Most men remember the make and model of their first car, but just over half remember their last visit to the doctor, according to a new U.S. survey.
The survey is part of the Drive for Men's Health, in which two surgeons specializing in men's health travel 6,008 miles to raise awareness of the medical issues surrounding men.
The most pressing of those issues, it appears, is that they don't address their health enough, according to the survey.
One thousand men over the age of 18 were solicited for the survey, which was conducted by Harris Interactive online, and 927 of them completed their responses.
Of the complete responses, 795 men, or 81 percent, recalled the make and model of their first car while 532, or 54 percent, remembered the last time they saw the doctor.
"Men need to take better care of themselves, period," says Dr. Sijo Parekattil, co-founder of the Drive for Men's Health and co-director of the PUR (Personalized Urology & Robotics) Clinic at South Lake Hospital, in affiliation with Orlando Health. "It's a message we want to get to as many men as possible, and we're willing to drive cross country to do it."
Men live sicker and die younger than their female counterparts, according to Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, who co-founded the Drive for Men's Health with Dr. Parekattil.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found women to be 100 percent more likely than men to visit the doctor in a study in 2001.
Things weren't always like that, according to Dr. Brahmbhatt, who says that in 1920, women outlived men by just one year, yet today men die five years before women, on average.
"Your body's essentially like a car," says Dr. Brahmbhatt. "You need to get checks done per recommendation, per guidelines every one year, five years, ten years, whatever the guidelines are. But the only difference between a car and your body is you only have one body."
