What a year! 2014 was certainly one of exploration and adventure and I am not just talking about the stock market, the Affordable Care Act or oil prices. In the realm of men’s health, here are some personal highlights:
- Testosterone comes under attack. The “elixir of life” for men became tainted with FDA warnings of associations with heart attacks, strokes and blood clots. Medicine or poison? Time will tell.
- Fitness trackers catch fire. Those oddly shaped wristbands are not only conversation pieces, they actually help men burn calories and stay fit. Men do love numbers!
- Avenues of awareness. I learned that one great way to raise awareness about prostate cancer and men’s fertility and health in general is through the simplest of social media platforms: tweeting. Goes to show you that less (140 characters) can indeed be more.
- The power of laughter and forgetting. Milan Kundera had it right in his novel of the same name. Laughter andstress reduction are great prescriptions for good health.
- Sperm Mapping lives on. I presented updates on Sperm Mapping for azoospermia to large audiences at the AUA and the Puah Institute and it looks as good as ever. Quality stands up well to the test of time.
- My year as SMRU president. It started with a vision and ended with “board meetings” in Hawaii. I hope that my legacy of putting the “health” into men’s health survives the ages.
- Infertility as a marker of longevity. Helped along by our early research showing that male infertility could be a biomarker of future health, reports continue to pour forth suggests that male infertility is really a “disease” like any other.
- Paternal age matters for sperm. The reproductive riff of being an older dad really unwound this year in bothlay and scientific circles and caused quite a ruckus among us.
- Sperm from skin? Not yet, but through the great potential of stem cells, we showed that we are much closer to this reality. And we picked up a patent on the artificial testicle to boot.
Looking forward to 2015? You bet. The future, if nothing, else, is another chance to make the world better.
