Al caer la bicicleta, extendió el brazo izquierdo para amortiguar la caída. No parecía un accidente grave, pero “no podía levantarme”.

En la sala de emergencias, las radiografías mostraron que se había fracturado la cadera, que requirió cirugía, y el hombro. Klein, quien es dentista, volvió a trabajar tres semanas después, usando un bastón. Después de unos seis meses y mucha fisioterapia, se sintió bien.

Pero se quedó pensando en el daño que le había causado la caída. “Se supone que una persona de 52 años no se rompe la cadera y el hombro”, dijo. En una visita de seguimiento con su traumatólogo, dijo: “Quizás debería hacerme una densitometría ósea”.

Como sospechaba, la prueba reveló que había desarrollado osteoporosis, una enfermedad progresiva que empeora con la edad, debilita los huesos y puede provocar fracturas graves. Klein comenzó de inmediato un tratamiento farmacológico y, ahora con 70 años, continúa tomándolo.

La osteoporosis es mucho más común en mujeres, para quienes las pautas médicas recomiendan la , por lo que un hombre que no fuera profesional de salud podría no haber considerado una densitometría. El traumatólogo no mencionó la posibilidad.

Pero aproximadamente hombres mayores de 50 sufrirá una fractura vinculada a la osteoporosis, y entre los adultos mayores, aproximadamente de las fracturas de cadera ocurren en hombres.

Y cuando se presenta, “los hombres tienen peores pronósticos”, afirmó la doctora Cathleen Colon-Emeric, geriatra del Sistema de Atención Médica de Veteranos de Durham y de la Universidad de Duke, y autora principal de un estudio reciente sobre el tratamiento de la osteoporosis en veteranos varones.

“Los hombres no se recuperan tan bien como las mujeres”, afirmó, con tasas más altas de mortalidad (entre el 25% y el 30% en un año), discapacidad y hospitalizaciones. “Un hombre de 50 años tiene más probabilidades de morir por complicaciones de una fractura osteoporótica mayor que por cáncer de próstata”, agregó.

(驴Qué se considera “mayor”? Fracturas de muñeca, cadera, fémur, húmero, pelvis o vértebra).

En su de entre 65 y 85 años, realizado en centros de salud del Departamento de Asuntos de Veteranos de Carolina del Norte y Virginia, solo el 2% de los asignados al grupo de control se había sometido a una densitometría ósea.

“Sorprendentemente bajo”, afirmó Douglas Bauer, epidemiólogo clínico e investigador de osteoporosis en la Universidad de California en San Francisco, quien publicó un en JAMA Internal Medicine. “Pésimo. Y eso en el Departamento de Asuntos de Veteranos, donde lo financia el gobierno”. Pero la creación de un servicio de salud ósea, supervisado por una enfermera que registraba las indicaciones, enviaba recordatorios frecuentes de citas y explicaba los resultados, produjo cambios drásticos en el grupo de intervención, que presentaba al menos un factor de riesgo para la afección.

El 49% de ellos aceptó una ecografía. La mitad de los examinados presentaba osteoporosis o una afección previa, llamada osteopenia. Cuando correspondía, la mayoría comenzó a tomar medicamentos para preservar o reconstruir sus huesos.

“Nos sorprendió gratamente que tantos aceptaran hacerse la prueba y estuvieran dispuestos a iniciar el tratamiento”, afirmó Colon-Emeric.

Después de 18 meses, la densidad ósea había aumentado ligeramente en el grupo de intervención, que siguió mejorando sus tratamientos farmacológicos, comparado con los pacientes con osteoporosis de ambos sexos en condiciones reales.

El estudio no se prolongó lo suficiente como para determinar si la densidad ósea aumentó aún más o si las fracturas disminuyeron, pero los investigadores planean un análisis secundario para realizar un seguimiento.

Los resultados reavivan una pregunta de larga data: dado lo trascendentales e incluso mortales que pueden ser estas fracturas, y la disponibilidad de medicamentos eficaces para ralentizar o revertir la pérdida ósea, 驴deberían los hombres mayores someterse a pruebas de detección de osteoporosis, al igual que las mujeres? De ser así, 驴a qué hombres y cuándo?

Estos problemas eran menos importantes cuando la esperanza de vida era más corta, explicó Bauer. Los hombres tienen huesos más grandes y gruesos, y tienden a desarrollar osteoporosis entre cinco y diez años después que las mujeres. “Hasta hace poco, esos hombres morían de enfermedades cardíacas y por fumar” antes de que la osteoporosis pudiera perjudicarlos, afirmó.

“Ahora, los hombres viven en general hasta los 70 y 80 años, por lo que sufren fracturas”, dijo. Para entonces, también han acumulado otras enfermedades crónicas que afectan su capacidad de recuperación.

Con las pruebas y el tratamiento de la osteoporosis, “un hombre podría observar una clara mejora en la mortalidad y, lo que es más importante, en su calidad de vida”, afirmó Bauer.

Sin embargo, tanto los pacientes como muchos médicos todavía tienden a considerar la osteoporosis como una enfermedad propia de las mujeres. “Hay algo así como una idea de Superman”, dijo Eric Orwoll, endocrinólogo e investigador de osteoporosis en la Oregon Healt & Science University.

“A los hombres les gusta creer que son indestructibles, por lo que no se le presta a la factura la importancia que que debería tener”, añadió.

Un paciente, por ejemplo, se resistió durante años a las súplicas de su esposa, una enfermera, de que “visitara a alguien” por su espalda visiblemente encorvada.

Bob Grossman, de 74 años, maestro de escuela pública retirado de Portland, decidió corregir su postura y se dijo a sí mismo que debía enderezarse. “Pensé: 鈥楴o puede ser osteoporosis, soy un hombre'”, dijo. Pero era.

Otro obstáculo para las pruebas de detección: “Las guías de práctica clínica son muy diversas”, dijo el Dr. Colon-Emeric.

Asociaciones profesionales como la Sociedad Endócrina y la Sociedad Americana para la Investigación Ósea y Mineral recomiendan que los hombres mayores de 50 años con un factor de riesgo, y todos los hombres de más de 70, .

Sin embargo, el y el de Estados Unidos han considerado que la evidencia para las pruebas de detección en hombres es “insuficiente”.

Los ensayos clínicos han descubierto que los medicamentos para la osteoporosis en hombres, al igual que en mujeres, pero la mayoría de los estudios en hombres han sido demasiado pequeños o no han tenido suficiente seguimiento para demostrar si las fracturas también disminuyeron.

La postura del grupo de trabajo significa que Medicare y muchas aseguradoras privadas generalmente no cubrirán las pruebas de detección para hombres que no han tenido una fractura, aunque sí cubren la atención para hombres diagnosticados con osteoporosis.

“Las cosas han estado estancadas durante décadas”, dijo Orwoll.

Por lo tanto, puede que los pacientes varones mayores sean los que pregunten a sus médicos sobre una densitometría ósea, ampliamente disponible a un costo de entre $100 y $300. De lo contrario, dado que la osteoporosis suele ser asintomática, los hombres (y las mujeres, que también reciben pocas pruebas y tratamientos) no saben que sus huesos se han deteriorado hasta que se fracturan.

“Si sufrió una fractura después de los 50 años, debería hacerse una densitometría ósea; es uno de los indicadores clave”, aconsejó Orwoll.

Otros factores de riesgo: caídas, antecedentes familiares de fracturas de cadera y una larga lista de otras afecciones, como artritis reumatoide, hipertiroidismo y enfermedad de Parkinson. Fumar y el consumo excesivo de alcohol también aumentan las probabilidades de padecer osteoporosis.

“Varios medicamentos también afectan la densidad ósea”, explicó Colon-Emeric, en particular los esteroides y los medicamentos contra el cáncer de próstata. Cuando una ecografía revela osteoporosis, dependiendo de su gravedad, los médicos pueden recetar medicamentos orales como Fosamax o Actonel, formulaciones intravenosas como Reclast, autoinyecciones diarias de Forteo o Tymlos, o inyecciones semestrales de Prolia.

