The three lady attendants looked at him in bewilderment. A moment later they all burst out laughing.

Remaining persistent he repeated his request and got exactly the same reaction. Seeing that he was not giving up, they sobered up and asked him for whom was he buying the sanitary ware. He replied and that brought about another burst of laughter. (After the giggling died down he patiently explained that since his wife needed the sanitary ware it meant that he was also not going to get any action in bed.

So that in the long run her periods affect their romance. After the frank explanation the attendants became helpful and asked him if he knew what brand she preferred. Here he was clueless and the ladies now turned friendly explained the different brands and types depending on a lady’s monthly flow. Defeated he resorted to phoning his wife who patiently told him the brand and type. In the long run he learnt something new with regards to menstruation.

Deciding to push the boundaries; as I knew my 44 year old colleague has a teenage daughter I dared to ask him if he knew his daughter had started her periods. The look he gave was deadly. As far as he was concerned that was his wife’s business and he had nothing to do with it. He emphasised that under no circumstances could he bring himself to ask his spouse. “If she asks me why I want to know what will I answer?” He retorted.

Pushing harder I asked as to why he wasn’t curious to know he shook his head and said, “That is a women’s business and I, as the father have other responsibilities to handle and definitely not that.” World over there is a move to get more men involved in sexual and reproductive health as partners, spouses, and fathers. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development ICPD in Cairo and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing formally recognised the role of men in promoting equality and better reproductive health for men and women.

The ICPD programme of action states amongst other things: Special efforts should be made to emphasise men’s shared responsibility and promote active involvement in responsible parenthood, sexual and reproductive behaviour including family planning, prenatal and maternal and child health; prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV prevention, prevention of unwanted and high risk pregnancies. Shared control and contributions to family income, children education, health and nutrition and more.

As regards to girls, their reproductive health needs are most vivid from menarche (the very first period). And over the years with better nutrition, girls start at an earlier age. On the contrary for centuries both religion and culture have made the inevitable monthly cycle necessary for healthy child bearing, a taboo topic for men whose only major interest in menstruation is when the partners are not bleeding.

Neither in some religions and cultures girls and women during their periods are not allowed to pray or enter the kitchen to cook as they are considered unclean amongst other restrictions. Is there anything that can be done to get fathers more concerned about the needs of their growing teenage daughters? For starters be an informed father or guardian. Much as you may not want to know the exact minute details of each of your daughter’s monthly cycle at least be aware of when your daughter starts. Where possible ask your spouse and have an informed grown up conversation.

Another gentleman in his mid fifties whose daughters are both in their early twenties said. “On both occasions my wife’s way of telling me was to say that they had grown up and that was the beginning and end of that discussion.” He knows that the money requested by his wife for shopping, covers the purchase of sanitary pads but it is never written as an item on the shopping list. Due to cultural and religious beliefs expect some resistance but do not give up.

The physical change also comes with an emotional baggage due to the hormone changes in her growing body. So that when your daughter goes into sudden mood swings at least you have an idea why. According to nutritionists, during the rapid growth of puberty, the body has increased need for calories and key nutrients including protein, calcium, iron, folate and zinc.

Iron and calcium are particularly important nutrients for her body during adolescence. Iron found in food like green leafy vegetables and meat helps her blood carry oxygen to all her muscles. It helps her brain function and helps her immune system fight disease. Menstruation increases a girl’s need for iron. Choosing iron-rich food sources can help keep your body working optimally. Her body will actually absorb more calcium from the foods she eats during puberty.

The increased need for skeletal growth signals her body to “grab” all the calcium it can. Much you may not be taken up by the change at this stage in her life your daughter especially if she attends a mixed gender school becomes more worried during her periods about going to school.

If the school toilets are not adequate she may end up opting not to go to school to avoid the inconvenience of not having a user friendly place to change. Researchers throughout sub-Saharan Africa have documented that the lack of sanitary pads, a clean, girls-only latrine and water for washing hands drives a significant number of girls from school. The United Nations Children’s Fund, for example, estimates that one in 10 school-age African girls either skips school during menstruation or drops out entirely because of lack of sanitation. Another issue to tackle at this stage is sexual and reproductive education.

Who would you like to teach her? Her mother? A close female relative? The school? Do not assume she will know everything. There is nothing more disturbing than starting puberty with no idea of what to expect. Above all knowledge on reproductive health should not end with male partners expertly timing their partners’ cycle. As a parent the reproductive health of your daughter will contribute towards the well being of your future grand children.

The program named Health Chunyun was held by Chinese Preventive Medicine Association’s Sterilization Branch, Shanghai Preventive Medical Association and Shanghai Railway Bureau’s disease control and prevention center, and was sponsored by Reckitt Benckiser China.

