Wednesday, June 04, 2008 Men in a mess of genes By Zosimo T. Literatus, R.M.T. Breakthroughs
“IT is men who face the biggest problems in the future,” observed British broadcaster Anna Ford in her book Remark. “Adjusting to their new and complicated role.”
These include war, politics, unhealthy lifestyle, and a genetic makeup that heighten the risks.
Men can be eight or 10 times more prone to develop liver cancer than women in Asia. Liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and the third-biggest killer.
Researchers at the Division of Comparative Medicine (DCM) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the male liver is less equipped than female liver to cope with long-term inflammation. The team included scientists from DCM, the Center for Environmental Health Sciences, and the Department of Biological Engineering.
Arlin Rogers, principal research scientist at DCM, explained that male and female livers are inherently different, with most of the differences coming out during puberty when male livers received periodic bursts of growth hormone, forcing male livers to express different genes than female’s.
The result, published in the January 30 issue of Tech Talk, noted that male liver affected by chronic hepatitis has some genes overreact and others turn off, making it unable to maintain normal functions, and letting cancer develop.
Cancers of other organs (e.g. stomach, colon) also involve long-term inflammation, and are more common in men.
Comparatively, the female liver follows a “default” developmental pathway, making it more stable against cancer.
Most men operate their lives assuming that everything in their body is in order, not knowing that their liver alone is a genetic mess — a bomb of fatal complications if no extra care is given to help it manage its daily load of toxins.
If you consider a man's food intake alone — alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, high carbohydrates and red meat, uppers (coffee, energy drinks, etc.), junk foods — you will wonder how long his liver can hold off the barrage of free radicals.
Each time I see an old woman holding tight to her equally old husband (who has difficulty navigating the sidewalk he once breezed through), I realize how we men might have abused our body when it was still young.
The great physician Hippocrates counseled in Sacred Disease: “All men should know that the brain, and the brain only, is responsible for and is the seat of all our joys and happiness; our pain and sadness; here is seated wisdom, understanding, and the knowledge of the difference between good and evil.”
All those pursuits that give us the fleeting sense of power, satisfaction, and ego-boost are mere illusions of control when our lives could have been spent in living life to the fullness of its purpose. And then leave this world a better place than we first found it.