Cambios en el estilo de vida, como hacer ejercicio, tomar suplementos de calcio y vitamina D, dejar de fumar y beber con moderación, ayudarán, pero no son suficientes para detener o revertir la pérdida ósea, afirmó Colon-Emeric.

Aunque las directrices no lo recomiendan universalmente, al menos no todavía, le gustaría que todos los hombres mayores de 70 años se sometieran a las pruebas de detección, ya que las probabilidades de discapacidad después de una fractura de cadera son muy altas (dos tercios de las personas mayores no recuperarán su movilidad previa, indicó) y los medicamentos que la tratan son eficaces y, a menudo, económicos.

Sin embargo, informar a los pacientes y profesionales de salud de que la osteoporosis también amenaza a los hombres ha avanzado “a de tortuga”, afirmó Orwoll.

听Klein recuerda haber asistido a un seminario para instruir a pacientes como él en el uso del medicamento Forteo. “Era el único hombre”, dijo.

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As the bike toppled, he thrust out his left arm to break the fall. It didn’t seem like a serious accident, yet “I couldn’t get up,” he said.

At the emergency room, X-rays showed that he had fractured both his hip, which required surgical repair, and his shoulder. Klein, a dentist, went back to work in three weeks, using a cane. After about six months and plenty of physical therapy, he felt fine.

But he wondered about the damage the fall had caused. “A 52-year-old is not supposed to break a hip and a shoulder,” he said. At a follow-up visit with his orthopedist, “I said, 鈥楳aybe I should have a bone density scan.’”

As Klein suspected, the test showed he had developed osteoporosis, a progressive condition, increasing sharply with age, that thins and weakens bones and can lead to serious fractures. Klein immediately began a drug regimen and, now 70, remains on one.

Osteoporosis occurs so much more commonly in women, for whom medical guidelines recommend , that a man who was not a health care professional might not have thought about getting a scan. The orthopedist didn’t raise the prospect.

But about will suffer an osteoporotic fracture in their remaining years, and among older adults, about .

When they do, “men have worse outcomes,” said Cathleen Colón-Emeric, a geriatrician at the Durham VA Health Care System and Duke University and the lead author of a recent study of osteoporosis treatment in male veterans.

“Men don’t do as well in recovery as women,” she said, with (25% to 30% within a year), disability and institutionalization. “A 50-year-old man is more likely to die from the complications of a major osteoporotic fracture than from prostate cancer,” she said.

(What’s “major”? Fractures of the wrist, hip, femur, humerus, pelvis or vertebra.)

In her ages 65 to 85, conducted at Veterans Affairs health centers in North Carolina and Virginia, only 2% of those assigned to the control group had undergone bone-density screening.

“Shockingly low,” said Douglas Bauer, a clinical epidemiologist and osteoporosis researcher at the University of California-San Francisco, who published in JAMA Internal Medicine. “Abysmal. And that’s at the VA, where it’s paid for by the government.”

But establishing a bone health service 鈥� overseen by a nurse who entered orders, sent frequent appointment reminders and explained results 鈥� led to dramatic changes in the intervention group, who had at least one risk factor for the condition.

Forty-nine percent of them said yes to a scan. Half of those tested had osteoporosis or a forerunner condition, osteopenia. Where appropriate, most of them began medications to preserve or rebuild their bones.

“We were pleasantly surprised that so many agreed to be screened and were willing to initiate treatment,” Colón-Emeric said.

After 18 months, bone density had increased modestly for those in the intervention group, who were more likely to stick to their drug regimens than osteoporosis patients of either sex in real-world conditions.

The study didn’t continue long enough to determine whether bone density increased further or fractures declined, but the researchers plan a secondary analysis to track that.

The results revive a longtime question: Given how life-altering, even deadly, such fractures can be, and the availability of effective drugs to slow or reverse bone loss, should older men be screened for osteoporosis, as women are? If so, which men and when?

Such issues mattered less when life spans were shorter, Bauer explained. Men have bigger and thicker bones and tend to develop osteoporosis five to 10 years later than women do. “Until recently, those men died of heart disease and smoking” before osteoporosis could harm them, he said.

“Now, men routinely live into their 70s and 80s, so they have fractures,” he added. By then, they have also accumulated other chronic conditions that impair their ability to recover.

With osteoporosis testing and treatment, “a man could see a clear-cut improvement in mortality and, more importantly, his quality of life,” Bauer said.

Both patients and many doctors still tend to regard osteoporosis as a women’s disease, however. “There’s a bit of a Superman idea,” said Eric Orwoll, an endocrinologist and osteoporosis researcher at Oregon Health & Science University.

“Men would like to believe they’re indestructible, so a fracture doesn’t have the implication that it should,” he added.

One patient, for example, for years resisted entreaties from his wife, a nurse, to “see someone” about his visibly rounded upper back.

Bob Grossman, 74, a retired public school teacher in Portland, blamed poor posture instead and told himself to straighten up. “I thought, 鈥業t can’t be osteoporosis 鈥� I’m a guy,’” he said. But it was.

Another obstacle to screening: “Clinical practice guidelines are all over the place,” Colón-Emeric said.

Professional associations like the Endocrine Society and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research recommend that men 50 and older who have a risk factor, and all men over 70, .

But the and the have deemed the evidence for screening of men “insufficient.” Clinical trials have found that osteoporosis , as in women, but most male studies have been too small or lacked enough follow-up to show whether fractures also declined.

The task force’s position means that Medicare and many private insurers generally won’t cover screening for men who haven’t had a fracture, though they will cover care for men diagnosed with osteoporosis.

“Things have been stalled for decades,” Orwoll said.

So it may fall to older men themselves to ask their doctors about a DXA (pronounced DECKS-ah) scan, widely available at $100 to $300 out-of-pocket. Otherwise, because osteoporosis is typically asymptomatic, men (and women, who are also undertested and undertreated) don’t know their bones have deteriorated until one breaks.

“If you had a fracture after age 50, you should have a bone scan 鈥� that’s one of the key indicators,” Orwoll advised.

Other risk factors: falls, a family history of hip fractures, and a fairly long list of other health conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, hyperthyroidism and Parkinson’s disease. Smoking and excessive alcohol use increase the odds of osteoporosis as well.

“A number of medications also do a number on your bone density,” Colón-Emeric added, notably steroids and prostate cancer drugs.

When a scan reveals osteoporosis, depending on its severity, doctors may prescribe oral medications like Fosamax or Actonel, intravenous formulations like Reclast, daily self-injections of Forteo or Tymlos, or twice-annual injections of Prolia.

Lifestyle changes like exercising, taking calcium and vitamin D supplements, stopping smoking, and drinking only moderately will help but aren’t sufficient to stop or reverse bone loss, Colón-Emeric said.

Although guidelines don’t universally recommend it, at least not yet, she would like to see all men age 70 and up be screened, because the odds of disability after hip fractures are so high 鈥� two-thirds of older people will not regain their prior mobility, she noted 鈥� and the medications that treat it are effective and often inexpensive.

But that osteoporosis threatens men, too, has progressed “at a snail’s pace,” Orwoll said.

Klein remembers attending a seminar to instruct patients like him in using the drug Forteo. “I was the only male there,” he said.

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“I didn’t know what I was going to do, where I was going to go,” he told me, describing a period of crisis that began in 2017.

Seeking a change of venue, Rousseau moved to the mountains of North Carolina, the start of an extended period of wandering. Soon, a sense of emptiness enveloped him. He had no friends or hobbies 鈥� his work as a doctor had been all-consuming. Former colleagues didn’t get in touch, nor did he reach out.

His wife had passed away after a painful illness a decade earlier. Rousseau was estranged from one adult daughter and in only occasional contact with another. His isolation mounted as his three dogs, his most reliable companions, died.

Rousseau was completely alone 鈥� without friends, family, or a professional identity 鈥� and overcome by a sense of loss.

“I was a somewhat distinguished physician with a 60-page resume,” Rousseau, now 73, wrote in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in May. “Now, I’m 鈥榥o one,’ a retired, forgotten old man who dithers away the days.”

