'Stupid male syndrome': Doctor says women can help keep their husbands healthy

Dr. Siegfried Kra has some advice that could save men's lives. Funny thing is, the advice isn't for men. It's for their wives.

Get a husband to make an appointment for a physical, Kra says. And then nudge him, ever so sweetly, to keep it.

"Oh, and get him to eat more veggies, cut back on red meat and exercise a little," he adds. Learn the warning signs of depression, heart disease, stroke and cancer. Know what things should be covered in a thorough physical. And speak up if it doesn't get done.

"OK," Kra will admit to the skeptical spouse, "I am putting a lot of pressure on you."

But, he adds, consider the pressure on the husband. "I'm not talking about work pressure or breadwinner pressure," he says. "What I'm talking about is the real pressure. Statistically we know that men die younger than women. If you want your husband to stick around, you may have to help him a little. Because we men, we're not so good at it when left to our own devices."

In his fifth book, "How to Keep Your Husband Alive" (Lehbar-Freeman, $24.95), Kra, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, offers tips to spouses and life partners for sustaining their mate's health.

He's not saying it's exclusively a woman's place to drag her husband to the doctor. "It's just that most men, we commit medical malpractice on ourselves," he said. Only one in four adult men regularly sees an internist or family doctor for routine physicals, he notes.

This phenomenon exists, he adds, even when men have medical histories that should prompt vigilance — such as a propensity for heart attacks, high cholesterol or certain cancers.

So Kra targeted his latest book to a female audience because, he says, he's a pragmatic guy. And a stereotype of the lousy male patient. Once, he admits, he got short of breath after a tennis match and stayed that way for three days before he sought medical care.

"I thought I had a cold," he says. Turns out he was seriously ill and needed to be hospitalized. Still, he wanted to do his patient rounds before he was admitted. "You see, I suffer from stupid male syndrome, too," he says. "Like a lot of men, I hate to admit it, but I was afraid."

Women, Kra says, tend to see doctors more often, because of visits for gynecological care. And, he adds, they tend to be informed health consumers who take symptoms more seriously.

In a national study, 24 percent of men said they hadn't seen a doctor in the previous year, compared with just 8 percent of women.

The 2000 study by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based health-research firm, also found that men delay getting care despite warning signs. When asked what they would do if they were in pain or feeling sick, 24 percent said they would wait as long as possible before seeing a doctor.

So a man's first line of medical defense is his wife or partner, Kra says.

"They are the ones who know if their husbands are looking pale, tired or suffering from something like impotence," he says, noting that sexual dysfunction can be associated with a host of medical conditions, including cancer.

But what if a husband is one of those meat-and-potato guys who won't eat his veggies, has a few too many beers, maybe even smokes and thinks you go to the doctor only for life-threatening things, like car wrecks and heart attacks?

Kra insists a woman doesn't have to nag to win her husband's cooperation. "Say something like, 'We have so much to look forward to, and you've been so tired lately,' or, 'You've been gaining weight, and I just think you should get a checkup,' " says Kra.

While a spouse may not be able to get away with a complete nutritional overhaul, Kra says making subtle changes can go a long way. "You can have red meat once a week," he says, "but you shouldn't be having it every night."

In the end, though, Kra concedes, a wife can't force an unwilling husband to care for his health.

"He's a mature man. He's got to make his own decisions, but you can help him along," he says.