Men's health grows fuzzier

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By Donna Mah (China Daily) 09:22, November 18, 2013

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Movember is intended to raise prostate cancer awareness.(Photo/China Daily)

Guys are growing and grooming mustaches to raise awareness about testicular and prostate cancer in Movember. Donna Mah reports.

Men's upper lips got fuzzier this month. And that's not to keep their maws warmer in the colder weather. But the best growing season for the facial hair medium made famous by the ilk of Charlie Chaplin and Tom Selleck is Movember.

Men's health isn't a big discussion in Hong Kong. Testicular cancer, in particular, is a downer in any conversation, anywhere.

But in Hong Kong and much of the world, "Mo Bros", as they're called, grow mustaches to get people talking to raise awareness about testicular and prostate cancer.

Last Movember, Hong Kong's Mo Bros and Mo Sistas not only raised awareness about, but also HK$4.5 million ($580,500) to fight, these diseases.

This is the second year the special administrative region is participating. And those joining the movement hope to raise even more.

It's Sam Gilbert's second Movember. He lost his grandfather to prostate cancer this year.

"(My grandfather) had a nine year battle with prostate cancer, and his steady decline in health and standard of life was very hard to watch," he recalls.

"Within 20 minutes of my arrival (in the United Kingdom), I watched my grandfather pass away in the arms of the woman he loved and had not spent a single day apart from for 60 years. Prostate cancer robbed my nana of 20 more years with the love of her life, my mother of her father, my sister and (me) of our grandfather, and my nephew of his great-grandfather.

"We can stop that happening to others and give them more years with their loved ones."

About 1,500 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer a year.