what form secondary treatments should occur.

According to a new research at the University of Southern California Davis School of Gerontology, men under stress are more likely to take risks, correlating to such real-life behaviour as gambling, smoking, unsafe sex and illegal drug use.

Men seem to enter more risky financial situations than women, which was part of the impetus for our study. But only in the stressed condition did we see any statistical differences in risky behaviour between men and women.

The study has been published July 1 in the journal PLoS One.

A new study at the Boston University School of Dental Medicine has established a link between periodontitis history and cerebrovascular disease in men.

The researchers concluded that there was a significant association between periodontal bone loss and the incidence of stroke or TIA, independent of cardiovascular risk factors. They say that the association was much stronger among men younger than 65 years old.

Background information in a research article describing the study, published in Annals of Neurology, describes periodontitis as an inflammatory disease of the gums, and cerebrovascular disease as a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA).

According to an Australian study presented today (Tuesday) to the 25th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam, daily sex (or ejaculating daily) for seven days improves men’s sperm quality by reducing the amount of DNA damage.

Until now there has been no evidence-based consensus amongst fertility specialists as to whether or not men should refrain from sex for a few days before attempting to conceive with their partner, either spontaneously or via assisted reproduction.

Don’t automatically blame mom anymore for crying babies. Dutch researchers at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam report that a crying, colicky baby can be just as much the result of dad’s state of mind.

Other studies have found that depression among mothers can be related to excessive crying or colic, a common problem with newborns, but the researchers said that little was known about whether fathers’ emotions and behavior also have an effect.

The recent release of two large randomized trials suggests that if there is a benefit of screening, it is, at best, small, says a new report in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The review says because prostate cancer is virtually ubiquitous in men as they age, it is clear that a goal of “finding more cancers” is not acceptable. Instead, public health principles demand that screening must reduce the risk of death from prostate cancer, reduce the suffering from prostate cancer, or reduce health care costs when compared with a non-screening scenario. The authors suggest prostate cancer screening has yet to reach one of these standards to date.

No major medical group, including the American Cancer Society, currently recommends routine prostate cancer screening for men at average risk. Since the mid-1980s, screening with the prostate–specific antigen (PSA) blood test has more than doubled the risk of a prostate cancer diagnosis. The review says a decrease in prostate cancer death rates has been observed since that time, but the relative contribution of PSA testing as opposed to other factors, such as improved treatment, has been uncertain.

The report estimated that more than one in four cancers detected in whites (29 percent) and nearly half of cancers detected in blacks (44 percent) were overdiagnosed cancers. The authors say patients who are diagnosed with clinically insignificant tumors are subject to unnecessary diagnostic tests and unneeded treatment and suffer psychosocial harms. They are also labeled “a cancer patient,” which can have negative economic consequences. Also, say the authors, overdiagnosis significantly affects 5–year survival statistics, making them uninformative in demonstrating progress in cancer control.

The report says the future of prostate cancer will include better screening tests, better methods to assess a man’s risk of prostate cancer, and prevention strategies, including the use of finasteride, a drug currently used for the treatment of urinary symptoms related to prostate enlargement.

Specific variations or mutations in a particular can gene raise a man’s risk of familial, or inherited, testicular germ-cell cancer, the most common form of this disease, according to new research by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. This is only the second gene to be identified that affects the risk of familial testicular cancer, and the first gene in a key biochemical pathway. The study appears in the July 2009 Cancer Research.

Researchers have suspected for years that heredity plays a role in some patients with testicular germ-cell cancer, although attempts to identify a single gene with very strong effects have been unsuccessful thus far. Scientists currently believe that multiple genes with weaker individual effects–but acting together–probably influence an individual’s risk of familial testicular cancer.

Men with a family member who had a testicular germ cell cancer are at three-to six-fold greater risk than other men of developing testicular cancer. Although a family history of testicular cancer probably accounts for less than five percent of all testicular cancers, the careful study of rare familial cancer clusters has often led to important new understanding of the non-familial versions of the same cancer. There will be an estimated 8,400 new cases of testicular cancer diagnosed in 2009 with about 90 percent of them being germ-cell cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

A recent study at the San Francisco Department of Public Health in the US, looking at social and sexual mixing between ethnic groups in men who have sex with men, concluded that preferences in the race of sexual partners influenced by subtle racism may perpetuate HIV-related health disparities.

Black gay men have less choice when it comes to sexual partners than other groups and, as a result, their sexual networks are closely knit. These tightly interconnected networks make the rapid spread of HIV more likely. The study leaders, H. Fisher Raymond and Willi McFarland, show that social barriers faced by black gay men may have a serious impact on their health and well-being.

Their findings are published in Springer’s journal AIDS and Behavior.