In some ways, older men living alone are disadvantaged compared with older women in similar circumstances. Research shows that men tend to have fewer friends than women and be less inclined to make new friends. Often, they’re reluctant to ask for help.

“Men have a harder time being connected and reaching out,” said , a psychiatrist who directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has traced the arc of hundreds of men’s lives over a span of more than eight decades. The men in the study who fared the worst, Waldinger said, “didn’t have friendships and things they were interested in 鈥� and couldn’t find them.” He recommends that men invest in their “social fitness” in addition to their physical fitness to ensure they have satisfying social interactions.

Slightly more than 1 in every 5 men ages 65 to 74 live alone, according to . That rises to nearly 1 in 4 for those 75 or older. Nearly 40% of these men are divorced, 31% are widowed, and 21% never married.

That’s a significant change from 2000, when only 1 in 6 older men lived by themselves. Longer life spans for men and rising rates are contributing to the trend. It’s difficult to find information about this group 鈥� which is dwarfed by the number of women who live alone 鈥� because it hasn’t been studied in depth. But psychologists and psychiatrists say these older men can be quite vulnerable.

When men are widowed, their health and well-being tend to decline more than women’s.

“Older men have a tendency to ruminate, to get into our heads with worries and fears and to feel more lonely and isolated,” said Jed Diamond, 80, a therapist and the author of “” and “.”

Add in the decline of civic institutions where men used to congregate 鈥� think of the Elks or the Shriners 鈥� and older men’s reduced ability to participate in athletic activities, and the result is a lack of stimulation and the loss of a sense of belonging.

Depression can ensue, fueling excessive alcohol use, accidents, or, in the most extreme cases, suicide. Of all age groups in the United States, men over age 75 have the , by far.

For this column, I spoke at length to several older men who live alone. All but two (who’d been divorced) were widowed. Their experiences don’t represent all men who live alone. But still, they’re revealing.

The first person I called was Art Koff, 88, of Chicago, a longtime marketing executive I’d known for several years. When I reached out in January, I learned that Koff’s wife, Norma, had died the year before, leaving him hobbled by grief. Uninterested in eating and beset by unremitting loneliness, Koff lost 45 pounds.

“I’ve had a long and wonderful life, and I have lots of family and lots of friends who are terrific,” Koff told me. But now, he said, “nothing is of interest to me any longer.”

“I’m not happy living this life,” he said.

Nine days later, I learned that Koff had died. His nephew, Alexander Koff, said he had passed out and was gone within a day. The death certificate cited “end stage protein calorie malnutrition” as the cause.

The transition from being coupled to being single can be profoundly disorienting for older men. Lodovico Balducci, 80, was married to his wife, Claudia, for 52 years before she died in October 2023. Balducci, a renowned physician known as the “patriarch of geriatric oncology,” in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, likening Claudia’s death to an “amputation.”

“I find myself talking to her all the time, most of the time in my head,” Balducci told me in a phone conversation. When I asked him whom he confides in, he admitted, “Maybe I don’t have any close friends.”

Disoriented and disorganized since Claudia died, he said his “anxiety has exploded.”

We spoke in late February. Two weeks later, Balducci moved from Tampa to New Orleans, to be near his son and daughter-in-law and their two teenagers.

“I am planning to help as much as possible with my grandchildren,” he said. “Life has to go on.”

Verne Ostrander, a carpenter in the small town of Willits, California, about 140 miles north of San Francisco, was reflective when I spoke with him, also in late February. His second wife, Cindy Morninglight, died four years ago after a long battle with cancer.

“Here I am, almost 80 years old 鈥� alone,” Ostrander said. “Who would have guessed?”

When Ostrander isn’t painting watercolors, composing music, or playing guitar, “I fall into this lonely state, and I cry quite a bit,” he told me. “I don’t ignore those feelings. I let myself feel them. It’s like therapy.”

Ostrander has lived in Willits for nearly 50 years and belongs to a men’s group and a couples’ group that’s been meeting for 20 years. He’s in remarkably good health and in close touch with his three adult children, who live within easy driving distance.

“The hard part of living alone is missing Cindy,” he told me. “The good part is the freedom to do whatever I want. My goal is to live another 20 to 30 years and become a better artist and get to know my kids when they get older.”

The Rev. Johnny Walker, 76, lives in a low-income apartment building in a financially challenged neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. Twice divorced, he’s been on his own for five years. He, too, has close family connections. At least one of his several children and grandchildren checks in on him every day.

Walker says he had a life-changing religious conversion in 1993. Since then, he has depended on his faith and his church for a sense of meaning and community.

“It’s not hard being alone,” Walker said when I asked whether he was lonely. “I accept Christ in my life, and he said that he would never leave us or forsake us. When I wake up in the morning, that’s a new blessing. I just thank God that he has brought me this far.”

Waldinger recommended that men “make an effort every day to be in touch with people. Find what you love 鈥� golf, gardening, birdwatching, pickleball, working on a political campaign 鈥� and pursue it,” he said. “Put yourself in a situation where you’re going to see the same people over and over again. Because that’s the most natural way conversations get struck up and friendships start to develop.”

Rousseau, the retired South Carolina doctor, said he doesn’t think about the future much. After feeling lost for several years, he moved across the country to Jackson, Wyoming, in the summer of 2023. He embraced solitude, choosing a remarkably isolated spot to live 鈥� a 150-square-foot cabin with no running water and no bathroom, surrounded by 25,000 undeveloped acres of public and privately owned land.

“Yes, I’m still lonely, but the nature and the beauty here totally changed me and focused me on what’s really important,” he told me, describing a feeling of redemption in his solitude.

Rousseau realizes that the death of his parents and a very close friend in his childhood left him with a sense of loss that he kept at bay for most of his life. Now, he said, rather than denying his vulnerability, he’s trying to live with it. “There’s only so long you can put off dealing with all the things you’re trying to escape from.”

It’s not the life he envisioned, but it’s one that fits him, Rousseau said. He stays busy with volunteer activities 鈥� cleaning tanks and running tours at Jackson’s fish hatchery, serving as a part-time park ranger, and maintaining trails in nearby national forests. Those activities put him in touch with other people, mostly strangers, only intermittently.

What will happen to him when this way of living is no longer possible?

“I wish I had an answer, but I don’t,” Rousseau said. “I don’t see my daughters taking care of me. As far as someone else, I don’t think there’s anyone else who’s going to help me.”

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In ads on Google, Facebook, and elsewhere, testosterone telemedicine websites may promise a quick fix for sluggishness and low libido in men. But evidence for that is lacking, physicians said, and the midlife malaise for which testosterone is being touted as a solution is more likely caused by chronic medical conditions, poor diet, or a sedentary lifestyle. In fact, doctors 鈥� and the FDA recommends that all testosterone supplements carry a warning that they may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Valid medical reasons do exist for treating some men with testosterone. The hormone as a medication has existed for decades, and today’s patients include , some transgender men who use it to help transition physically, and, sometimes, . It has also been used for decades by bodybuilders and athletes to .

However, online dispensaries can overplay the idea of what is sometimes called “male menopause,” or even “manopause,” to drive sales of highly profitable testosterone-boosting injectables, often ignoring safety guidelines that should prevent healthy men from using the hormone. Some of the websites target military veterans.

“I have seen ads online that do cross the line,” said , a physician and the chief academic officer for the Heart, Vascular, and Thoracic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. “For mood and low energy, prescribing testosterone provides little to no benefit. They are promoting testosterone for indications that are not on the label.”

Testosterone telehealth websites almost all cite published in 2002 by New England Research Institutes scientists who found testosterone levels drop 1% a year in men over 40. , director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Andrology at the University of Muenster in Germany, said the data behind the statistic included older men in deteriorating health whose levels declined because of illnesses.

“Healthy men do not show a drop,” he said.

That 2002 study led to a flood of “low-T” ads on U.S. television 鈥� ads that were later banned in a that accused the pharmaceutical industry of exaggerating the low-T phenomenon to scare men into buying drugs. According to , the market for testosterone supplements stood at $1.85 billion in 2023.

