Age related bowel problems, erectile dysfunction

The curious thing here is the word normal. It’s being used in this context to mean age-related. Most men in the sample didn’t have erectile dysfunction. But because ED’s frequency increases with age, and because we think of aging as a universal process accompanied by physical decline, ED seems normal.

Since “urinary and bowel dysfunction were not part of the ‘normal’ aging process,” the authors conclude, they “may well be related to prior treatment” in men who have been treated for prostate cancer. This appears to make them logical targets for prevention or remedy. Does the opposite implication follow for ED? Does its “normality” make it a less compelling target?

There are many plausible ways to think about normality and health. Age-dependence is one of them. To me, the authors’ framework makes sense: Medicine should focus first on maladies that strike some people unusually early in life. Maladies that accumulate with age are less unfair. They’re also less tractable, since they’re more biologically inherent.

ED, however, is a confounding example because it’s in the process of being transformed from a “normal” to a commonly treated condition. Bob Dole made his famous ad for Viagra in 1999, when he was 76. In the last decade, 35 million men have used Viagra. Millions more have taken similar drugs such as Cialis or Levitra. Modern man has set out to conquer the ancient loss of manhood.
Which brings us back to the question posed in Urology: Does normal aging imply ED? The answer seems to be: It used to. And that’s not just a change in the way we think about erections. It’s a change in the way we think about aging.

Powerful drug against erectile dysfunction with a banana split

Cape Town - The menu of a St Francis Bay chef, who apparently serves up a powerful drug against erectile dysfunction with a banana split, was shrouded in mystery when Die Burger newspaper tried to investigate.

One of the items on Big Time Taverna’s dessert menu, between Greek baklava and ice-cream desserts is the so-called Viagra, but whether or not it’s the real thing is not that easy to determine.

The owner, Peri Tsiotsiopoulos, said that, in fact, he served up Cialis, a schedule four drug that is prescribed for erectile dysfunction.

He said the whole thing began about two years ago at the cheeky suggestion of a visitor from Holland to the Eastern Cape town.

Side effects

The popularity of the dessert had increased by leaps and bounds.

Tsiotsiopoulos said he had sold about 80 of the desserts in December, and men had left the restaurant bouncing like Bambi.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” he said.

But when Die Burger spoke to medical experts they were less than amused that chefs could be dispensing prescription medicine such as Viagra and Cialis.

“That falls outside the parameters of the restaurant business,” said Dr Marmol Stoltz, chairperson of the Western Cape branch of the South African Medical Association.

She said any doctor who encountered such a dish ought to “report it”.

Brian Thomas, a chemist at Prospur Pharmacy in Plumstead, was also shocked.

“The medication is not available without prescription because it can have dangerous side effects on some people. It’s like playing with medicine without understanding it.”

When questioned about the possible health dangers, Tsiotsiopoulos countered that the desserts he served were sometimes just sugar-coated sweets, and that customers were asked for “a certificate” before they were served Cialis.

When asked how he got hold of Cialis, he said: “That’s my indaba.”

Well-informed sources said Cialis was available only with a doctor’s prescription and cost about R180 for two pills.
More…

Sub way ads and TV ad campaigns and public reaction

Proving again, these are strange times in the “broadcast content” game.

The broadcast world still feels a big chill from the FCC’s largely symbolic, but effective, “crackdown” threats following the 2004 Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident.

Yet advertisers and producers now present even more graphic content, by avoiding specific words and images.

Ads for Viagra and Cialis, at first gauzy and circumspect, are becoming more explicit about what they’re really selling. A pregnancy-test ad that ran during the Miss America pageant this weekend on TLC featured “pee” hitting the test stick.

The media tend to work like this, each new wave pushing the line and flattering viewers that they are urbane and sophisticated.

Or not.

Because the same ads tell other viewers that if they feel uncomfortable, they must be unhip and uncool - a response, incidentally, that many advertisers think is fine.

Just as a 4-year-old loves getting a reaction from Mom and Dad by saying “doo-doo head,” a lot of adults enjoy a line more if someone else finds it shocking. Call it “Howard Stern syndrome.”

The old Madison Avenue wouldn’t have risked chuckling at even a tiny percentage of the potential audience for a mass-appeal product like a sandwich.

Today it will, and that in turn may be one more small part of the reason so many Americans today consider TV an alien force.

Even beyond the handful of fanatics who think “Desperate Housewives” is ruining America, millions of rational people feel TV is indifferent to them and at times downright dangerous to their children.

And to whom can they turn? Well, the FCC last week decided to help cleanse the airwaves by slapping a $1.4 million fine on ABC for a 2003 “NYPD Blue” in which a young boy walked into a bathroom just as actress Charlotte Ross disrobed to step into the shower.

Nudity? Well, yeah. But the scene was a joke, which would make it useless in drawing any kind of content line even if such a line existed.

Similarly ad for cealis from Eli lilly too.

Television is such a vast, sprawling entity today that there are as many lines as there are Americans. No matter how we try to throw a rope around it, that’s where we are.