Older Men

"Tattoos are the big hair of the '90s -- Wake up!"-- Graffiti scrawled on a men's-room stall at a Boston club"That is so cool," says Cher, when told of this bit of mid-'90s pop-cultural wisdom. And she should know. Cher is Ms. Original Rose Tattoo.Cher has six tattoos, including, as she puts it, "a garden on my butt."She got her first one in 1972."My mother was appalled. Everybody was appalled. And that suited me just fine. Now everybody has tattoos. I bet Dole has got a tattoo someplace," she says, referring to Bob Dole, the presidential candidate.

In a move that could lead to significant changes in medical care for older men, a national task force recommended yesterday that doctors stop screening men 75 and older for prostate cancer because the search for the disease in this group is doing more harm than good. The new guidelines, issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, represent an abrupt policy change by an influential panel that had withheld any advice regarding screening for prostate cancer, citing a lack of reliable evidence.

A high-stress job can do more than give you an ulcer -- new research confirms there's a good chance it also will boost your blood pressure, which increases your risk of developing heart disease."

In a quiet block in Southwest Baltimore, a warm wind blows plastic bags along a sidewalk. Boarded-up rowhomes line the streets. A pile of mattresses rests on a trash heap in someone's former backyard. A lonely placard reads, "Stop shooting - start living. " The images reflect the lost optimism of a neighborhood that lost more than 40,000 residents between 1980 and 2010. But a few yards down a side alley, there's a place with a different feel. Scores of locals sit chatting in a tree-shaded garden, their conversation mingling with the tinkle of wind chimes.

Most doctors think it is OK to exercise when you have a cold, as long as you don't have a fever and your muscles don't hurt. However, it may be better to stop exercising altogether. A recent study from Munich reported severe muscle injury from relatively minor exercise during an infection. When muscles are damaged, they release enzymes from their cells into the bloodstream and they fill with blood from broken blood vessels. This study reported that blood tests showed increases in muscle enzymes and that ultrasound tests demonstrated hemorrhaging into the muscles.

Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre. Auditions for Ebenezer, an original musical based on the Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, will be noon to 6 p.m. Sept. 23 at the theater, 817 St. Paul St. Needed are male and female actors of all ages, especially a small boy, age 6-9, two young men, ages 20-30, and three older men, ages 40-60. Be prepared to sing 16 bars of a song of your choice and to read from the script. Accompanist will be provided. For audition time slot, call 410-752-1225. Vagabond Players.

DALLAS - A new study has found no clear "normal" level for a PSA test, a finding likely to add to growing uncertainty over one of the foundations of prostate cancer screening. Doctors had once hoped that blood tests for prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, a substance made normally in a man's prostate gland, could signal when the prostate had turned malignant. Since the introduction of the PSA test two decades ago, most doctors have settled on a benchmark of 4 nanograms of PSA per milliliter of blood as the warning point for a PSA test.

The City College staff member accused of sexually abusing a 17-year-old student had political aspirations, running for the Baltimore City Council three years ago. Ryan M. Coleman, 34, a City College alumnus who was hired as a contract employee and worked as a hall monitor and "dean of discipline" at the school last year, was arrested last month on sexual abuse charges, according to court records. He is accused of taking the student into his office, where he would "start to rub her back and side, ask her if she had a boyfriend and if she liked older men and was sexually active," charging documents said.

Gonorrhea cases in Baltimore declined to a historic low last year while syphilis cases, in decline for four years, increased slightly, Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the city's health commissioner, said yesterday. Efforts to get treatment for infected patients -- and to test their partners for infection -- have paid off in a continued decline in gonorrhea, Beilenson said. He also credited increased condom use among teen-agers and young adults, which is partly an outgrowth of rising consciousness about the risk of AIDS.

"Original Gangstas" is less a movie than a stern lecture delivered by one generation of black men to another, and the message is clear: Get it together, young men.Conceived as a reunion of the original wave of mid-'70s black stars -- Fred Williamson, who came up with the story, produced, and stars, as well as Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree and Ron O'Neal -- the movie is built along a generational fault line, as these still-potent oldsters lay down the law for the young men whom they see as having squandered their inheritance with black-on-black crime, drugs and other pathologies.