Archive for Articles of Interest
Does Sex Cause Cancer?
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Well folks, the circus has come to town. Unfortunately, the subject of this spectacle is prostate cancer. If you haven’t been in a coma in the last few days you must have seen the headline:
SEX CAUSES CANCER!!
For me this is deja vu all over again. Some months ago I reported about a study which addressed this same issue and concluded that frequent “youthful” sex actually had a protective effect against prostate cancer. (See “Does Masturbation Cause Prostate Cancer?”, 4/23/08, http://prostatecancerblog.net/?s=promiscuity&x=16&y=10.) I expressed skepticism about those results and noted that I was aware of several older studies which had indeed found a positive correlation between *promiscuity* and prostate cancer.
I am not going to go into detail about the new study because I don’t find the results credible or useful. But I will give you a link to an excellent article in which a PC expert at the University of Chicago reviews the findings and puts them into perspective: “Link Between Sexual Activity and Increased Risk of Cancer Open to Question“, Medill Northwestern Report, Jan. 28, 2009.) http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=113327. This is all you need to read.
Also, I came across an article about this in Salon magazine that was written by a doctor and is very good (and not surprisingly, the “Most Read” item on the page). http://open.salon.com/cover.php. Note: graphics are for adults only!
One problem with the data relied upon here is that it comes from men in their 60′s who were reporting on sexual behavior that occurred 30 years ago. I can tell you that memory does not get better with age, and I have a while to go before I reach 60.
Also, I am aware of a phenomenon that might be at work here which has eluded the researchers. I recently read that *some* men who’ve had PC and have been negatively affected sexually as a result have a tendency to aggrandize their pre-treatment sexual prowess (consciously or not), as a way of coping with the effects of ED or other bodily changes on self-esteem and identity. “Changed Men: The Embodied Impact of Prostate Cancer”, Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 19, No. 2, 151-163 (2009).
I must say it’s surprising how many men in the PC forums report having engaged in Olympic-level sexual athletics *before their surgery*. One man even says that he was a sexual “legend” in his own time!
My point is, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the men with PC reported higher levels of youthful sexual activity than they actually engaged in, and of course this would bias the results.
I find this situation a bit sad, because we finally have the world’s attention focused on prostate cancer, but not in a way which is productive. Indeed, it is counterproductive. I wish the message being trumpeted were that men should learn more about PC and get screened at an appropriate age. It is not plausible to me that any young man hearing that there may be a relationship between sex and prostate cancer is going to alter his behavior in any way. For one thing, PC is perceived as a “geezer” disease, and the youthful set won’t be paying attention anyway.
As one of the researchers involved in the new study advised: It’s best to “do everything in moderation” — including sex. That seems like sensible advice, but we didn’t need an expensive scientific study to tell us that. Not only is promiscuity a bad idea because of all the STD’s out there, but we now know that the virus that causes cervical cancer may be sexually transmitted. So why not others?
As far as I see, the only effect of a study that links sex and cancer will be to increase the shame and guilt that are already associated with this subject. For example, men over the ages have been well schooled about the “horrors” of masturbation. I have to say that my husband disagrees with me here: he says I have my head in the 1940′s — that negative perceptions of sex are a thing of the past. I say ideas that are deeply ingrained in our culture do not suddenly fade away.
That’s a sexual fantasy.
The Amateur Scientist Who May Have Cured Cancer — from His Basement
Posted by: | CommentsLadies, you know the situation: you want to TALK, hubby wants to TINKER. Well, let him be — he might just be in the basement finding a cure for cancer.
Researchers at several prestigious institutions believe that that’s EXACTLY what one amateur scientist named John Kanzius may have done — working with a few pie pans and some hot dogs! And the treatment is non-invasive. It does not require surgery or multiple insertions of probes.
What is remarkable about all this is that Kanzius, a 64-year-old retired business owner and radio technician, has no college degree (let alone a Ph.D.), no fancy laboratory or pipeline of federal funding. But he does have brains, talent and drive.
Here is a description of Kanzius’s treatment as well as some more background information from a recent article in Discover magazine (11/19/08):
“When nanoparticles made from gold are injected into tumors, they attach to cancer cells. The Kanzius RF Machine transmits focused radio waves to these nanoparticles, which respond by releasing heat and incinerating infected cells while leaving the surrounding healthy cells intact.
“Kanzius’s research was inspired by his own struggle with chemotherapy treatments in 2003 and 2004 while battling leukemia. In 2005 his work gained the attention of the prestigious cancer research centers at the University of Pittsburgh and the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Both facilities are now testing the treatment on animals. So far, tests have successfully destroyed localized tumors known as hepatic VX2 carcinomas in rabbits.”
For more information about Kanzius’s work go to:
Have We Finally Turned A Corner In The War Against Cancer?
Posted by: | CommentsThe results of a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicate that both diagnoses and deaths from common cancers, such as lung, breast and prostate, are declining. The drops have been especially dramatic with prostate cancer. *However*, there is some reason to believe that fewer men are getting PSA tests, and this decline in screening may account for fewer diagnoses of PC. So we can’t break out the champagne just yet.
I just saw Dr. Larry Norton, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, being interviewed about this on the PBS Newshour. While he was happy about the lower cancer stats, he expressed concern that not enough money is being spent on cancer research. As an example, he stated that in the U.S., six times more money is spent on soft drinks than on finding a cure! We must do better.
Here are some excerpts from an article in the New York Times today (“New Cases of Cancer Decline in the U.S.”, by Roni Caryn Rabin, November 25, 2008):
“The incidence of new cancer cases has been falling in recent years in the United States, the first time such an extended decline has been documented, researchers reported Tuesday. “Cancer diagnosis rates decreased by an average of 0.8 percent each year from 1999 to 2005, the last year for which data are available, according to an annual report by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and other scientific organizations.
“Death rates from cancer continued to decline as well, a trend that began some 15 years ago, the report also noted. It was published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“Each year that you see these steady declines it gives you more confidence that we’re moving in the right direction,” said Dr. John E. Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, who is not an author of the report. ‘This is not just a blip on the screen.’
“Death rates from cancer fell an average of 1.8 percent each year from 2002 to 2005, according to the new report. Although last year’s report said death rates dropped an average of 2.1 percent each year from 2002 to 2004, a modest 1 percent decline in 2005 lowered the average percentage for the period.
“The decline is primarily due to a reduction in death rates from certain common cancers, including prostate cancer and lung cancer in men, breast cancer in women and colorectal cancer in both sexes.
“The report attributes the reductions to adoption of healthier lifestyles and improved screening, as well as advances in treatment.
“. . . The incidence of prostate cancer declined by 4.4 percent a year from 2001 to 2005, after annual increases of 2.1 percent a year for several years, Dr. Jemal said. Yet prostate screening rates, too, have leveled off in recent years.’This might not be good news,’ Dr. Jemal said. ‘It’s always difficult to interpret the incidence rate.’”
“Christine Eheman, chief of the cancer surveillance branch at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was more optimistic about the decline in cancer diagnoses.
“’I do think it’s a good sign,’ Dr. Eheman said, ‘but I think we need to be very careful not to think we have this problem in any way beaten. We need to continue to do what we know works, and also find out why some cancers are not decreasing and not decreasing in certain populations.’”