“During the Spring Festival peak travel season, the railway department’s work is not only to ensure passengers’ arriving on time but also to arrive healthily. The work of ensuring public health has long been an important part of the work at the railway station, especially during the transportation peak season,” official from the city’s railway bureau said.

Since a large number of people gather at railway stations during this time period, it would increase the risk of spreading disease. Thus, it’s very important and necessary to enhance the disinfection work at the railway station, the official said.

Under the program, special working teams will be dispatched to give disinfectants to passengers at the city’s railway station.

Meanwhile, pamphlets printed with information of keeping public health and avoiding contamination with bacteria will be sent to passengers. Warning posters will be also put up on the wall of the railway station’s waiting hall.

Washing hands is one of the most important methods to effectively prevent illness spreading. In this program, about 3,000 bottles of Dettol hand sanitizer will be distributed to the washrooms in the railway station for passengers.

As the most important traditional Chinese holiday, Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year is drawing near, tens of millions of passengers, mainly migrant workers and college students are on the move to return home for family reunions.

This year, a total of 3.16 billion passenger trips are expected during the 40-day peak travel season (from Jan 8 to Feb 16), up 9.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

This year, the Spring Festival falls on January 23.

Health Minister Eugenia Sader said women with implants made by the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese may go to hospitals that carry out plastic surgery to have the implants removed, the state-run Venezuelan News Agency reported.

Sader said Tuesday that the free procedure will simply be to remove the implants and will not include replacing them.

“Those patients are running a risk,” Sader said. However, she said, women need not seek emergency care and instead may visit hospitals at their convenience.

France’s health system has recommended that women with the PIP implants get them replaced, and has agreed to pay for surgeries. In Brazil and Argentina, however, health officials just recommend checkups.

The president of Brazil’s Plastic Surgeons Association, Jose Horacio Aboudib, said “I’d remove them from any patient that wants to, but I don’t see the need for everyone to go into surgery.”

“In France, the government pays for the surgery. Here it is not considered a public health risk, and so the patient would have to pay for it,” Aboudib said, noting that his association will create a breast implant registry in January, so that doctors can register information on surgeries and the implant material used in a database aimed at improving patient safety and care.

On Tuesday, a group of 50 women in Argentina threatened to sue their plastic surgeons if they don’t get free replacements of the faulty French breast implants.

The group is led by attorney Virginia Luna, who herself has the “PIP” silicone gel packs implanted in her breasts. She said five of her clients have obtained out-of-court agreements to provide free replacements, and if the rest don’t get them as well, her group will sue.

Argentine clinics say they’ll replace leaky implants, but the symptoms aren’t always detectable, and Luna says any woman with the faulty implants can suffer psychological damage.

It’s unclear how many women have the PIP implants in Venezuela, where breast enlargement surgery is popular and doctors say the French implants used to be widely used.

An estimated 35,000 to 40,000 women in the country have breast enlargement surgery each year, said Dr. Marisol Graterol, president of the Venezuelan Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has criticized the widespread popularity of breast surgery, saying women shouldn’t be sold on an image that big bosoms are attractive.

The plastic surgery society recommended last week that women with PIP breast implants see a doctor to have them checked. Graterol said doctors should decide depending on each patient’s situation whether or not the implants need to be removed.

Sales of PIP implants were halted in Venezuela in April 2010, Graterol said.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Henry Saud said he removed ruptured PIP implants from more than 10 patients during the past year.

In some cases, his patients hadn’t noticed anything wrong and the leaking implants were detected during imaging exams, Saud said. In other cases, “they felt discomfort and had swelling.”

“It used to be one of the most-used brands,” Saud said.

Lord Stern of Brentford cited meat-eating as a major cause of greenhouse gases.

He claimed direct emissions of methane from windy cows and pigs is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

And farming of animals leads to deforestation to provide land for cattle grazing and the production of animal feeds such as soy.

Lord Stern warned that if ­people do not ditch their roast beef and bacon butties, runaway climate change will threaten the lives of millions and leave ­British taxpayers with an annual £3billion bill within six years, to support those worst affected.

UN figures support his warning, showing meat production is to blame for about 18% of global carbon emissions. Despite not being a strict veggie himself, Lord Stern said: “Meat puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is far better.”

But his remarks provoked anger from the meat industry.

Jonathan Scurlock, of the National Farmers’ Union, said: “Going vegetarian is not a worldwide solution. And we don’t have a methane-free cow or pig available to us.”

Through the survey, the polling for which was done from September 14-20 this year, the research team examined the reasoning among those who said they would not get the vaccine or might not.

