From Little League on, you hear boys told to "shake it off." To admit to having pain or some other problem is seen as a confession of weakness. It threatens our male pride and our provider roles, the things we've grown up with and that we've been taught.

The male denial factor is unrelated to occupation, age level, race or socioeconomic status. No matter how smart a man is, no matter what kind of professional status he's achieved, he can still ignore things he shouldn't ignore and pay the unnecessary consequences.

Those consequences can be serious. before age 65, men suffer 2.5 times more heart attacks than women. By age 65, one in three men suffers from high blood pressure, a primary risk for heart attacks. Yet men are less likely than women to have their blood pressure checked.

One in nine men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, yet few will have the easy and painless digital rectal exam and prostate specific antigen blood test to detect it (women, facing similar odds of breast cancer, are much more likely to examine their breasts regularly and have a mammogram).

Men are at greater risk of stress-related illnesses than women, yet only 20 percent of the people in the typical stress-management program are men. Men are 30 percent more likely than women to have a stroke.

One out of three male strokes occur before age 65. Every year, over 50,000 men die of emphysema, one of the most preventable diseases. It has been estimated that more than 3 million men are walking around with early type II diabetes, a disease with major complications, and don't know it. Clearly, the price of denial is high.