RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas –
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise men to "know and understand your numbers."
Knowing those numbers - blood pressure, cholesterol count, blood sugar levels and body mass index - is especially important given the prevalence of a chronic medical condition at Randolph and throughout the United States.
"Hypertension is the most prominent problem with our population," said Maj. Lester Loreto, outgoing 359th Medical Group healthcare integrator. "A majority of the people we see are retirees. It is consistently the issue we deal with."
Major Loreto said knowing and understanding your numbers is just one of a list of recommendations the CDC emphasizes during the June Men's Health Month observance and men should follow throughout the year.
Among other recommendations are working safely - making sure you have the right safety equipment, getting the proper training and taking precautions to prevent injury - getting vaccinated and paying attention to the signs and symptoms of conditions such as prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and lung cancer.
High blood pressure is so prevalent that the Randolph Clinic is summoning more resources to address it through its newly implemented disease management team, a component of the Air Force's Family Health Initiative.
"It's a platform for the patient to know the primary care manager," said Major Loreto. "The disease management team's main role is to look at a specific disease population and manage it through an individual approach."
Maj. Jolene Ainsworth, who is succeeding Major Loreto as healthcare integrator, said heredity, smoking, poor dietary habits and a sedentary lifestyle all contribute to hypertension. Other factors include Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol.
However, people can take steps to address the problem, Majors Loreto and Ainsworth said.
Those strategies include eating the right amounts of fruits and vegetables each day, engaging in a half-hour of physical activity five days a week at a minimum and not smoking.
Getting regular medical checkups is also important, but the CDC says women are 100 percent more likely to visit the doctor for annual examinations and preventive services than men, which may partly explain why men die at higher rates than women from the top 10 causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, workplace injuries, stroke and suicide.
"Women will go in for an annual checkup and men will go in for a PSA, but unless they're ill, men tend not to visit the doctor," Major Ainsworth said. A PSA is the prostate-specific antigen test, which is used as a prostate-cancer screening tool.
The prostate, a walnut-sized gland that surrounds the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder, grows during puberty and again at about age 40. Three diseases - prostatitis, benign prostatic hyperplasia (also known as prostate enlargement) and prostate cancer - are associated with the gland.
The American Cancer Society recommends an annual PSA test and digital rectal exam for men starting at age 50. Men at high risk for prostate cancer - African Americans and those whose father or brother had prostate cancer at an early age - should begin having these tests at age 45.
The ACS also recommends that men over 50 be screened for colorectal cancer. A colonoscopy is the "golden test" for this disease; if results are normal, the test is considered good for 10 years.
Both healthcare integrators said Airmen at Randolph have an advantage in addressing their healthcare needs because of the presence of facilities such as the Health and Wellness Center and the Rambler Fitness Center, which offer myriad classes and activities that promote a healthy lifestyle.
In addition, the Air Force Fitness Program next month will institute stricter standards to promote a culture of fitness.