About 60 per cent adults were not “absolutely certain” that they would get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves, including 41 per cent who said they would not get it, 6 per cent who said they did not know whether they would get it, and 11 per cent who said that they were planning to get it but might change their mind.

About four in ten parents were not “absolutely certain” that they would get the vaccine for their children, including 21 per cent who would not get it, 7 per cent who did not know, and 16 per cent who said they were planning to get it but might change their mind.

If there were people in their community who were sick or dying from H1N1, roughly six in ten adults who said they did not think they would get the vaccine would change their mind and get it for themselves.

About the same percentage of parents, that is 60 per cent, who said they did not think they would get the vaccine for their children would change their minds if H1N1 was causing sickness or death in their community.

“These findings suggest that public health officials need to be prepared for a surge in demand for the H1N1 vaccine if the H1N1 flu becomes more severe,” said Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at HSPH.

Thirty per cent of those not “absolutely certain” they would get the H1N1 vaccine cited their fears about getting side effects from the vaccine as the reason.

Twenty-eight per cent of such people said that they did not think they were at risk of getting a serious case of the illness. About 26 per cent people said that they thought they could get medication to treat H1N1 if they did get sick.

Thirty-eight per cent of the parents who were not “absolutely sure” they would get the vaccine said that they were concerned about side effects of the vaccine.

Thirty-three per cent of such people said that they were concerned that their children could get other illnesses from the vaccine. About 31 per cent said that they did not trust public health officials to provide correct information about the safety of the vaccine.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty about what people will ultimately do in terms of getting the vaccine. If public health officials want to encourage a larger number of people to get vaccinated this fall, they will need to address the public’s concerns in the coming weeks,” said Blendon.

At this point in time, only about a third (33%) of the public sees the H1N1 vaccine as very safe “generally for most people to take.” By comparison, the figure is 57% for the seasonal flu vaccine. A smaller fraction of the public thinks the H1N1 vaccine is very safe for particular groups to take, including children ages 6 months to 2 years (18%) and pregnant women (13%). The Centers for Disease Control is encouraging these groups, among others, to get the vaccine as early as possible.

The surveyors found that public concern about a fall or winter outbreak of H1N1 had risen since June. Roughly 76 per cent of the public believed that there would be widespread cases of H1N1 this fall or winter with people getting very sick, an increase from June when only 59 per cent felt the same way.

More people were also concerned that they or someone in their immediate family would get sick from H1N1 during the next 12 months, 52 per cent in later September as compared to 38 per cent in June.

Roughly 64 per cent people thought that public health officials’ concerns about a possible outbreak had been justified, while 31 per cent thought that they had been overblown. The survey was part of a series of polls about the way that Americans, and their institutions are responding to the H1N1 flu outbreak.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius was joined by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Dr. Beth Bell of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in saying that the best treatment for the disease is prevention.

Duncan said that swine flu, known formally as H1N1, needs to be taken seriously to minimize the impact on the education process that a spread of the new influenza strain could have.

“We want colleges to be part of the solution,” Duncan said. “There has been remarkable partnership with agencies and the public. We all have collaborated to work hard.”

The trio, speaking on behalf of their respective institutions, advocated three primary ways to control the spread of the virus: prevention, close monitoring and common sense.

Duncan described a number of easy ways to prevent getting or spreading H1N1: wash your hands thoroughly, sneeze into your sleeve, practice social isolation when sick, keep your dorm rooms clean, do not attend class when sick and do not return to class until 24 hours after your fever breaks.

Bell said that this flu season has begun much earlier than normal, and that nearly all cases are H1N1. Flu has been reported in all 50 states but the highest numbers of incidents are in the southeast. She added that emergency room visits and activity in universities’ health services departments for flu have increased, with 21 states reporting widespread influenza activity on college campuses.

Bell said college students are advised to receive the H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available in October. One dose will be sufficient as young people have robust immune systems.

Antiviral treatment is available for those in high-risk groups, including women who are pregnant, those with lung or heart problems, asthma or diabetes. if you are in a high-risk group and get sick, contact a doctor immediately to see whether you should get antivirals, Bell said.

“H1N1 is so dangerous because it is a new strain of flu and we can’t be sure it won’t mutate into something more virulent,” Sebelius said. “Fortunately, the vaccines that we have been preparing since April are just as effective on the flu now as it was then. This is one way of indicating that the flu is in the same form as it has been for the past five months.”

The best protection by far, Sebelius said, is the vaccine, adding that Congress has made H1N1 awareness a major campaign at the request of President Barack Obama. Sebelius said that inoculating as many people as possible is one way to prevent its spread.