The deluge of ads “has fueled demand for a largely uninsured product, allowing for high markups,” said , director of health policy at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “The primary driver is manufactured demand.”

, a professor of evidence-based pharmaceutical policy at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre in Australia, said low testosterone should really be seen as a sign of a condition that needs to be treated. She said diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, exposure to like PFAS, and stress can all reduce testosterone levels.

Several websites reviewed by 麻豆女优 Health News brand themselves as news and fitness magazines, with advertisements embedded in articles steering readers toward order forms for testosterone replacement therapy, shorthanded as TRT. The sites’ prices for TRT range from $120 to $135 a month, not including initial mail-back blood tests for around $60. Some sites promise increased libido and reduced stomach fat.

Male Excel’s ads on Google, for example, say TRT “improves mood” and “restores vitality.” And its site says testosterone treatment will provide “muscular definition,” “weight loss,” “explosive drive,” “deeper sleep,” and “restored energy” above a link to a free assessment on its online telehealth platform. Craig Larsen, the company’s CEO, did not reply to several attempts to contact him by phone and email.

Both and are among the sites that pitch to military veterans. Hone Health included a video of a veteran who said he was treatment by a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital.

Saad Alam, CEO and co-founder of Hone, said that his company is what he called a “conservative” player in the market. He said that Hone prescribes only to men who are hypogonadal and tests men every 90 days, unlike other companies that operate telehealth websites as what he called a “cash grab.”

“I agree that patients should be treated by their doctors. But the U.S. medical system isn’t at a point where it can service men who have this problem, and some endocrinologists would rather treat patients who are higher-profit,” Hone said. “That’s why people are coming to us.”

One popular form of TRT is injectable testosterone cypionate. According to the Medicare average sales price database, it costs $0.027 per milligram. Online purveyors who sell the drug directly to consumers in 200 mg/mL vials for an average price of $129 per month are charging the equivalent of $1.55 per mg 鈥� a markup of more than 50 times the average Medicare price.

According to a , the TRT telehealth websites create a way to circumvent doctors who refuse to prescribe the hormone. In that study, , a urologist at the Memorial Healthcare System in Florida, posed as an online mystery shopper. He reported an above-normal testosterone level, and stated his desire to start a family, even though such therapy can curb sperm production. But six of the seven unnamed online TRT clinics prescribed him testosterone via a medical professional.

“And that’s concerning,” Dubin said. “Telemedicine helps men with hypogonadism who might be too embarrassed to discuss erectile dysfunction. But we need to do a better job of understanding the appropriateness of care.”

Still, while the FDA doesn’t allow off-label marketing, it does allow such off-label prescriptions.

Off-label use of testosterone replacement has become . And among male service members who received TRT in 2017, fewer than half met the clinical practice guidelines, according to a .

Phil Palmer, a 41-year-old Marine Corps veteran who lives outside Charleston, South Carolina, said he pays out-of-pocket for bloodwork and prescriptions for a pellet skin-implant form of testosterone and for , a drug that can help counter the male infertility that is a side effect of . He said the treatment appeals to him and other veterans dealing with the aftermath of military service.

“The environment we served in and stress levels have a lot to do with it,” Palmer said. “We were exposed to burn pits. The military doesn’t teach you to eat well 鈥� we ate a lot of processed food.”

In medical settings, TRT can speed recovery of soldiers who have bone density issues or spinal cord injuries, said , a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Michigan Medical School. But, he said, “for men in the normal-T range, using an online prescription to buy testosterone to reduce stomach fat can be counterproductive.”

Those who use it also risk having to , because TRT can cause the body to cease its own production of the hormone.

Palmer, who that helps veterans heal through exercise, nutrition, and mentorship, said the medication has been helpful for him but urges fellow veterans to seek care from their doctors rather than what he called “bro science” websites touting testosterone.

“It’s not a magic pill,” he said.

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The reasons for the gap are vexing, experts said, but may provide an important window into unique challenges faced by Black men as they try to gain not only good health but also an equal footing in the U.S.

Generally, higher education means better-paying jobs and health insurance, healthier behaviors and longer lives. This is true across many demographic groups. And studies show life expectancy is higher for educated Black men 鈥� those with a college degree or higher 鈥� compared with those who have not finished high school.

But the increase is not as big as it is for whites. This comes on top of the many health obstacles Black men already face. They are more likely to die from chronic illnesses like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer than white men, and their life expectancy, on average, is lower. Experts point to a variety of factors that might play a role, but many said the most pervasive is racism.

Researchers note that Black women face many of the same challenges as Black men, but Black women generally have a longer life expectancy than Black men. (They also point out that it is hard to draw conclusions about Hispanic residents because of a lack of studies on the issues.) As a result, many experts said that the health problems stem from a persistent devaluation of Black men in U.S. society.

“At every level of income and education, there is still an effect of race,” said David Williams, a professor of public health at Harvard University who developed a scale nearly 30 years ago .

The precise difference in health gains between educated white men and educated Black men is hard to pinpoint because of differences in study designs. Some studies, for example, look at life expectancy, while others look at disease burden or depression.

Experts said, however, that the evidence is strong and convincing that these gaps have persisted over many years. A published in Health Affairs, for example, found that life expectancy for white men with the most education was 12.9 years longer than for white men with the least education. For Black men, the difference was 9.7 years.

In addition, other research shows how that gap plays out. A 鈥� years cut off because of health challenges 鈥� between the groups. Educated Black men lost 12.09 years, while educated white men lost 8.34 years, according to the study, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Racism affects Black men’s health and it is persistent, experts said.

“No matter how far you go in school, no matter what you accomplish, you’re still a Black man,” said Derek Novacek, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Emory University and is researching Black-white health disparities at UCLA.

S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois in Chicago and lead author of the 2012 study, said possible risk factors for various diseases and environmental issues could also play a role: “I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t part of the equation. The risk of diabetes and obesity is much higher among the Black population, even those that are highly educated.”

Among other possible causes that researchers are probing are stress and depression.

“When you follow other groups, with more education depression declines,” said Dr. Shervin Assari, associate professor of medicine at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles County, California, who studies race, gender and health. “But when you look at Black men 鈥� guess what? .”

Depression is often an indicator of physical well-being as well as a contributing factor to many chronic illnesses, such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes.

Isolated at Home and Work

Researchers who study the health of various racial and ethnic groups, as well as the social factors that influence health outcomes, see cause for concern. The findings suggest that the power of discrimination to harm Black men’s lives may be more persistent than previously understood. And they could mean that improving Black men’s health may be more complicated than previously believed.

“What has surprised me is how powerfully and consistently discrimination predicts poor health,” said Williams.

the issue. As early as last April researchers noticed higher death and hospitalization rates for Black people. The patterns have persisted, with Black patients being to die of the virus and Black men have the of covid deaths.

The covid outcomes, Williams and others suggested, helped point out that the health and well-being of middle-class, educated Black men have been overlooked.

Higher education hasn’t brought about the health equity many experts had expected. While Black men have worse health than other groups if they are not educated, they can’t catch up to their white peers even when they are.

“What society has done to Black men is to corner them,” Assari said.

Black men, even with an education, have less of a financial and social safety net than white men. That brings added stress, the experts said. Also, as Black men climb a corporate, academic or managerial ladder, many feel isolated. And social isolation harms health.

Thomas LaVeist, a sociologist and dean of the school of public health at Tulane University, said that in a white-dominated society Black men are less likely to have family members with high incomes or social and business connections who can open doors for them. And once hired into the workplace, they are less likely to have mentors, LaVeist said, and that lack of connections is associated with stress, depression and other factors that can lead to poorer health.

“There needs to be a designated effort to provide an on-ramp” for Black men, he said.

And they may have experienced more cumulative adversity and continued racism.

“Your high socioeconomic status doesn’t protect you from the impact or from the incidence” of racism, said Dr. Adrian Tyndall, associate vice president for strategic and academic affairs at University of Florida Health.

“That is difficult,” added Tyndall, who is Black. “If I were to walk out of this institution and into the community, where people don’t know me, I could be called the N-word. And yeah, that’s pretty depressing.”

