MAJ Rousseau Speaks about Men's health

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hi there uh i'm major jack rousseau i am
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the officer in charge of the human
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performance cell which is part of the
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joint support group uh for the new
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zealand defence force and we fall under
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the um
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directorate of defense health
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so my job is mainly around research and
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development and looking at how we
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perform as
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personnel in the defence force our
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servicemen and women
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so a lot of the research is around
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healthy lifestyles
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injury prevention
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also looking at chronic diseases and how
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we prevent those
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but mostly it's around physical fitness
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and health
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and how that relates to our servicemen
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and women
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so as an exercise physiologist
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my interest is obviously more around the
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exercise components and how exercise
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prevents disease and injuries that sort
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of stuff
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so what i'm going to talk to you about
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today is mainly around men's health
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because that's a bit of an issue and as
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males we kind of like shy away from our
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health and health issues we have a lot
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of men's health is around lifestyle
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factors and these are stuff like smoking
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um
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diets that are high in saturated fat and
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processed foods because they often taste
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nice because they're high in fat and fat
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does taste really nice and of course the
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other one is sugar sugar sweetened stuff
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sugar is nice we all love sweet stuff or
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most of us do but they're not really
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good for us if we're eating too much of
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them because what happens then we get
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excess body fat and a lot of the excess
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body fat that forms around the midriff
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which is the stomach and that is that
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visceral fat and that's really not bad
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for us because that smothers our
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internal organs and that has a lot of
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other byproducts that we don't want
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so watch out for that and then of course
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sedentary lifestyles in the military
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we're all expected to be fit and healthy
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but as we climb the ladder as we get
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older we tend to neglect our physical
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fitness
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a little bit we all become desk jockeys
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and when things get busy pt is normally
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the first thing that gets put aside
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so sedentary lifestyle not doing enough
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physical exercise is a major issue when
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it comes to health
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so you know try and make an effort to do
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some exercise even it's just going for a
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little walk or something get up and walk
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sitting behind a desk all day is not
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really good for us
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and the other thing is all this goes
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hand in hand with maintaining a healthy
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body weight and as i said before that
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little midriff that beautiful
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six-pack you've worked on
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all your life turns into a keg
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and that's not what we want
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so
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if you can take care of those and it's
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often not really easy to go on a diet to
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do exercise when there's a lot of work
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to be done and at the you know in
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defense force we often go to double
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heads sometimes triple h so it does get
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quite intense uh with our workloads but
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you have to make time for yourself you
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have to take time out it's really
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important think of your exercise in your
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diet as that little pull that you have
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to take
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think of it as your medicine and that's
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for your health benefits and you have to
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look after yourself because no one else
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looks after you
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like yourself
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so moving on now
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one of the things that i'd really like
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to discuss as well is prostate cancer
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it's the highest
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killer of males in new zealand so if we
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look at
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prostate cancer about 4 000 men are
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diagnosed with prostate cancer per year
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in new zealand and we see around about
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700 males die from prostate cancer every
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year so it is quite an issue with men in
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new zealand
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the big thing with prostate cancer is
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you don't know whether if you've got it
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or not the only way that you know if
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you've got prostate cancer is if you
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tested for it
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now if we look at prostate cancer
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there's a lot you can do to prevent
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prostate cancer from happening and as
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i've spoken before those lifestyle
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factors if you take care of those your
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chances of getting prostate cancer are
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minimized so you know
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if you're a smoker quit smoking you know
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look at your diet avoid the saturated
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fats and those processed foods try and
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cut sugar back you know and if you're
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reading a bit of a sedentary lifestyle
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try and increase your exercise a little
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bit more
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check your body weight make sure you're
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not
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you know that keg's not developing too
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much and try and get that
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six-pack back which is not always easy
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and then also another factor that we've
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really got to look at is sleep how much
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sleep we're having sleep is so important
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for us you know trying to go by with two
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three hours of sleep a night is just
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not good for you you have to sleep the
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body has to recover and it's during that
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recovery process that a lot of the
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physiological factors start coming and
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playing their role and get the body
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ready to face another day
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so watch your sleep um if you're not
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getting enough sleep try and do
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something about
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looking at good sleep and sleep hygiene
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which is which is quite important for us
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another factor for
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avoiding or slowing down the prostate
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cancer
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is look at your diet it's very important
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to watch your diet now a lot of research
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has been done around diet and prostate
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cancer and they found that there's a
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couple of things and that's
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green tea there's a little bit of
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research that says drinking green tea
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has shown to be beneficial in decreasing
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the risk of prostate cancer
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another one is having a look at diets
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that are rich in lysopene
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now that's a very flesh word and it's
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just a word used for fruit and
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vegetables that are red
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so you know like um tomatoes uh
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red onions red cabbage they
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have
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are shown to have a lot of
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benefits for
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you know slowing down that whole
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prostate cancer
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um
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effect or
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causes
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the only thing there is strawberries and
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cherries
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they don't have it in which is
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unfortunate because they pretty pretty
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nicely so like like
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lysophytes
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it's a hard word to say they have lots
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of antioxidants which are really good
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for us so they they
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you know a diet that is rich in these
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type of foods can slow down the onset
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or the risk of prostate cancer the other
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thing is exercise and as i said before
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as an exercise physiologist this is the
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area that really excites me and
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good exercise there's
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quite a lot of research that tells us
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regular exercise
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does prevent prostate cancer and if
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you've got prostate cancer it actually
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slows down the spread of prostate cancer
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and the type of exercise that is highly
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recommended is the high intensity
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intermittent exercise and there is uh
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information on this website about high
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intensity intermittent exercise so have
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a look at that
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because that type of exercise has proven
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to be really really good not only just
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for prostate cancer prevention but also
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for cardiovascular fitness so if
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you know if you
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if you're really fit and healthy there's
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all these side effects and other
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benefits that you'll get so cardiac
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vascular fitness goes hand in hand with
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prostate cancer prevention
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so
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i guess the end
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and the takeaway message this is stay
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fit and healthy eat healthy
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and exercise regularly and try and you
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know do the high intensity exercise
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training program if you want more
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information about this you're more than
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happy to contact myself and there are
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links on the website regarding high
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intensity fitness training
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so take care and look after yourselves
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because you've only got one you