Bell said CDC statistics show more people dying from seasonal flu each year than have died from H1N1. She said one thing to be concerned about when comparing the seasonal flu with H1N1 is that the seasonal flu attacks those above the age of 65, while H1N1 mainly affects people under the age of 25.

There is no general suggestion for when colleges would have to consider stopping classes if an outbreak happens, Bell said. She said the policy on those decisions must be made locally, in consultation with local health officials and the university as a whole. Each university must look at its own capacities on a case-by-case basis.

“It is important that people take this seriously,” Sebelius said. “The economic and social impact of having millions of Americans miss work for 3-5 days, or of kids getting sick and their parents having to miss work involves the potential of businesses losing potential workers and workforces that can’t have continuity of business with so many employees sick. People need to do the little things to prevent the spread of H1N1.”

UA Campus Health Services will acquire the vaccine in October. Campus Health’s Web site strongly encourages students who think they have symptoms of H1N1 flu — fever over 102 degrees, body aches, sore throat, cough and runny nose, and sometimes vomiting and diarrhea — to stay home and call either a Campus Health Triage Nurse at (520) 621-6490 or the Campus Health After-Hours On Call Provider at (520) 570-7898.

While the device spared many patients from going to the hospital, it made no difference in saving lives, and some doctors say they won’t rush to implant more patients with the pricey devices.

The study compared patients who got a defibrillator to correct abnormal heart rhythms with patients who got a device that added a heart resynchronization device, which helps the lower chambers of the heart pump at the same time.

The results were announced Tuesday at the European Society for Cardiology meeting in Barcelona and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The defibrillator and resynchronization devices are commonly used in patients with serious heart failure, and doctors wondered if patients with mild illness might benefit.

“The answer is a clear, unequivocal yes,” said Arthur Moss, of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, and the study’s lead author.

Not everyone agreed. Douglas Zipes of the Indiana School of Medicine and a past president of the American College of Cardiology said too many patients were already getting the devices and that doctors needed to rethink who should get them.

Moss’ study tracked more than 1,800 patients with mild heart disease in North America and Europe for more than four years. About half of the patients got a defibrillator, while the other half got a defibrillator plus a resynchronization device. The two implants are nearly identical, except the resynchronization device has an extra electrode that stimulates the left side of the heart.

Overall, patients who got the combined device had a 41 percent lower chance of developing heart failure, though women’s chances dropped by 63 percent. The death rate in both device groups was about the same, around 3 percent.

The study was paid for by Boston Scientific Corp., which makes the devices.

In the U.S., about 60,000 patients with severe heart disease get the devices every year, out of more than 5 million people who have heart failure.

Some doctors thought the device’s price — it sells for approximately $30,000 to $40,000, not including the cost of implantation — would be a major stumbling block to its acceptance. Patients with mild heart failure, who were not experiencing any painful symptoms, might also be reluctant to have surgery to get the device.

Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association called it an “incremental (improvement), not a breakthrough.” Yancy was not linked to the research.

Others agreed the study wouldn’t immediately affect how heart failure patients are treated.

“Previous devices have shown us that it takes time to consider benefits for real-world populations,” said Alfred Bove, president of the American College of Cardiology in a statement. “Even if costs were not a factor, we still do not have enough information to expand treatment right away.”

The new finding, based on survey data, reveals that such manly beliefs could help to explain the lower life expectancy of men compared with women.

In the United States in 2005, life expectancy for women averaged about 80 years, while for men it was about 75 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This research strongly suggests that deep-seated masculinity beliefs are one core cause of men’s poor health, inasmuch as they reduce compliance with recommended preventative health services,” said study researcher Kristen Springer of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

So while acting the part of a “real man” can attract fertile gals and even help a person to heal faster from injury, keeping up the tough-guy part could mean dodging the doctor’s office.

The study will be presented today at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

Springer and Rutgers colleague Dawne Mouzon, a sociology graduate student, examined data from 1,000 middle-aged men who participated in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study in 2004. The researchers looked at participants’ masculinity beliefs, socioeconomic status and compliance with three commonly recommended annual healthcare procedures for middle-aged men: a physical exam, flu shot and prostate examination.

To reveal their level of machoness, participants rated eight items on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. These statements included, “When a husband and wife make decisions about buying major things for the home, the husband should have final say;” and “It bothers me when a man does something that I consider ‘feminine.’”

Men who strongly endorsed macho ideals were 26 percent less likely than other participants to have received a physical exam in the prior year, nearly 30 percent less likely to have completed a prostate exam and nearly 50 percent less likely to have obtained all three preventive services in the prior year.

While previous research has shown higher socioeconomic status promotes better health, the new research found that wasn’t the case for the manly men.

