Why men die before their wives

The question has always been asked on why there are more widows than widowers in most neighbhourhoods. Why is it that women have higher chances of surviving their husbands. What is that thing that kills the man ahead of his wife?

A man wants to call the shots in everything he is involved in; politics, religion, business, sports. But as much as he rules these worlds, when it comes to his health, man seems to have a far lower sense of judgment in what makes him healthy or unhealthy.

Why would a man want to avoid going to the hospital when it holds the aces to his productivity in other areas of his life?

A short research in the course of writing this piece reemphasised the obvious about men’s attitude towards clinic matters.

It is well established that more men die earlier than women, but what is still confusing is why men are still perceived lackadaisical about their health?

A study by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in 2001 revealed that women are 33 per cent more likely than men to visit a doctor in general, expectedly, the gap narrows with increasing age.

With this in view, it is no surprise that men die at higher rate than women from the top 10 causes of death, according to a report by Men’s Health Network (MHN).

Those causes are heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, accidents, pneumonia and influenza, diabetes, suicide, kidney disease, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.

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A survey conducted by Saturday Tribune on whether men really visit the hospital for medical solutions revealed that hospital is about the last port of call for any kind of medical solutions for men.

Apart from unequipped hospitals in the country (which is a topic of discussion for another day) that some have advanced as one of the reasons many men do not consider hospital for health remedy, others are personal and correctable.

According to Dr Olawumi Adekola, men are exploratory; they are more aggressive and are likely to die from most of the physical causes of death like road accidents and drug abuse.

Though some researches favour men to die younger than women, it is noteworthy to say that this doesn’t cut across all societal settings.

Dr Adekola explained that “Developing countries like Nigeria, for instance, with the kind of health system available, there is likely to be more death among women in reproductive age than men, and maternal mortality is one of the high causes of death in developing countries.

Below are some of the subtle but critical causes of more deaths among men than women.

Men are too egocentric!

“You don’t believe me?” she asked. Okay, let me tell you what my husband did.

“I couldn’t conceive after marriage and like everybody would have done, I went to the hospital and the doctor advised that I invite my husband, but he wouldn’t take any of that…but when the problem persisted, he sneaked to the hospital for a test and it was discovered that he had low sperm count!

“Guess what? He didn’t tell me about it; it was the doctor that trusted me with that information just so I don’t kill myself thinking I was the problem… the rest is history.”

If there is one reason one shouldn’t keep regular dates with the hospitals, putting your ego before your health is way off the mark.

The trick about staying healthy doesn’t include treating an ailment; it is more of preventing an ailment before it points to the grave.

Heart diseases, low sperm count, stroke among others, might be difficult to detect if there is no regular checkup.

So, if you really want to beat the landmark age, you may want to pocket your ego and go straight for check and when you’re done, let your ego brag about how healthy you are.

Men are too private

Does a private man exist? We all hear about silent deaths every time, I even have a friend that would never speak up no matter how broke or hungry he is. Talking about people suffering in silence, but you cannot suffer in silence when we talk about healthy living.

A study has shown that most men who claim to have private life are the ones that die more of silence killer diseases.

There was the news of a man, a journalist. He proofread for his organisation and he was so passionate about his job that he got to work before anybody else and was always the last person to leave work.

His colleagues got so used to this unenviable lifestyle and the only way they know he was present for the day’s work was when he finished his work.

On a usual work day for him, he suffered a heart attack in the line of duty and died on his seat without anybody noticing. But that was not the news.

He was stone dead on his desk. The cleaners were the first to know, but it was not until after five days!

You don’t want to go down like that, do you?

Herbs to the rescue

Really, what is wrong with taking herbs? Unfortunately, the undoing of the Federal Government and the Ministry of Health in not regulating the use of herbs has turned everybody that could fluently speak a local language to an herb expert.

While China, India and other Asian nations have promoted a healthy lifestyle with righteous usage of herbal drugs, Nigeria has made a hoax out of it, thereby exposing themselves to untold dangers.

Sadly, this is what fascinates some men and they have fashioned a way of life in this uncanny practice.

For the love of life, good life, unless the use of herbal drugs is modulated, it will continue to take fathers, husbands and men generally away from the hospital and life.