ALWAYS KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR COLLAR SIZE

HOW TO MEASURE IT: Wrap a measuring tape around your neck about an inch from where the neck meets the shoulders. The average measurement is 15 inches for a man and 13.5 inches for a woman.

THE POTENTIAL RISKS: Doctors at the Baskent University School of Medicine in Ankara, Turkey, who carried out a number of tests on men aged 40 to 60, found that those with a neck measuring more than 16.3 inches were more likely to experience impotence or erectile dysfunction.

‘This is the first study to identify an association between neck circumference and erectile dysfunction,’ said the researcher, writing in the journal Andrologia: ‘Measurement of necks may provide us with predictive information about erectile dysfunction.’

Larger necks are also associated with sleep apnoea — a condition where the muscles in the throat relax during sleep, causing a temporary halt to breathing that can occur hundreds of times a night, leading to daytime fatigue and an increased risk of heart and other health problems. A larger neck

means more soft tissue, which puts greater pressure on the pharynx to restrict breathing during sleep.

WHAT’S GOING ON? Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the most common sexual problem to affect men; around half of all men aged 40 to 70 will have some degree of ED. Causes include metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that increase your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke. One theory is that greater neck circumference may be a marker that someone has metabolic syndrome.