“As job status increases among men who have strong masculinity beliefs, the likelihood that they will obtain preventative healthcare declines significantly,” Springer said. “These findings provide some insight into the persistent gender paradox in health whereby men have a lower life expectancy at birth relative to women, despite having higher socioeconomic resources.”

(Compared with a woman, a man’s life expectancy has been found to be five years shorter and he is expected to have higher rates of 12 of the 15 leading causes of death, the researchers note.)

In fact, men with low-status, stereotypically macho jobs, such as machine operators, truck drivers and construction workers, were more likely than other participants to head to the doctor.

The researchers suggest several reasons for why macho men would avoid preventive healthcare. For instance, men in high-status jobs “do not want to feel emasculated by placing themselves in the subordinate position of patient,” the researchers note. Perhaps, they add, such men avoid the doctor because they have the resources to remedy any resulting health problems.

In addition, men with high-status jobs practice more autonomy and freedom to disagree with authority opinions and so, in the same way, they may just ignore health recommendations, the researchers suggest.

To figure out the cause and to extend the results to a broader population, Springer says the study should be replicated in a sample with more diversity, as the participants in this survey were primarily white, middle-aged men with high-school degrees.

In the meantime, barring a complete removal of masculine norms, in order to increase men’s likelihood of seeking preventive care, “we could flip the idea of masculinity on its head,” Springer told LiveScience. For instance, a public service announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows men in hospital gowns doing manly activities, such as helping their son fix the car, Springer said.

The American Institute for Cancer Research/World Cancer Fund, which is a Washington, D.C. nonprofit research group, reviewed the links between breast cancer and exercise, diet and body weigh in approximately 1,000 studies to come to this conclusion.

Susan Higginbotham, who is the director of research for the American Institute for Cancer Research, said, “We want women to know there are things they can do every day to prevent breast cancer. For instance, they can get physically active every day. As best they can, maintain a healthy body weight. Try not to gain weight, if you already have a healthy body weight. If you are overweight, get back to a healthy body weight. If you drink alcohol at all, limit drinking to one drink per day.” She also stated that just adding any amount of physical activity during your day is beneficial, including waking and climbing stairs. To reduce the risk of cancer is general, diets should be mostly plant-based, emphasizing on fruits, beans, whole grains, and vegetables, and limit the intake of red meats.

A weight gain of 34 pounds can increase the chances of breast cancer as much as 68 percent in younger women. The risk also increases with age and in proportion to an increased body weight. After age forty, a 12-pound weight gain can double the risk of breast cancer. Women that are over the age of fifty at maximum weight gain have triple the chances of developing breast cancer.

The new study published updates the breast cancer chapter of the report written in 2007 called “Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective,” which is a review of 873 studies. The research groups reviewed another 81 studies for the new report and then published the results on www.dietandcancerreport.org.

Dr. Michael Sabel, who is a surgical oncologist and associate professor of surgery at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, stated that t research supports these findings. He also said, “This is absolutely correct. The evidence is very strong, if not overwhelming, that lifestyle changes such as maintaining healthy body weight and exercise can not only help prevent cancer, it can have a greater impace on breast cancer outcomes than chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery.”

So if you have a history of breast cancer that runs in your family or are just generally concerned about the risks of developing breast cancer you can change your chance now by changing to a healthier lifestyle. You just might feel better as well by exercising, eating right, and maintaining a healthy body weight.

Diet is important in skin care. Fried foods and saturated fats should be eliminated, in favour of fruit and vegetables, if greasy skin is to be avoided. Stress can bring about hormonal changes, due to increased adrenal gland activity, which can exacerbate a greasy skin problem. You should be aware of your stress levels and, where possible, make adjustments to your lifestyle to bring about reductions.

Not all fats are bad for you or your skin, and you should ensure that your intake of essential fatty acids, (EFA’s) is sufficient, which can assist with flaky skin problems. Fish is an excellent source of EFA, and should be regularly included, as part of a healthy diet. Nuts and seeds will also help, and could be included at breakfast, or even as a healthy snacking alternative!

Collagen has been the subject of frequent press reports, usually when used in cosmetic injections, for the ‘benefit’ of famous people. The growth of new collagen can be naturally encouraged by an adequate intake of vitamin C in your diet. Fruit and vegetables are the best natural source, and are a tonic for your skin, as well as sustaining your general health. Smoking is known to inhibit the absorption of vitamin C. Therefore, it’s bad for your skin as well as being bad for your total well being.

Our lifestyle choices do much to influence our natural good health, as evidenced by a healthy, glowing skin, reflecting inner health and beauty.