Sick guys
This week, the DAK presented its "Health Report 2008". The comprehensive study has the main topic "man and health" and is full of interesting numbers.
Among other things, the study investigates the question why women live on average 5.6 years longer, That is not because they get the better medicine. And even in part to biology: Experts believe that the genetic difference in life expectancy is one to two years. The rest are done by men through more or less self-destructive behavior: Middle-aged men die most often from lung cancer, heart attack or "alcoholic liver disease"; in women of the same age the most common cause of death is breast cancer.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde author Irene Stratenwerth
Surprisingly, according to the results of interviews, men still feel healthier than women. They are also written a little less frequently ill. Especially in sectors where both sexes engage in similar activities - education, healthcare, banking and insurance - female employees have more days off, And while sick leave has declined overall, mental health problems have become a major source of lost work in recent years, and more so in women than in men. The most striking difference is that women suffer from depression almost twice as often.
However, the experts here assume a high number of unreported cases - because men do not want to be soft-headed and prefer to drown their symptoms in alcohol rather than seek help, Otherwise, the report shows once more, do not like guys like to go to the doctor: Only one in five men, but every second woman goes regularly to the precautionary check-up 35+.
What do we learn from all this? Is our health care system more appropriate for women? Are women brought up by their gynecologists from early on to more reasonable patients? Are men simply different by nature? Do special men's doctors have to come from? All these questions were discussed controversially by the experts involved in the DAK study.
For me, the thesis that scientists such as Prof. Petra Kolip from Bremen or the psychiatrist Prof. Anke Rohde from Bonn have been representing for some time already shines light on: So-called gender-sensitive medicine, which finally takes the physical and psychosocial differences between men and women seriously, would ultimately help both sides. In cardiovascular diseases as well as in dealing with depression or in pain therapy. After all, we do not want to compete with the male world for our life expectancy - but rather to grow old as healthy as possible.