The Need to Prove Yourself

The cumulative effect of discrimination takes a toll psychologically and physiologically 鈥� but so does the anticipation of it.

“It’s not just the actual exposure in dealing with these kinds of experiences, but it’s 鈥榃hat do you do before leaving home?’ You’re careful about your dress, your behavior, the way you look because of the threat of discrimination, and so you react,” said Williams, the Harvard professor.

For example, when Williams, who is Black, first became a professor at Yale University, he wore a coat and tie every day. No one else in his department did that. And yet, he said, he kept up the practice for years.

LaVeist remembers getting onto an elevator at an academic medical center around 1990, shortly after earning his Ph.D., and a passenger wearing a white coat 鈥� presumably a doctor 鈥� assumed LaVeist worked in housekeeping. The man asked LaVeist, who was dressed in a suit, to clean up a spill on the sixth floor.

“When I told him that I was a professor, he didn’t speak,” said LaVeist. “He simply didn’t speak.”

Greg Pennington, 67, of Atlanta, has a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina and an undergraduate degree from Harvard, owns a professional consulting firm and has worked with hundreds of men individually as well as dozens of Fortune 500 companies. “It’s not so much that [Black men] experience discrimination and depression 鈥榚ven after’ they have advanced degrees,” he said. “It’s more descriptive to say 鈥榯hroughout the whole process.’”

Despite their academic credentials, Black men said, they often feel they need to prove themselves, which adds another layer of stress.

“It’s almost like I can’t fail; I’m representative of other Black males,” said Woodrow W. Winchester III, director of professional engineering programs at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. “Your value and your success are around advancing the collective.”

The bottom line, experts agreed, is that discrimination has a lingering effect on health.

Dana Goldman, director of the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, was co-author of the 2012 Health Affairs study on these chasms. Goldman said he agrees that the underlying cause is racism and added that he thinks one solution is to improve education. He and others suggested that schools, starting in the lower grades, need to provide Black students with more culturally appropriate curricula that bolster their self-image and help build social relationships between white and Black youngsters. Those efforts need to continue as students progress into higher education.

“The policy remedy is not just less racism but to improve the quality of our schools, occupational safety and public health,” Goldman said.

Others agree that the findings suggest a need to reconsider broad policy changes 鈥� in education, housing and the justice system 鈥� so that Black males feel confident and supported in pursuing better educations and jobs.听

It will be a long-term project, said Williams, the Harvard professor.

“We need a Marshall Plan for all disenfranchised Americans,” he said, but one that especially addresses implicit biases and how American society views and treats Black males.

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But there’s one question she still can’t answer: What makes some patients so much sicker than others?

Advancing age and underlying medical problems explain only part of the phenomenon, said Ranney, who has seen patients of similar age, background and health status follow wildly different trajectories.

“Why does one 40-year-old get really sick and another one not even need to be admitted?” asked Ranney, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Brown University.

In some cases, provocative new research shows, some people 鈥� men in particular 鈥� succumb because their immune systems are hit by friendly fire. Researchers hope the finding will help them develop targeted therapies for these patients.

In in Science, 10% of nearly 1,000 COVID patients who developed life-threatening pneumonia had antibodies that disable key immune system proteins called interferons. These antibodies 鈥� known as autoantibodies because they attack the body itself 鈥� were not found at all in 663 people with mild or asymptomatic COVID infections. Only four of 1,227 healthy individuals had the autoantibodies. The study, published on Oct. 23, was led by the COVID Human Genetic Effort, which includes 200 research centers in 40 countries.

“This is one of the most important things we’ve learned about the immune system since the start of the pandemic,” said Dr. Eric Topol, executive vice president for research at Scripps Research in San Diego, who was not involved in the new study. “This is a breakthrough finding.”

In by the same team, authors found that an additional 3.5% of critically ill patients had mutations in genes that control the interferons involved in fighting viruses. Given that the body has 500 to 600 of these genes, it’s possible researchers will find more mutations, said Qian Zhang, lead author of the second study.

serve as the body’s first line of defense against infection, sounding the alarm and activating an army of virus-fighting genes, said virologist Angela Rasmussen, an associate research scientist at the Center of Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

“Interferons are like a fire alarm and a sprinkler system all in one,” said Rasmussen, who wasn’t involved in the new studies.

show interferons are suppressed in some people with COVID-19, perhaps by the virus itself.

Interferons are particularly important for protecting the body against new viruses, such as the coronavirus, which the body has never encountered, said Zhang, a researcher at Rockefeller University’s St. Giles Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases.

When infected with the novel coronavirus, “your body should have alarms ringing everywhere,” said Zhang. “If you don’t get the alarm out, you could have viruses everywhere in large numbers.”

Significantly, patients didn’t make autoantibodies in response to the virus. Instead, they appeared to have had them before the pandemic even began, said Paul Bastard, the antibody study’s lead author, also a researcher at Rockefeller University.

For reasons that researchers don’t understand, the autoantibodies never caused a problem until patients were infected with COVID-19, Bastard said. Somehow, the novel coronavirus, or the immune response it triggered, appears to have set them in motion.

“Before COVID, their condition was silent,” Bastard said. “Most of them hadn’t gotten sick before.”

Bastard said he now wonders whether autoantibodies against interferon also increase the risk from other viruses, such as influenza. Among patients in his study, “some of them had gotten flu in the past, and we’re looking to see if the autoantibodies could have had an effect on flu.”

Scientists have long known that viruses and the immune system compete in a sort of arms race, with viruses evolving ways to evade the immune system and even suppress its response, said Sabra Klein, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Antibodies are usually the heroes of the immune system, defending the body against viruses and other threats. But sometimes, in a phenomenon known as autoimmune disease, the immune system appears confused and creates autoantibodies. This occurs in diseases such as when antibodies attack the joints, and , in which the immune system attacks insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

Although doctors don’t know the exact causes of autoimmune disease, they’ve observed that the conditions often occur after . Autoimmune diseases are more common as people age.

In yet another unexpected finding, 94% of patients in the study with these autoantibodies were men. About 12.5% of men with life-threatening COVID pneumonia had autoantibodies against interferon, compared with 2.6% of women.

That was unexpected, given that autoimmune disease is far , Klein said.

“I’ve been studying sex differences in viral infections for 22 years, and I don’t think anybody who studies autoantibodies thought this would be a risk factor for COVID-19,” Klein said.

The study might help explain why men are more likely than women to become critically ill with COVID-19 and die, Klein said.

“You see significantly more men dying in their 30s, not just in their 80s,” she said.

Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, noted that several genes involved in the immune system’s response to viruses are

Women have two copies of this chromosome 鈥� along with two copies of each gene. That gives women a backup in case one copy of a gene becomes defective, Iwasaki said.

Men, however, have only one copy of the X chromosome. So if there is a defect or harmful gene on the X chromosome, they have no other copy of that gene to correct the problem, Iwasaki said.

Bastard noted that one woman in the study who developed autoantibodies has a rare genetic condition in which she has only one X chromosome.

Scientists have struggled to explain why men have a higher risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. When the disease first appeared in China, experts speculated that men suffered more from the virus because they are much more likely to smoke than Chinese women.

Researchers quickly noticed that men in Spain were also more likely to die of COVID-19, however, even though men and women there smoke at about the same rate, Klein said.

Experts have hypothesized that men might be put at higher risk by being less likely to wear masks in public than women and more likely to delay seeking medical care, Klein said.

But behavioral differences between men and women provide only part of the answer. Scientists say it’s possible that the hormone estrogen may somehow protect women, while testosterone may put men at greater risk. Interestingly, recent studies have found that obesity poses a with COVID-19 than to women, Klein said.

Yet women have their own form of suffering from COVID-19.

Studies show women are more likely to experience long-term COVID symptoms, lasting weeks or months, including fatigue, weakness and a kind of mental confusion known as “brain fog,” Klein noted.

As women, “maybe we survive it and are less likely to die, but then we have all these long-term complications,” she said.

