Coffee Consumption Associated

With Reduced Risk of Advanced

Prostate Cancer

ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2009) — While it is too early for physicians to start advising their male patients to take up the habit of regular coffee drinking, data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference revealed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers.

“Coffee has effects on insulin and glucose metabolism as well as sex hormone levels, all of which play a role in prostate cancer. It was plausible that there may be an association between coffee and prostate cancer,” said Kathryn M. Wilson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

In a prospective investigation, Wilson and colleagues found that men who drank the most coffee had a 60 percent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than men who did not drink any coffee. This is the first study of its kind to look at both overall risk of prostate cancer and risk of localized, advanced and lethal disease.

“Few studies have looked prospectively at this association, and none have looked at coffee and specific prostate cancer outcomes,” said Wilson. “We specifically looked at different types of prostate cancer, such as advanced vs. localized cancers or high-grade vs. low-grade cancers.”

Caffeine is actually not the key factor in this association, according to Wilson. The researchers are unsure which components of the beverage are most important, as coffee contains many biologically active compounds like antioxidants and minerals.

Using the Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study, the researchers documented the regular and decaffeinated coffee intake of nearly 50,000 men every four years from 1986 to 2006; 4,975 of these men developed prostate cancer over that time. They also examined the cross-sectional association between coffee consumption and levels of circulating hormones in blood samples collected from a subset of men in the cohort.

“Very few lifestyle factors have been consistently associated with prostate cancer risk, especially with risk of aggressive disease, so it would be very exciting if this association is confirmed in other studies,” said Wilson. “Our results do suggest there is no reason to stop drinking coffee out of any concern about prostate cancer.”

This association might also help understand the biology of prostate cancer and possible chemoprevention measures.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Radiation Seed implants better for prostate cancer

CHICAGO (UPI) — Two studies say brachytherapy — radiation seed implants — is a superior treatment for early-stage prostate cancer, officials at a Chicago non-profit say.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Chicago and The Taussig Cancer Center at Cleveland Clinic say two independent studies show brachytherapy produces a superior disease-free survival rate among patients with early-stage prostate cancer.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Chicago analyzed 9,137 patients who were treated for prostate cancer with brachytherapy between 1997 and 2008 at Chicago Prostate Center. The study says 67.5 percent of the patients were regarded as low risk, 29.36 percent as intermediate and 1.01 percent as high. For those patients, overall cure rates were 96 percent, 84 percent and 75 percent for low-, intermediate- and high-risk patients, respectively.

When combined with external beam radiation therapy in intermediate- and high-risk patients, the brachytherapy results far exceed those of surgery, the study says.

Researchers at the Taussig Cancer Center at Cleveland Clinic say for low-risk prostate cancer patients, brachytherapy was equally successful as external beam radiation, but more successful than a radical prostatectomy – prostate removal.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 8th Sept 2009