Dr Kerryn Phelps, Health Editor, with Steve Liebmann, Channel Nine, 'Today'

PHELPS: Good morning, Steve.

LIEBMANN: Has anybody ever worked out why we are more reluctant than women to go to the Doc and say, 'gimme the check up?'

PHELPS: Well, I'm probably preaching to the converted with you, Steve.

LIEBMANN: Of course.

PHELPS: Men tend not to complain. They tend not to complain about emotional distress. They tend not to complain. They want to keep the stiff upper lip and, 'No, I can put up with it, I can battle through'. But, in fact that's not in the best interest of their health.

LIEBMANN: Certainly not when you look at the figures.

PHELPS: Well, the figures are frightening because, with men, the average life expectancy is 75. For women it's 81. Now, we've got to account for that six years of life that women get. And it has to be a whole range of different things. Men, I believe, can be their own worst enemy.

LIEBMANN: Is it changing? Are men becoming more willing to go for the annual check up or the biannual check up?

PHELPS: In a sense that men are becoming more interested in their own health, and I think that we still have an awfully long way to go. I mean, men are still more likely to smoke than women and less likely to exercise. They're more likely to eat high fat foods. They're more likely to use illicit drugs. They're more likely to take risk-taking behaviour. So, you know, there are a whole range of different risk factors that men in fact place upon themselves which are changeable, where they could do something about it. And this explains why men are more likely to develop things like diabetes. They're more likely to have heart disease. They're more likely to die younger from accidents.

LIEBMANN: Let's have a look at your checklist and, while it's on the screen, let me just begin by asking you this. When you say 'men' are talking people my age and older, or are we talking from late teens?

PHELPS: Oh we're talking right across the board. I mean you teach young girls, I think, to be aware of symptoms in their body. If they're having problems with their period, they've got someone. They talk to their mother about it. Do we teach our teenage boys to examine their own testicles?

LIEBMANN: No.

PHELPS: We don't and it's something we should. It's the most common cancer in 15 to 35 year olds.

LIEBMANN: Really, that young?

PHELPS: And it's curable. It's a curable cancer but we don't teach boys to do this and young men. And they need to be taught basic, simple survival skills.

LIEBMANN: See on that point alone, is it simply a question of just ignorance on the part of men, whether they're juveniles or older, that they just don't know that they should be doing that?

PHELPS: Well, I suppose to an extent that may be the case, that they've just sort of let the health messages wash past them and think, 'Oh well, it's not going to happen to me'. And frankly ignorance is not bliss. And it can actually lead to some fairly severe consequences down the track if you don't pay attention, and it depends on the age, too. I mean, young boys, it's important to look at their general development, to make sure that they're growing well, that they're encouraged to talk about their feelings.

LIEBMANN: Let's just bring up that checklist one more time and pick out some of the key - just a couple of critical ones.

PHELPS: Some key issues.

LIEBMANN: Yeah.

PHELPS: Take for example, having your blood pressure checked regularly. Now, you're leading a busy life. It's difficult to find the time to get along to the doctor, to say, have your cholesterol level checked, to have your blood pressure checked once you get to the age of 50. Now, nobody wants to have their prostate cancer checked. Everyone knows what it involves. If the doctor has to examine inside your bottom and, you know, men can find that difficult and embarrassing but no more so than a woman having a pap smear.

LIEBMANN: Pap smear, yeah.

PHELPS: There are blood tests that you can talk to your doctors about for having a look at whether you might have prostate cancer, colonoscopy after the age of about 45, particularly if you have a family history of bowel polyps or of bowel cancer in your family anywhere. I think it's very important to make sure that that's checked every three to five years.

LIEBMANN: One for the road.

PHELPS: One for the road, I think checking your skin at least once a year and now's a good time. Summer's over. Spend 15 minutes getting your partner - is important to look at those parts of your body you can't see yourself in the mirror or look at closely. Any moles that have changed, any skin lesions that are not healing. Have those checked by your doctor. But generally, I think that the parting message here is for men to pay attention to your health. There's a lot that you can do to catch up.

LIEBMANN: Your body will tell you.

PHELPS: Indeed, to catch up to the life expectancy of women.

LIEBMANN: See you next week.

PHELPS: Thanks, Steve.

Ends