After reading the studies, Klein said, she would like to learn whether patients who become severely ill from other viruses, such as influenza, also harbor genes or antibodies that disable interferon.

“There’s no evidence for this in flu,” Klein said. “But we haven’t looked. Through COVID-19, we may have uncovered a very novel mechanism of disease, which we could find is present in a number of diseases.”

To be sure, scientists say that the new study solves only part of the mystery of why patient outcomes can vary so greatly.

Researchers say it’s possible that some patients are protected by past exposure to other coronaviruses. Patients who get very sick also may have inhaled higher doses of the virus, such as from repeated exposure to infected co-workers.

Although doctors have looked for links between disease outcomes and blood type, studies have produced .

Screening patients for autoantibodies against interferons could help predict which patients are more likely to become very sick, said Bastard, who is also affiliated with the Necker Hospital for Sick Children in Paris. Testing takes about two days. Hospitals in Paris can now screen patients on request from a doctor, he said.

Although only 10% of patients with life-threatening COVID-19 have autoantibodies, “I think we should give the test to everyone who is admitted,” Bastard said. Otherwise, “we wouldn’t know who is at risk for a severe form of the disease.”

Bastard said he hopes his findings will lead to new therapies that save lives. He notes that the body manufactures many types of interferons. Giving these patients a different type of interferon 鈥� one not disabled by their genes or autoantibodies 鈥� might help them fight off the virus.

In fact, a pilot study of 98 patients published Thursday in journal found benefits from an inhaled form of interferon. In the industry-funded British study, hospitalized COVID patients randomly assigned to receive interferon beta-1a were more than twice as likely as others to recover enough to resume their regular activities.

Researchers need to confirm these findings in a much larger study, said Dr. Nathan Peiffer-Smadja, a researcher at Imperial College London who was not involved in the study but wrote an accompanying editorial. Future studies should test patients’ blood for genetic mutations and autoantibodies against interferon, to see if they respond differently than others.

Peiffer-Smadja notes that inhaled interferon may work better than an injected form of the drug because it’s delivered directly to the lungs. While injected versions of interferon have been used for years to treat other diseases, the inhaled version is still experimental and not commercially available.

And doctors should be cautious about interferon for now, because a study led by the found no benefit to an injected form of the drug in COVID patients, Peiffer-Smadja said. In fact, there was a trend toward higher mortality rates in patients given interferon, although this finding could have been due to chance. Giving interferon later in the course of disease could encourage a destructive immune overreaction called a cytokine storm, in which the immune system does more damage than the virus.

Around the world, scientists have launched more than 100 clinical trials of interferons, according to , a database of research studies from the National Institutes of Health.

Until larger studies are completed, doctors say, Bastard’s findings are unlikely to change how they treat COVID-19.

Dr. Lewis Kaplan, president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, said he treats patients according to their symptoms, not their risk factors.

“If you are a little sick, you get treated with a little bit of care,” Kaplan said. “You are really sick, you get a lot of care. But if a COVID patient comes in with hypertension, diabetes and obesity, we don’t say, 鈥楾hey have risk factors. Let’s put them in the ICU.’”

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The law, which took effect Jan. 1, mandates that insurers cover vasectomies without requiring patients to pay anything out-of-pocket 鈥� just as they must do for more than a dozen birth control methods for women.

But the measure may run afoul of Internal Revenue Service rules that do not include vasectomies among approved preventive services for high-deductible health plans. People with health savings accounts 鈥� which are exempt from tax liabilities 鈥� tied to those plans could no longer contribute to the savings accounts in that case.

Under the ,听insurers generally can’t charge patients a copayment or require any other cost sharing for prescription contraceptive drugs or devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The 2016 law is similar to what’s required under the federal Affordable Care Act, with a twist: It adds male sterilization 鈥� 鈥� to the list of services that are free for patients.

“While the ACA made important strides 鈥� it completely left men out of the equation,” said Karen Nelson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, whose organization supported the bill.

Before the law took effect, a vasectomy at the organization’s Baltimore office would cost between $225 and $1,100, depending on someone’s ability to pay, said Nelson. Now the procedure will generally cost nothing for men in insured plans in Maryland.

The state law doesn’t apply to companies that are “self-funded,” meaning they pay their employees’ health care claims directly rather than buying state-regulated insurance policies.

Under IRS rules, consumers making tax-free contributions to health savings accounts (HSAs) that are linked to high-deductible health plans have to pay for all their medical care until they reach their deductible of at least in 2018. The only exception is for preventive services.听The hitch for the Maryland law is that vasectomies aren’t on the IRS .

The IRS hasn’t responded to a by Maryland Insurance Commissioner Al Redmer Jr.听A this year 鈥� after it failed to pass last year 鈥� that would exempt these high-deductible plans from the state mandate to cover vasectomies before the deductible is met. Such a move would preserve the tax advantages of the HSAs linked to them.

Maryland is joining a few other states, including , Vermont and, starting next year, , that have expanded contraceptive coverage without cost sharing to include male sterilization.

Vermont’s law includes language to exempt high-deductible plans with health savings accounts. While the issue has raised concerns in Maryland, in Illinois and Oregon it hasn’t appeared to generate much attention to date, legislative analysts say.

Some advocates for extending no-cost coverage to vasectomies noted that the IRS’ list of approved preventive services specifically says that it isn’t exhaustive.

But until the issue is clarified, “the safest thing to do is not make a contribution to your HSA,” said , a Maryland resident and president of HSA Consulting Services.听Ramthun helped implement health savings accounts while working for the Treasury Department during the George W. Bush administration. He stressed that the uncertainty applies only to HSA contributions made after the law became effective in 2018, not to earlier contributions. The issue doesn’t affect people’s medical coverage.

Beyond the uncertainty around health savings account contributions, Maryland’s law requiring coverage of vasectomies without cost sharing addresses a gap in men’s preventive coverage.

“There are arguments to be made that male condoms and vasectomies have preventive benefits for both women and men, in terms of [sexually transmitted infection] prevention and preventing pregnancy,” said Mara Gandal-Powers, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center.

Seven percent of men ages 18 to 45 have had a vasectomy, according to a by researchers at Northwestern University. The prevalence increased to 16 percent among men ages 36 to 45. Men with higher incomes, higher education and a regular source of health care were more likely to have had the procedure, the study found.

The Maryland law doesn’t apply to the method of birth control that many men use: condoms. A by state Sen. John Astle, a Democrat, would expand the law to include condom coverage.

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Un par de años después de su llegada, se rompió el pie durante un partido y, temeroso de lo que le podía costar un tratamiento, no buscó atención médica.

“Algunos en mi familia me advirtieron que, si iba al hospital y no podía pagar la factura, tendría un historial de crédito malo”, dijo Uribe, de 41 años, que ganaba cerca de $300 por semana y no tenía seguro de salud. “Algún día quería comprar un auto o una casa”. En vez de eso, cojeó durante las horas de trabajo y permaneció fuera del campo de juego por tres años. Dos décadas después, el dolor que siente todavía lo paraliza.

Por razones económicas y culturales, los hispanos no quieren interactuar con el sistema de salud. Las mujeres de todas las razas tienen más probabilidades de buscar atención que los hombres. Pero la brecha de género en la comunidad hispana es especialmente preocupante para los proveedores de atención médica. Estudios muestran que a recibir tratamiento.

Y esto es una verdad, aun cuando los hispanos son más propensos que los blancos no hispanos a ser , tener o . tienden a beber mucho, contribuyendo a mayores tasas de y muertes por . Muchos toman trabajos de riesgo, como los obreros de la construcción y los jornaleros, y tienden a morir más a causa de lesiones en el trabajo que otros trabajadores, muestran .

Los hispanos pasarán a ser un cuarto del total de la población para 2045. A medida que este número crece, los investigadores temen que el país podría enfrentar consecuencias costosas ya que las condiciones médicas que son ignoradas llevan a enfermedades más graves y a discapacidad.

“Podría literalmente quebrar el sistema de atención de salud”, dijo José Arévalo, presidente de la Junta de Médicos Latinos de California, que representa a médicos hispanos y a otros que atienden a latinos.

