Been asked by the 2nd XI Captain for my availability for the opening games of the season. So either:
a) Ive impressed in the winter nets
b) they are so desperate for players they are already raiding the 3s to make up the numbers.
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c) your ‘glow up’ and aftershave is still working its magic
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Ran home from work last night, nice and steady at 5m30 pace, plus with a shop stop at halfway to wolf a litre of full sugar kiwi and lime drink- although it was sunset, it was still pretty sweaty.
Muscles feel a bit stiff today but as far as I can tell, the hip itself is alright 
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One of my goals for this year was to get some screening blood tests done. Despite having at least one foot in the game, I have never actually had a blood test other than the ones sometimes needed on starting new jobs.
There’s high cholesterol in my family so I decided to get that checked.
Also kidney function and PSA, the screening test for prostate cancer. That’s all I really want to know about at this point.
Anyway, I literally just had the blood drawn & should get the results later & will feed back if anyone’s interested.
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I think most were on my test recently and seem good, had cholesterol done a few times and always quite low.
I’ve been having some more iron since getting told about that last week, not sure if it’s related but I’ve noticed my RHR has dropped below 50 in the last few days for the first time in years 
I should get the PSA test, think I’m going in for a lecture in a few weeks about my lifestyle of not enough exercise and too much alcohol 
so might try and mention that.
Interested to see how yours goes.
Will it have any markers of impact from Bologna 
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How often should we be having these tests, particularly PSA for me as Dad & brother have issues?
I was last tested 2yrs ago.
ETA, just had a look at the NHS website & it says every few years, I might ask for one.
Also saw this…hope you abstained from them before giving bloods @fruit_thief
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I’ll take it, all seems ok, hopefully live a few more years if can avoid the Land Cruisers and Bolognas. Particularly happy to see that I haven’t mullered the kidneys through running in the heat.
@Doonhamer at least 1 of those things would get me in trouble here, but I’ll own up to a 6km run and a 1.5km swim before the test. News to me that that can affect the results 
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Cut down on the avocados 
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That all looks OK - can whack a few more burgers down your throat now…
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Looking good
Very much off topic on TT, but don’t know where I stand on the should you/shouldn’t you PSA screen in asymptomatic men. Don’t think I’d push my father to have it, but then we all view knowledge/risk differently so each to their own
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Given that I’m a lot older than most of you on here, I asked my GP about 2 years ago if I could get a PSA test as I hadn’t had one done for years so I’m now in a higher risk age group. He simply asked if I thought I had any problems, said no, so he said a test is unikley to be of any relevance to me as I am asymptomatic. Couldn’t really disagree with that.
But when I had the colonoscopy done in March I asked the consultant to do a finger test while he was “down there”. All good he said. 
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I decided I’d get it done aged 50 & finally got round to it almost 2 years later.
My understanding is that baseline PSA at age 50 is a strong predictor of future risk, and that a level less than 1.0 means very low risk and probably no need to think about it again for a while (ERSPC, PLCO, Malmo trials FWIW)
Trouble is you have to think through what you’d do if the level is higher than that, which in the worse case can involve someone going where the sun don’t shine with a 12 bore nail gun. Thankfully I don’t have to cross that bridge right now.
And also, even if you are at high risk, it may not be easy to reduce that risk- have heard that given as one reason why there isn’t a national screening programme for prostate cancer in the same way as breast, cervical and bowel.
But hey, I just wanted to know the number 
Just realised that a 50km bike ride yesterday morning probably wasn’t the smartest move, but thankfully it didn’t put things up 
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Interesting, wasn’t aware of any of that. Thanks, this is much more in your day to day than mine
Exactly.
But it is very easy to end up with …
And problems from that. Although I think PSA + MRI is become a more established initial route to reduce biopsies?
My understanding (checks OneNote to try and remember whatever someone once told me as a hungover student) was yearly (or regular) screening may reduce mortality a tiny amount (around 1 in 1000?) but leads to 1 in 5 having a biopsy they didn’t need from a false-high PSA, and the others having such benign disease it would never have been symptomatic.
I discuss it publicly here not to disagree with anything said, you clearly know more than me and have done more reading. But to try raise awareness in a group exposed to screening advocacy following Chris Hoys story.
PSA screening has a very poor chance of catching those aggressive rumours. If people feel that a low chance is better than none, and that more information is always good then I’ll gladly support that, it’s not a useless test after all. But so long as we are open about the nuance first that we risk over-investigation and over-diagnosis
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Agree with all that.
This is a general rambling and not to you Chris. But guess I kind of lobbed the PSA grenade & should probably follow through a little.
I take the lead on mens health screening at out current place & last year I had to do a presentation about exactly this subject, which is the only reason I have some figures to hand.
The European ERSCP study of 162,243 men is a big study which can be used to support an argument for screening. The 16 year follow up data was published in 2019 and shows a slight reduction in mortality in the screened groups (and it took 16 years of follow up for this trend to emerge)
That data shows that to prevent 1 death from prostate cancer, it’s necessary to screen 570 men aged 50-69, and you would expect 18 of those to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
On one hand, that sits quite favourably with the numbers needed to screen to prevent one death from other cancers:
- Bowel: 377
- Breast: 746
- Cervix: 1,140
But to balance that, there are harms of screening, like you say:
- Overdiagnosis rate of 23-50% (this means diagnosing a prostate cancer that was never going to cause any problems anyway so should probably have remained undiscovered)
- Biopsy complications: 2%
- Harms from treatment: Incontinence: 15%, erectile dysfunction: 59%
I suspect it’s those harms that are putting the brakes on. When I checked, the only 2 countries with established population-based screening programs for prostate cancer were Lithuania and Kazakhstan. I don’t know what that says.
One other interesting thing about symptoms: Men with prostate symptoms seem LESS likely to have prostate cancer than men without. For this somewhat bizarre reason, some guidelines suggest investigations at a lower PSA level in asymptomatic men
Hope none of this is wrong, just going from notes made last year. But anyways, I decided to have the test personally & do feel some peace of mind knowing the number is quite low.
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Still got to fix the leaking roof mind 
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But no leaking pipes
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I thought this was just harms from the biopsy? Presumably not at that rate.
The health people keep showing me leaflets on various screening tests and info on Prolific and asking if it would make me take the test - it never does, and I always complain that the leaflets never contain any information on absolute risk, they never seem to change that.
I do recall one time they were asking if I thought it was “fair” to prioritise screening to different risk factors.
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Fair & those absolute risk figures often seem pretty underwhelming I think. Eg. the trial mentioned above showed that prostate cancer mortality was 0.53 per 1000 man yeas in the screened group, and 0.66 per 1000 man years in the control group.
Guess someone might reasonably look at those small and similar numbers and think, nah, I’ll just focus not not swimming in sharky waters or trying to hold Jeff’s wheel up Bologna hill.
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Okay, so I think I’ve learned something about myself with this goal - that I find socialising really stressful and exhausting.
My children’s neurodiversity has had me thinking about this a while, and with the concept of a “social battery” we’ve all started to learn when we are feeling overwhelmed.
I attended the swim club once this year, bike club a few more times so joining them this year were steps too far. Partly that’s logistics of a busy family and working life, but if you really want something you’d do it, is my principle. I’ve stopped going to run club, which makes me feel sad so I think it’s just going to be about figuring out how much I can handle and when to walk away.
Consequently, I’m actually thinking about how I can be less sociable….a bit like a time crunched triathlete - pick a few hard days, make sure I have easy days…
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