31 January, 2013

Boys born in 2015 at high prostate cancer risk

Boys born in 2015 will have a 14 per cent chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer - three times higher than those born 25 years ago, a report has warned.

According to Cancer Research UK, the lifetime risk of getting the disease will rise from 5 percent for lads born in 1990 to 14 per cent for boys born 25 years later, the Mirror reported.

This may be because of more use of the Prostate Specific Antigen test (PSA) and also because more men are living to an olderage, when the disease is most likely to develop.

PSA tests detect lots of different types of the disease, including some that are not life-threatening, as well as the aggressive forms of the disease.

But the test does not distinguish between the two.

Cancer Research UK's prostate cancer expert Prof Malcolm Mason said they are detecting more cases of prostate cancer than ever before.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

31.01.2013

Fried food ups chances of prostate cancer

Fried food ups chances of prostate cancer (Thinkstock photos/Getty Images)

If you love French fries and gorge on fried chicken, you could be heading for trouble in the shape of aggressive prostate cancers, warns a new study.

Regular consumption of deep fries such as French fries, fried chicken and doughnuts is linked to aggressive versions of prostate cancers, says a research by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Previous studies have suggested that eating foods made with high-heat cooking methods, such as grilled meats, may increase prostate cancer risk, the journal The Prostate reports.

Janet L. Stanford, co-director of the Hutchinson Center's Program in Prostate Cancer Research and colleagues found that men who reportedly ate such foods once a week were at a heightened risk of prostate cancer as compared to men who consumed them less than once a month, according to a Hutchinson statement.

"The link between prostate cancer and select deep-fried foods appeared to be limited to the highest level of consumption - defined in our study as more than once a week - which suggests that regular consumption of deep-fried foods confers particular risk for developing prostate cancer," Stanford said.

Possible mechanisms behind the increased cancer risk, Stanford hypothesises, include the fact that when oil is heated to temperatures suitable for deep frying, potentially carcinogenic compounds can form in the fried food.

The study involved 1,549 men diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,492 men who did not have the cancer.

Men who ate one or more of these foods at least weekly had an increased risk of prostate cancer that ranged from 30 to 37 percent. Weekly consumption of these foods was also associated with a slightly greater risk of more aggressive prostate cancer.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

31.01.2013

Tattooing could lead to hepatitis C

After a new study found a link between tattooing and hepatitis C, researchers are hoping that people will do some thinking about where to get their body art.

According to co-author Dr. Fritz Francois of New York University Langone Medical Center, people with the virus were almost four times more likely to report having a tattoo, even when other major risk factors were taken into account, Fox News reported.

Although the study could not prove a direct cause and effect, "Tattooing in and of itself may pose a risk for this disease that can lay dormant for many, many years," Francois said.

About 3.2 million people in the US have hepatitis C, and many don't know because they don't feel ill, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Hepatitis C is the leading cause of liver cancer and most common reason for liver transplants in the US. Some 70 percent of people infected will develop chronic liver disease, and up to 5 percent will die from cirrhosis or liver cancer.

For the current study, researchers asked almost 2,000 people about their tattoos and hepatitis status, among other questions, at outpatient clinics at three New York area hospitals between 2004 and 2006.

Researchers found that 34 percent of people with hepatitis C had a tattoo, compared to 12 percent of people without the infection.

The most common routes of contracting hepatitis C, a blood-borne disease, are through a blood transfusion before 1992 or a history of injected drug use.

Injected drug use accounts for 60 per cent of new hepatitis cases every year, but 20 percent of cases have no history of injected drug use or other exposure, according to the CDC.

The findings are published in the journal Hepatology.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

31.01.2013

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