It’s not often that we men have a month dedicated to them. Mens Health Month is celebrated each June.

Although we all want to live healthy, productive and happy lives, a key reason to make our health a priority is for the benefit of those who love us and depend on us. Our spouses, our kids, our employers, our friends … they all want us around, and they want us to stay around for a long time.

Unfortunately, it is the men in our society who kick the bucket sooner then the ladies. On average, we live to the not-so-ripe age of 76, which seems younger to me as the years go by. Whereas the women in this country live to 81 on average.

Count your blessings if you are older than 76. You are now living on borrowed time. It doesn’t have to be this way. We should be living much longer then we are.

And it’s in our power to do so. Our genetics are not our destiny. Three big health concerns for men in this country are cardiovascular disease, erectile dysfunction and prostate cancer. All three of these can be controlled, if we so choose to do so.

The number-one killer of men in America is cardiovascular disease. The most common cause of heart disease is the result of continued narrowing of the blood vessels, which supply both blood and oxygen to the heart. Without oxygen, heart muscles die.

And if the heart muscle dies, so do we. So, if we want to be around for our family and friends, a healthy diet and lifestyle are the most common contributors to good cardiovascular health, not pills, stents or open-heart surgery.

Because narrowing of the blood vessels interferes with the heart’s ability to pump blood through the body, it can keep us from enjoying all of our days normal activities such as working, time with friends and family, playing with our children or grandchildren, climbing stairs and even enjoying a fulfilling sex life. Which brings us to erectile dysfunction, often shortened to ED.

It has often been said that ED is the canary in the coal mine. That is an allusion to caged birds miners carried into the mine tunnels with them. If dangerously high levels of gases collected, the gases would kill the canary first, warning the miners to exit immediately.

In reality, ED is the canary in the pants! The penile artery is about half the size of the arteries leading to the heart. If there is sufficient narrowing of the penile artery such that things don’t work normally, it’s a warning sign that the same narrowing process is taking place in the heart, thus providing a call to exit the tunnels immediately and change our health habits before we die from cardiovascular disease.

There is no question that many of the health issues that men face differ from those women may face. Prostate cancer is one of them. Prostate cancer is the leading cancer killer affecting men. But it’s also one of the most curable with 99 percent of men with prostate cancer surviving five years or more.

Your chances of beating it increase the earlier you catch it. But screening or testing for prostate cancer isn’t clear-cut. There’s controversy regarding who should get the PSA test. But an even better approach to prostate cancer is to attack it at it’s root cause.

Dr. Dean Ornish, a leader in lifestyle medicine, found that the progression of prostate cancer could be reversed with a plant-based diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviors. Not only did he show that a man could decrease his risk of getting prostate cancer, but he showed how, once you have the disease, you could actually reverse it with a healthy lifestyle.

It is within our power to control our future. Our genetics are not our destiny. The goal of “Mens Health Month” is to heighten the awareness of preventable health problems and encourage early detection and treatment of disease’s common among men. I want to encourage each man to seek regular medical advice and early treatment for disease and injury so that you can live a healthier, happier and longer life.

Dr. Kenneth D Rose is a general surgery specialist in Enterprise and a graduate with honors from Loma Linda University School Of Medicine.