Y ahora, algunos médicos también temen los efectos de la represión del presidente Donald Trump contra los inmigrantes ilegales.

“Cuando la comunidad se enfrenta a este tipo de estrés, me preocupa que la gente haga cosas poco saludables, como abusar del alcohol, para enfrentar el problema”, dijo Kathleen Page, co-directora del Centro SOL, un centro de salud en el Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, y fundadora del Latino HIV Outreach Program de la ciudad. “Eso significa que pueden no trabajar tanto”, agregó. Por lo que “tendrán menos dinero, lo que significa que es menos probable que busquen atención”.

Bienvenidos por funcionarios de Baltimore, los inmigrantes han impulsado la población hispana de la ciudad, triplicándola a 30.000 desde el año 2000.

Aquí, como en otros lugares, la evidencia sugiere que, para muchos hispanos, buscar atención médica es un evento extraordinario. Los datos de los hospitales muestran que son más propensos que las mujeres hispanas, y los hombres y mujeres blancos no hispanos a usar las salas de emergencia como su principal fuente de tratamiento, una señal de que esperan hasta no tener otra opción más que buscar ayuda.

Algunos proveedores de atención dicen que las instituciones médicas no han hecho lo suficiente para mantener a los hombres hispanos sanos, o para persuadirlos de hacerse exámenes regulares.

“Hay una necesidad continua de que las instituciones se adapten más culturalmente y sean más conscientes de los prejuicios”, dijo Elena Ríos, presidenta de la National Hispanic Medical Association, que representa a los 50,000 médicos latinos de la nación.

Hay algunas diferencias significativas en el riesgo de salud y las tasas de enfermedad entre los subgrupos hispanos, por ejemplo, los puertorriqueños son más propensos a ser fumadores. En comparación con los hispanos nacidos en los Estados Unidos, los nacidos en otros lugares tienen tasas mucho más bajas de cáncer, enfermedades del corazón y presión arterial alta. En general, los hispanos viven más que los blancos no hispanos.

Pero estas ventajas pueden disiparse a medida que los latinos se y adoptan hábitos no saludables como el y dietas ricas en alimentos grasos y procesados.

“Le digo a la gente que vivimos más tiempo y sufrimos más”, dijo Jane Delgado, psicóloga clínica cubanoamericana, quien es presidenta de la National Alliance for Hispanic Health.

Los expertos que investigan brechas en las pruebas de cáncer han descubierto que todos los grupos étnicos y géneros han visto una disminución en los diagnósticos de cáncer de colon en etapa terminal y las muertes en los últimos años, excepto en los hombres hispanos, que se hacen la colonoscopía en tasas más bajas que cualquier raza o grupo étnico.

A menudo, los problemas de salud surgen después de que los inmigrantes se enfrentan a una barrera con el seguro médico. Años después de que José Cedillo viniera a Baltimore desde Honduras, el cocinero de 41 años notó que sus piernas se entumecían y le dolían con frecuencia. Preocupado por el dinero, evitó el tratamiento y siguió trabajando, hasta que finalmente fue a una clínica, en donde le diagnosticaron diabetes.

En los siete años que han pasado desde entonces, su salud se ha deteriorado tanto que no puede trabajar, con frecuencia no tiene un techo en donde dormir y pasa largos períodos en el hospital. Como inmigrante que llegó a los Estados Unidos sin papeles, no es elegible para cobertura pagada por el gobierno o para recibir dinero por discapacidad. Y no puede pagar los medicamentos. En cambio, dijo: “Bebo para adormecer el dolor”.

Otra parte del problema es que los hispanohablantes están subrepresentados entre los profesionales médicos. Después de llegar aquí, a los miembros de la familia de Uribe los acompañaba un sobrino o sobrina que hablaba inglés cuando podían permitirse el acceso a médicos. De lo contrario, “íbamos lejos para encontrar un médico que hablaba español”, dijo.

Con frecuencia, los hospitales carecen de servicios multiculturales y de personal biling眉e, admiten los administradores. Aunque los latinos representan casi el 20% de la población, sólo el 7% de las enfermeras registradas y el 5% de los médicos son hispanos. La brecha se ha ampliado a medida que más hispanos han llegado a este país durante las últimas tres décadas, según un estudio de la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles publicado en 2015.

“Demasiado seguido, la gente no entiende lo que usted está diciendo, no sabe lo que usted va a cobrar, qué restricciones dietéticas les estamos aconsejando”, explicó James Page, vice presidente para diversidad en Johns Hopkins Medicine. “Esto crea un problema de confianza para los hispanos. Tenemos que mejorar la forma de atenderlos”.

Esto es particularmente cierto en la salud mental. Sólo el 1% de los psicólogos en los Estados Unidos son hispanos, lo que significa que los hombres de habla hispana que buscan terapia probablemente tendrán que esforzarse para encontrarla en su lengua materna.

En Baltimore, sólo hay un grupo de apoyo en español para hombres que sufren de ansiedad y depresión, dicen psicólogos locales y defensores de los latinos. La ciudad emplea a un consejero para abuso de sustancias que habla español. Un puñado de trabajadores sociales biling眉es de la ciudad ofrecen sesiones de asesoramiento a tarifas reducidas y sólo tres psiquiatras ofrecen sesiones de terapia en español.

Para Peter Uribe, la clave para mantener la salud de su familia es conseguir ayuda para pagar la atención. Su esposa y su hermano sufren de ataques epilépticos, y Uribe contó que el desánimo de su hermano hizo que él mismo se deprimiera. En 2015, obtuvo seguro para su familia a través de un programa de caridad. Con la ayuda de medicamentos ahora asequibles, las convulsiones de su esposa disminuyeron, y él buscó ayuda para su depresión crónica. Como ahora habla inglés, encontrar consejería es más fácil.

En enero, después de la intervención de un grupo de defensa de los latinos, la caridad renovó la póliza de salud de los Uribe por dos años. Pedro Uribe lo llama una bendición:

“Sinceramente no tengo ni idea de lo que haríamos sin este seguro”.

Michael Anft es periodista y escritor, y vive en Baltimore. Su trabajo aparece regularmente en AARP: The Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education听y otras publicaciones. Daniel Trielli, periodista especializado en datos en Capital News Service, en el Philip Merrill College of Journalism, contribuyó para este informe.

La cobertura de Kaiser Health News sobre disparidades de salud en el este de Baltimore es apoyada por 听.

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A couple of years after his arrival, he broke his foot during a game and afraid of the cost, didn’t seek medical care.

“Some of my family warned me that if I went to the hospital and couldn’t pay the bill, I’d get a bad credit record,” said Uribe, 41, who made about $300 a week and had no health insurance. “I wanted to buy a car or a house someday.” Instead, he hobbled through workdays and stayed off the field for three years; the residual pain is sometimes disabling, even two decades later.

For reasons both economic and cultural, Hispanic men are loath to interact with the health system. Women across all races are more likely to seek care than men. But the gender gap in the Hispanic community is especially troubling to health care providers. Studies show that Latino men are than Latinas to get treatment.

That is true even though Hispanic men are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be , have or have . tend to do so heavily, contributing to the group’s higher rates of and deaths from . Many take risky jobs such as construction workers and laborers, and are more likely to die from on-the-job injuries than other workers, show.

“I tell people we live longer and suffer,” said Jane Delgado, a clinical psychologist and Cuban-American who serves as president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health.

Researchers who investigate gaps in cancer testing have found that all ethnic groups and genders have seen a decrease in late-stage colon cancer diagnoses and deaths in recent years 鈥� except Hispanic men, who get screened at the lowest rates of any race or ethnic group.

Often, health problems arise after immigrants come up against an insurance barrier. A few years after Jose Cedillo came to Baltimore from Honduras, the 41-year-old cook noticed his legs were often numb or painful. Worried about finances, he eschewed treatment and continued to work, before finally going to a clinic where he was diagnosed with diabetes.

