Medical test men need in their 30s
1. Cholesterol Profile
Why get a cholesterol test? For decades, doctors have known that people with high total cholesterol levels are at higher risk for heart disease. More recently, they've found the different forms of cholesterol ("good" and "bad") also affect risk.
Knowing your cholesterol levels is an essential part of understanding your own risk for heart disease. The American Heart Association recommends that everyone over age 20 get a cholesterol test.
There are multiple forms of cholesterol circulating in the blood. The various forms of cholesterol and other fats in the blood are together called lipids. Doctors measure and diagnose high cholesterol with a simple blood test, often called a lipid profile. It's often done after fasting for nine to 12 hours to eliminate the contribution of any food you recently ate.
Tests for cholesterol provide results for four different types of lipids.
- Total cholesterol
- LDL (low-density lipoprotein), the "bad cholesterol"
- HDL (high-density lipoprotein), the "good cholesterol"
- Triglycerides, another form of fat in the blood
2. Body Mass Index Assessment
Maintaining a healthy body weight is very important to all aspects of well being and can help you avoid serious health problems such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
One way of checking if YOU are at a healthy weight is to know your Body Mass Index (BMI). Your body mass index bmi is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height squared in metres. But no need to worry about that, you can calculate your body bmi with the Halls BMI calculator above.
Simply enter your height, weight, gender and age and the BMI calculator will tell you if you have a high bmi, a low bmi or if you are within the healthy weight range. It also shows you how your weight compares to others of the same height and age.
3. Skin Cancer
It's well known that men take poorer care of their health than women do, especially when it comes to skin cancer prevention and early detection. Between outdoor work and play, they have more unprotected sun exposure than women do and examine their skin less often. Consequently, as the years pass, they develop more skin cancers - the majority of people who get melanoma, for example, are white men over age 50 - and they discover such growths later than women do, when they are harder to treat.
Men should be aware of all moles and spots on their skin, and report any changes to a doctor right away. A skin exam should be part of regular health check-ups.