Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
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40 free Men's Health trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Men see doctors less, die younger and are far more likely to be colour-blind, bald, gout-ridden or ruptured at the groin — and most could not say why. The male body comes with a set of quirks, from the gland that makes most of the fluid in semen to the muscle that hoists the testicles out of the cold, that are worth knowing before a GP has to explain them. These 40 questions stick to what Wikipedia, the WHO, the NHS and peer-reviewed reviews actually say: how the hormones work, how common the conditions are and in whom, how the screening tests and awareness campaigns came about, and which widely repeated beliefs the evidence quietly overturns. None of it is advice; all of it is checkable. Play it to find out how much of your own anatomy you can account for, or hand it to a pub quiz, a health class or a mate who thinks shaving makes hair grow back thicker.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pair of glands, sitting behind the bladder, produces 70 to 85% of the fluid in the ejaculate?
Seminal vesicles
The seminal vesicles supply 70 to 85% of seminal fluid, dwarfing the testicles' own contribution. Their fructose-rich secretion is what fuels the sperm on the way out.
Q 02Melanoma most often appears on which part of a man's body, whereas in women it favours the legs?
The back
The back is the most common melanoma site in men, a spot nobody can inspect in a mirror. In the United States melanoma occurs about 1.6 times more often in men than in women.
Q 03Red–green colour blindness affects roughly what share of men of Northern European descent, against 0.5% of women?
8%
About 8% of such men, one in twelve, are red–green colour blind because the opsin genes sit on the X chromosome. A man has only one X, so a single faulty copy is enough.
Q 04About 27% of men but only 3% of women develop which hernia, passing through the canal the testicles descend along?
Inguinal
The inguinal hernia is roughly 25 times more likely in men because the canal that carried the testicles down in infancy leaves a wider gap in the abdominal wall. Repairing it is among the most common operations in the world.
Q 05Movember's founding event, 30 men growing a moustache for 30 days, was organised in which Australian city?
Melbourne
Melbourne hosted the 30-man moustache challenge that grew into a global charity, though a separate Adelaide group had coined the word 'Movember' on the news in 1999. The name fuses 'mo', Australian slang for moustache, with the month.
Q 06Gout, which mostly strikes older men and hits the big toe in half of cases, is caused by crystals of which substance?
Uric acid
Needle-shaped crystals of uric acid, a waste product of digesting purines, lodge in the joint and trigger the attack. Its link to rich food and drink earned gout the nickname 'the disease of kings'.
Q 07Testicular cancer, which most often begins between the ages of 20 and 34, has what five-year survival rate in the US?
95%
About 95% of American men diagnosed with testicular cancer are alive five years later, one of the best outcomes of any cancer. Germ cell tumours of the testis are nonetheless the most common cancer in men aged 15 to 35.
Q 08To gauge fat carried around the middle, the NHS advises keeping a man's waist below what?
Half his height
Half his height is the NHS line: for a 180 cm man that means a waist under 90 cm. The NHS offers the ratio as a check for anyone with a BMI under 35, because belly fat carries risk that BMI alone misses.
Q 09Symptoms of coronary artery disease, the world's top killer, typically appear how much later in women than in men?
10 years
Women generally develop symptoms 10 years later than men, which is why the disease long wore a male reputation. In 2015 it accounted for 15.6% of all deaths worldwide, more than any other single cause.
Q 10In the Western world, men die by suicide how much more often than women, who attempt it more often?
Three to four times
Men die by suicide three to four times more often than women in the West, even though women make two to four times as many attempts. Researchers call this the gender paradox and tie much of it to men choosing more lethal methods.
Q 11The NHS advises men, exactly like women, to keep regular drinking under what weekly alcohol limit?
14 units
The limit is 14 units a week for both sexes, about six pints of average-strength beer, after the old higher allowance for men was scrapped. The advice is to spread that across three or more days rather than one sitting.
Q 12What does the Movember charity call the men who sign up to grow a moustache for it every year?
Mo Bros
Mo Bros are the charity's moustache-growers, and the money they raise goes to three causes: prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health and suicide prevention. Women who support them are Mo Sistas.
Q 13Autopsy studies find benign prostate growth in half of men over 50; what share shows it after age 80?
80%
Q 21Which muscle hoists the testicles toward the body in the cold, keeping them near the 34.5 °C that sperm need?
Cremaster
The cremaster raises and lowers the testes to hold them 2 to 2.5 °C below core temperature. Stroking the inner thigh fires the cremasteric reflex, lifting the testicle on the same side.
