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Men's Greatest Fear: Impotence
May. 18, 2001
Men fear impotence more than cancer, Aids or even death,
according to a survey.
Only heart disease scares the nation's male population
more than sexual inability, a poll of 500 men in the UK found.
Asked about their greatest health fear, 23% said it was
heart disease, 18% cited impotence, 10% said Aids and 9% claimed death.
Just 7% said testicular cancer scared them most, while
only 4% were most concerned about prostate cancer.
The poll was conducted for a new magazine called Aware,
being launched next month to give men information about male cancers and encourage them to
check themselves regularly.
Together, testicular and prostate cancers kill more than
10,000 men in the UK each year, although both can be treated if they are diagnosed early
enough.
But ignorance about the condition and men's reluctance to
go to their doctor means that cases of testicular cancer in young men have risen by 70% in
the last 20 years.
The survey found that 81% of men had no idea or were not
sure about how to examine their testicles and only 39% had ever tried.
More than half did not know what the symptoms of
testicular cancer were. And 54% admitted that they did not even know where in their body
their prostate gland was.
Although more than two thirds of men insisted they had no
problem talking to their GP about intimate problems, one in three had not been to their
doctor at all in the last two years.
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