Nutrition experts and the medical profession agree: men in the Western world eat too much fat and fatty foods. Not only does this kind of food contain high counts of calories that turn to fat if we don’t burn up enough through exercise, but it also causes high concentrations of fatty substances, cholesterol, in the bloodstream and so puts the heart at risk-Therefore as a means to survival nothing is better than a diet that sticks to the rules of sensible eating. You look better, feel better, and have a body that responds better to its environment. By eating sensibly you cut out useless foods and cut down on the risks of heart problems, strokes and high blood pressure. Cut out fatty foods and automatically you help your heart.

The following are the rules of sensible eating — not to be confused with the rules of dieting to lose weight, which follow.

Do not eat fatty meats like sausage, salami, mortadella, pork and duck and avoid all meat fat including the fine slivers of fat ringing roast beef.

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In short, the essence of the advice is that survival comes through the mind; loosening up on attitudes of what can be fun the most helpful pill of all. Sex should be fun; impotence never is.

For many men the simple solution of cutting down on alcohol helps, for although alcohol may make you feel good temporarily and give you inspiration, too much can numb the system and block out chances of erection. And taking regular exercise boosts vitality, the exercise contributing to making the body into a fit machine. Vitamin-E, often called the sex-vitamin, and Ginseng, the root said to have aphrodisiacal powers, have given some men the increased urge they seek, though the powers of both the vitamin and Ginseng to improve sexlife have been debunked by the medical profession. Vitamin-E is found in wheatgerm, dark green vegetables, wholewheat and eggs and can be bought in oil-based capsules. Short-term therapy is usually recommended as in the region of 200 to 400mg a day for about four weeks.

Nor should you forget masturbation, privately or with a partner. It does not, as therapists are quick to point out, make you go blind or grow hair on your palms — as schoolboy lore usually has it. Their word is that the more sexually active your body is, the more quickly you get back into the swing of things, the longer your sexlife lasts as you get older.

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One obvious source for the rumours about hormones and a man’s need to have booster injections of testosterone is attributed to the practice of those doctors and clinics who until recently made a habit of prescribing injections or hormone tablets as an easy way of treating the male-menopause in the apparent belief that if you give a man something to improve the performance of his penis, whether it works or not, he will believe in its efficacy and so will be miraculously cured of all his ills. A short course of hormone therapy can revive energy, health and libido in men after sixty but rarely is it any use to men around forty whose own production remains unimpaired and far from deficient.

In puberty testosterone is the masculinizing hormone that amongst its other actions makes the penis grow and pubic hair appear. By sixteen a man is at the peak of his fertility, a peak that lasts until he is about twenty when the production of testosterone slackens and slows down. This decline, however, is barely noticeable and years later around forty the fertility count remains high unless there has been an acute physical problem or illness. With the passage of time the production of testosterone continues slowing but the reduction is nonetheless hardly noticeable before a man reaches sixty. Some men go well into their seventies full of vigour and virility and start new families. Pablo Picasso and Charlie Chaplin are two fine examples.

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Escapism. From an early age everyone daydreams. It is a free, personal, easy and secret way of escaping reality. Daydreams are happy and always improve the quality of life as they feed the fantasy. And an M-M man uses them too to pretend he is improving his lot. He may be driving the car, walking to the subway, sitting at his work or even relaxing in an armchair and his mind will have wandered into another world where life is at its best, perhaps with some glamour, more sex, a new job, new house, money or, simply, escape. Reality has little to do with the dreams; these are fantasies about how life could be if only . . .

Returning to reality may make the reality seem worse. Feeling resentful he may vent his aggression on those nearest him.

Daydreams only occasionally offer practical solutions to problems.

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‘All menopausal men start growing their hair long and buy clothes in styles meant for young men.’

fact: Many do, but not all. Although dressing-young is considered one of the signs of a man going through mid-life crisis not all men take to wearing clothes that look great on men in their twenties. Often they will go to the other extreme and take great pains never to buy any item they think looks young on them. However when a man in his forties starts togging up in fancy shirts, jewellery and has a fancy haircut and starts wearing tracksuits and designer label denim clothes to dinner and parties it is a sure sign that M-M has visited him. Mutton-dressed-as-lamb as the adage goes.

‘Dirty old men who exhibit themselves to women and children in parks and other public places are going through the menopause.’

fact: No. Flashing is not an activity confined exclusively to menopausal men. Older men, boys in their teens and men in their twenties and thirties have been known to do it too. Some flashers may have the additional problems of M-M but their flaunting of the genitalia is a psychological problem, not one associated with M-M.

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