Q 22What share of full-term baby boys are born with an undescended testicle, most of which drop within a year?
3%
About 3% of full-term boys have at least one undescended testis at birth, but the figure is 30% among premature boys. Roughly 80% descend on their own within the first year.
Q 23Which cells in the testicles, named after the German anatomist who found them in 1850, produce testosterone?
Leydig
Some 80% of men past 80 have benign prostatic hyperplasia on autopsy, making it close to a normal feature of ageing. Because the gland wraps the urethra, its growth explains the weak stream and night-time trips to the toilet.
Q 14PSA, the protein measured in prostate screening blood tests, does what job in the ejaculate?
Liquefies semen
PSA liquefies semen after ejaculation so sperm can swim free of the initial gel. Only a trace normally leaks into the blood, which is why a rising level draws attention.
Q 15On average, adult men carry roughly what multiple of the testosterone level of adult women?
7 to 8 times
Men have about 7 to 8 times as much testosterone as women, but women make it too, in the ovaries and adrenal glands. In men nearly all of it comes from the testicles.
Q 16By the age of 50, pattern hair loss affects what share of men, compared with a quarter of women?
About half
About half of men show pattern hair loss by 50, and some 80% of bald men got it from a bald dad. The idea that it comes only from the mother's side does not survive the numbers.
Q 17What is the first physical sign of puberty in boys, who start at 11½ to 12, about a year after girls?
Testicular enlargement
Testicular enlargement, termed gonadarche, comes first; the voice drops about an octave later on as the vocal folds lengthen and thicken. Girls typically begin around age 10½.
Q 18After a vasectomy, what happens to the sperm that the testicles carry on producing?
The body absorbs them
The body absorbs them: sperm are still made but are broken down, with fluid taken up in the epididymis and solids cleared by macrophages into the bloodstream. The testicles keep making testosterone exactly as before.
Q 19The epididymis, the coiled tube on each testicle where sperm mature, would stretch roughly how far if uncoiled?
6 metres
Uncoiled, the epididymis runs about 6 metres, packed onto a gland the size of a walnut. Sperm take two to six days to travel its length while they learn to swim.
Q 20From the first cell division to a mature cell, making a single human sperm takes roughly how long?
About 74 days
Spermatogenesis takes about 74 days, yet the testicles turn out 200 to 300 million sperm every day of adult life. Only around half of those are viable.
Leydig cells, discovered by Franz Leydig, sit between the seminiferous tubules and make testosterone when luteinising hormone arrives from the pituitary. Sertoli cells next door nurse the developing sperm instead.
Q 24Which two-surname scale grades male pattern baldness by severity, from a receding hairline to a bare crown?
Hamilton–Norwood
The Hamilton–Norwood scale is the standard chart for grading male androgenic alopecia. The enzyme that converts testosterone into its follicle-shrinking form is most active in two tissues: the scalp and the prostate.
Q 25Which hormone, made from testosterone by 5-alpha-reductase, drives male pattern hair loss and prostate growth?
DHT
DHT, dihydrotestosterone, binds the androgen receptor several times more strongly than testosterone itself, which is why the scalp and prostate answer to it.
Q 26Minoxidil, approved for baldness as Rogaine in 1988, had first reached the market in 1979 as an oral tablet for what?
High blood pressure
Minoxidil was a high blood pressure drug called Loniten until patients on trial kept sprouting hair, a side effect a Miami dermatology resident first reported. Rubbing it on the scalp turned the nuisance into the product.
Q 27Finasteride, licensed for hair loss as Propecia in 1997, had first been approved five years earlier to treat what?
An enlarged prostate
An enlarged prostate, benign prostatic hyperplasia, was the original target: Merck sold it as Proscar from 1992. The hair-loss version is the same molecule under a different name.
Q 28National Prostate Health Month, designated for September in 1999, is symbolised by a ribbon of which colour?
Light blue
A light blue ribbon marks prostate awareness each September in North America, two months before the moustaches of Movember. The American Foundation for Urological Disease chose the month.
Q 29Men's Health Week, created by the US Congress in 1994, is the week ending on which day each June?
Father's Day
Father's Day closes the week, a deliberate nudge to get men checked while families are already thinking about them. The bills were sponsored by Bob Dole and Bill Richardson, and the week went international in 2002.
Q 30International Men's Day, held each 19 November, was first observed in 1999 in which Caribbean country?
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago held the first International Men's Day, conceived by Dr Jerome Teelucksingh of the University of the West Indies. He chose the date partly because it was his dad's birthday.