Moffitt Cancer Center is holding its Annual Men’s Health Forum held at the University of South Florida on Saturday.
The forum offers free wellness check-ups including, but not limited to blood pressure, cholesterol, flu shots, hearing, vision, HIV/AIDS/STD, Hepatitis A, B, C, skin cancer, etc. to all males in the community.
Prostate exam vouchers will be distributed to qualifying males for a free prostate exam at Moffitt’s Lifetime Cancer Screening and Prevention Center.
To be eligible for a voucher you must be between the ages of 40 to 75 on March 17, 2012, live in the state of Florida, do not have insurance or your insurance does not cover prostate testing, attend the Men's Health Forum on March 17, 2012 and attend a Prostate Cancer Workshop while at the Forum.
More information regarding the Men’s Health Forum.
Rice, Type 2 diabetes link
Health researchers said on Thursday they had found a troubling link between higher consumption of rice and Type 2 diabetes, a disease that in some countries is becoming an epidemic.
Further work is need to probe the apparent association and diets that are notoriously high in sugar and fats should remain on the no-go list, they cautioned.
"What we've found is white rice is likely to increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, especially at high consumption levels such as in Asian populations," Qi Sun of the Harvard School of Public Health told AFP.
"But at the same time people should pay close attention to the other things they eat.
"It's very important to address not just a single food but the whole pattern of consumption."
In the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Sun's team said the link emerged from an analysis of four previously published studies, carried out in China, Japan, Australia and the United States.
These studies followed 350,000 people over a timescale from four to 22 years. More than 13,000 people developed Type 2 diabetes.
In the studies carried out in China and Japan, those who ate most rice were 55 percent likelier to develop the disease than those who ate least. In the United States and Australia, where consumption of rice is far lower, the difference was 12 percent.
Participants in the two Asian countries ate three or four servings of rice a day on average, compared to just one or two servings a week in the Western countries.
White rice is the dominant form of rice eaten in the world. Machines produce its polished look by hulling and milling, leaving a grain that is predominantly starch.
Brown rice, by contrast, has more fibre, magnesium and vitamins, and a lower "glycaemic index," a measurement of sugar content, than white rice.
High fat diets and sperm count
Diets high in saturated fat are bad for waistlines, but they can also have a negative impact below the waist.
They may lower sperm count and sperm concentration, according to a new study published in the journal Human Reproduction.
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School collected semen samples from 99 mostly overweight or obese men and assessed their diets by asking them how often over the previous year they had certain foods and beverages.
They found that eating a lot of saturated fat was associated with a lower total sperm count and concentration. Diets high in omega-3 polyunsaturated fats -- the fats commonly found in fish and plant oils -- were associated with better-quality semen, meaning the sperm cells were of a better size and shape. The study did not determine what particular kinds of saturated fats were linked to sperm count.
The study's lead author, Dr. Jill Attaman, now a reproductive endocrinologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, said the study could lead to a better understanding of how lifestyle factors affect male fertility.
"There are few clearly identifiable lifestyle modifications that can be made to optimize natural fertility, especially for males," Attaman told ABC News in an email. "This is the first report of a relation between specific dietary fats and semen quality."