Men's Health: Keep Your Pipes Clean

— -- It’s no coincidence that “physicians” are only a few flips away from “plumbers” in the yellow pages. Your body isn’t a temple; it’s a four-story brownstone, complete with intake pipes, drainage pumps, a sewage system, and even a few secret passageways.

Keeping your plumbing up to spec is a lot more important than cleaning the bathtub drain. If one of your hoses springs a leak or clogs up with sediment, the consequences could go way beyond a four-figure bill. The following is a plan to keep the most important conduits flowing freely.

Your Brain

Your brain relies on a network of tiny pipes to stay alive. If any one of them cracks or becomes clogged, a large region can run dry. That’s a stroke. You already know the commonsense stuff that’ll keep your cerebral arteries gushing: Stay thin, exercise for at least 30 minutes daily, and don’t let your total-cholesterol count run into the 200s. Your doctor may also tell you to take a daily aspirin if you’re over 40 and have a family history of strokes.

Furthermore, you rarely see gorillas in wheelchairs, and one reason could be their fondness for potassium-loaded bananas. An 8-year study at the Harvard school of public health suggests that eating a diet rich in potassium can cut your risk of stroke, especially if you have high blood pressure.

What’s more, studies have found that a combination of caffeine and alcohol helps brain tissue recuperate from injury. We’ll meet you at O’Callahan’s at 5:30.

Your Ears

You’ve known the 11th commandment since second grade: Don’t shove anything in your ear that’s sharper than your elbow. Of course, after drinking all that Irish coffee, you ignored it. Here are smarter ways to tend to the holes in your head:

Throw away the cotton swabs. They only ram the wax in deeper, says Richard T. Miyamoto, M.D., otolaryngologist at the Indiana University school of medicine.

Instead, flush your ear with mineral oil or buy a drugstore eardrop kit, says Dr. Miyamoto. If one home session doesn’t work, see your doctor. He can irrigate your ear canal to clear any clogs.