In the seven years since, his health has so deteriorated he can’t work, is frequently homeless and spends long stints in the hospital. As an immigrant who came to the U.S. illegally, he is not eligible for government-paid insurance or disability payments. And he can’t afford medicine. Instead, he said, “I’ll drink alcohol to numb the pain.”

Part of the problem is that Spanish speakers are underrepresented among medical professionals. After arriving here, Uribe’s family members frequently brought along an English-speaking nephew or niece when they could afford to see doctors. Otherwise, “we’d travel a long ways to find a doctor who spoke Spanish,” he said.

Hospitals frequently lack cultural understanding and bilingual staffing, administrators admit. Though Latinos make up nearly 20 percent of the population, only 5 percent of physicians and 7 percent of registered are Hispanic. That gap has widened as more Hispanics have come to this country during the past three decades, according to a UCLA study released in 2015.

“Too often, people don’t understand what you’re saying, they don’t know what you’re going to charge them, what dietary restrictions you might place upon them,” said James Page, vice president for diversity at Johns Hopkins Medicine. “It creates a trust issue for Hispanics. We’ve got to get better at serving them.”

That is particularly true in mental health. Only 1 percent of psychologists in the U.S. are Hispanic, meaning that Spanish-speaking men who do seek therapy will probably struggle to find it.

In Baltimore, there is only one Spanish-language support group for men who suffer from anxiety and depression, local psychologists and Latino advocates say. The city employs one Spanish-speaking substance abuse counselor. A small handful of bilingual social workers citywide offer reduced-rate counseling sessions, and only three psychiatrists offer therapy sessions conducted in Spanish.

For Peter Uribe, the key to maintaining his family’s health is getting help paying for care. His wife and brother both suffer from epileptic seizures, and his brother’s despondency caused Uribe to become depressed, he said. In 2015, he obtained insurance for his family through a charity program. With the help of now-affordable medicines, his wife’s seizures waned, and he sought help for chronic depression. Since he now speaks English, finding counseling help is easier.

In January, after intervention from a Latino advocacy group, the charity renewed the Uribes’ policy for two years. Peter Uribe calls it a godsend:

“I honestly have no idea what we’d do without it.”

Michael Anft is a Baltimore-based journalist and writer whose work regularly appears in AARP: The Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education and other publications. Daniel Trielli, a data journalist at Capital News Service at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, contributed to this report.

supports KHN’s coverage of health disparities in East Baltimore.

麻豆女优 Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at 麻豆女优鈥攁n independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .

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“Usted va por un pequeño corte, una vasectomía y sale con órdenes del médico para sentarse y ver básquetbol sin parar”, decía la voz del comercial. “Si pierde esta oportunidad, va a terminar recuperándose durante un fin de semana 隆mirando el maratón de 鈥楧esperate Housewives’!”

Al comercial le siguieron otros anuncios que copiaron la idea. Ahora, un , tiene un concurso anual llamado Vasectomy Madness (Locura de la vasectomía), en el que el premio es una vasectomía gratis.

Así es como funciona: tres hombres participan al aire para exponer su caso explicando por qué deberían hacerse una vasectomía. Los presentadores los “destrozan con humor” y luego los oyentes votan por su favorito.

“Presentemos a nuestro siguiente concursante”, dijo uno de los conductores. “Creo que es Abe, de Warrenton, Virginia. Así que cuéntanos tu historia. 驴Por qué estás aquí?”

Abe tiene tres hijos de 9, 6 y 3 años.

“Y otro más 隆por sorpresa! llegará en julio”, dijo Abe. “Estaba esperando después del tercero hacerme una vasectomía y, como un tonto, lo dejé pasar”.

Ahí está Mike, también esperando a su cuarto hijo, también una sorpresa.

“Mi esposa y yo hemos tenido suficiente”, dijo. “Necesitamos ayuda para parar”.

Y luego está Charles.

“Cuatro niños. De tres mujeres diferentes”, dijo Charles, inspirando un rugido de burlas por parte de los locutores.

Dejarlo para después es algo muy común cuando se trata de una vasectomía. La “gran V”; es así que se necesita un panel de presentadores deportivos que ofrecen un procedimiento gratis para que algunos hombres finalmente dejen que un médico ponga un bisturí en sus partes privadas.

Esa puede ser una razón por la cual las tasas de vasectomía son tan bajas: aproximadamente ; esta cifra no ha cambiado en la última década. La Encuesta Nacional de Crecimiento Familiar de los Centros para el Control y Prevención de Enfermedades (CDC) la compara con el 20% de mujeres que se sometieron a un proceso de esterilización, aun cuando la cirugía para las mujeres es más invasiva y más costosa.

“Culturalmente los hombres son los proveedores. Es difícil para ellos buscar atención médica”, dijo el , urólogo de California. “No saben cómo ser pacientes”.

Turek tiene clínicas en San Francisco y Beverly Hills. Él ve un aumento en las consultas por vasectomías durante el evento anual de básquetbol de la NCAA llamado March Madness, en el cual compiten 68 universidades, y también nota un aumento en el número de hombres que van juntos a hacerse el procedimiento.

“Un grupo vino de una empresa de tecnología en una limusina”, dijo.

El año pasado, cinco compañeros de la universidad programaron sus vasectomías en marzo. Aunque ahora viven por todo Estados Unidos, uno de ellos tuvo la idea de reunirlos en San Francisco y someterse al procedimiento ambulatorio juntos.

“Les hice una oferta”, dijo Turek. “Cerré las puertas. Vieron deportes por televisión. Se divirtieron”.

Conforme cada paciente regresaba a la sala de espera, era recibido con golpes de puño y saludos a lo “choque los cinco”. Luego los hombres volvieron a su hotel para apostar y gritar juntos frente a la televisión.

Turek hizo una observación interesante durante ese fin de semana de básquetbol: los amigos parecieron recuperarse más rápido que sus típicos pacientes.

“No tuvieron quejas”, dijo. “Regresaron al trabajo antes de lo que pensábamos. Tomaron menos píldoras para el dolor. Tener el procedimiento junto con sus amigos fue la mejor anestesia”.

Turek les da a todos sus pacientes de vasectomía un certificado de honor por “coraje poco común y rendimiento meritorio”.

Hay otra teoría sobre por qué las vasectomías no son tan populares: el costo. La Ley de Cuidado de Salud Asequible (ACA) requiere que las aseguradoras sin cobrar cargos adicionales. Pero las vasectomías no fueron incluidas en la regla. El procedimiento cuesta alrededor de $500, pero algunos médicos cobran hasta $1,000.

Esa fue la razón por la que Charles se registró en la competencia para la vasectomía gratuita en la radio de D.C. Su seguro cubre una parte del procedimiento, “pero todavía tendría que pagar mi deducible, que es como mil dólares”.

El Obamacare pasó por alto a la vasectomía porque, bajo la ley, el control de la natalidad se considera un servicio de salud para las mujeres.

“En la actualidad, las pólizas le dicen a una pareja: su seguro cubrirá los anticonceptivos sin ningún gasto adicional para ustedes, siempre y cuando sea la mujer la que los use”, dijo , del .

El año pasado, 12,000 personas firmaron una petición solicitando a los reguladores cubrir la vasectomía sin costo compartido. Incluso grupos de médicos redactaron el lenguaje a tal efecto para agregar a las regulaciones.

Pero cuando el gobierno de Donald Trump tomó el poder, se le dijo a estos grupos que dejaran de intentarlo, según contó Aaron Hamlin, director ejecutivo de la .

“El beneficio de los anticonceptivos ha estado continuamente bajo ataque político desde que se promulgó ACA”, dijo Sonfield. Así que, por ahora, personas como Charles, Mike y Abe luchan por una vasectomía gratis durante March Madness. 驴Al final, quién ganó?

Abe, el hombre que está esperando su cuarto hijo.

Sin embargo, su premio llegó con una “trampa”. Tendrá que dejar que uno de los cronistas deportivos vaya a su cita, para transmitir “jugada por jugada”.

Esta historia forma parte de una asociación que incluye a KQED, NPR y Kaiser Health News.

麻豆女优 Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at 麻豆女优鈥攁n independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .

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This story can be republished for free (details).