prostate cancer
When a man is diagnosed with prostate cancer, his brothers are twice as likely to develop the disease as well, often at an earlier age. New research finds these brothers are aware of their increased risk and many have taken vitamins or supplements to improve their health. Men participating in the research study said they felt they had a 50 percent chance of developing prostate cancer within their lifetime, and more than half of the 111 men surveyed said they were at least somewhat concerned about developing the disease. Lifetime risk for men with one first-degree relative with prostate cancer is about 56 percent, suggesting that the men surveyed were accurately assessing their risk.
A team of scientists has discovered that a little-known molecule created in the intestine when soy is digested is a natural and powerful blocker of a potent male hormone involved in prostate cancer and male pattern baldness. In fact, the molecule, equol, completely stops in its tracks the male hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which normally stimulates prostate growth and causes male pattern baldness.
Findings published in this month's issue of the Journal of Urology indicate that prostate cancer could be detected as many as five years earlier than it is currently being diagnosed by testing for a protein in tissue that indicates the presence of early disease. The researchers suggest that testing for the protein, EPCA, could serve as an adjunct to the current diagnostic approach to patients with elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, who undergo repeat needle biopsies. PSA, a substance in the blood released by the prostate gland, is commonly used to check for signs of prostate cancer and other prostate problems.
A researcher has successfully engineered plants that may not only lead to the production of anti-carcinogenic nutritional supplements, but also may be used to remove excess selenium from agricultural fields. By introducing a gene that makes plants tolerate selenium, he has developed plants capable of building up in their tissues unusually high levels of a selenium compound. His interest in selenium stems in part from recent research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health showing that selenium can reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer by 60 percent.
A tomato a day may help keep prostate cancer at bay -- but a widely used dietary supplement derived from tomatoes may not be sufficient. That?s the conclusion of the first animal study comparing the cancer-preventing potential of tomato products to that of lycopene, a substance extracted from tomatoes and taken by many men in hopes of warding off prostate cancer.
A drug designed to mimic the effects of Vitamin D hormone may be able to boost the effectiveness of radiation treatment for prostate cancer, report researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in the current on-line edition of the British Journal of Cancer. "About 30 percent of men with locally advanced prostate cancer fail radiation therapy because the cancerous cells become resistant to treatment," said Constantinos Koumenis, Ph.D., lead researcher. "Any agent that increases the cancer cells' sensitivity to radiation, without significantly affecting normal cells, would be of great benefit."
Those seeking yet another reason to eat their veggies, take note. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that a chemical produced when digesting such greens as broccoli and kale can stifle the growth of human prostate cancer cells. The findings show that 3,3'-diindolylmethane (DIM), which is obtained by eating cruciferous vegetables in the Brassica genus, acts as a powerful anti-androgen that inhibits the proliferation of human prostate cancer cells in culture tests.
Exposure to certain agricultural pesticides may be associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer among pesticide applicators, according to a large study looking at the causes of cancer and other diseases in the farming community. The study, part of a long-term study of pesticide applicators and their spouses known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), appears in the May 1, 2003, issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology*. The AHS is a collaborative effort involving the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston report an important advance in tissue engineering of the penis, raising hopes that men with severe impotence - due to penile trauma, surgery, cancer, congenital malformations or other conditions - may someday be able to regain sexual function.
These findings, presented at the American Urological Association meeting in Chicago, have implications for men who need reconstruction of the penis, and for men whose penis is intact but has suffered nerve damage - such as men who have undergone radical surgery for prostate cancer.
By blocking a protein key to prostate cancer cell growth, researchers at the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University have discovered a way to trigger extensive prostate cancer cell death. This finding opens a new window for developing targeted treatments aimed at destroying prostate cancer cells before they have the opportunity to grow or spread. The study is published in the April 29 online issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Although the benefits of green tea are widely touted, a study conducted by Mayo Clinic Cancer Center and North Central Cancer Treatment Group shows green tea is not an effective treatment for advanced prostate cancer. "Previous laboratory studies suggested that green tea might be an effective anticancer treatment," says Aminah Jatoi, M.D., a Mayo Clinic medical oncologist and lead researcher on the study. "However, in our study of 42 patients with advanced androgen-independent prostate cancer, only one patient showed a short-term drop in his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels.
Men diagnosed with localized prostate cancer have typically been faced with "good" news and "bad" news. The "good" news - if there is such a thing when cancer is involved - is that most men are effectively cured of their cancer once the prostate is surgically removed. The "bad" news is that the two most notable side effects of prostate surgery - impotence and incontinence - can be very devastating. Fortunately, significant advances have been made on both fronts, and a Wisconsin urologist has helped develop new techniques to minimize both incontinence and impotence.
UCLA scientists report that 11 days of daily exercise and the Pritikin low-fat, high-fiber diet induce prostate cancer cells to die. The research, published in the new issue of the journal Cancer Causes and Control, is the first to show that diet and exercise can kill prostate cancer cells. "You can make changes in a short period of time that have a dramatic impact on your health ? in this case, on the growth and death of prostate tumor cells," said R. James Barnard, professor of physiological science at UCLA and lead investigator on the study.
An Australian study has found that a supplement derived from red clover causes early-stage prostate cancer cells to die in numbers five times greater than in an untreated control group. The findings may explain the mystery of why Asian men, who have pre-cancerous prostate cells at similar rates to men in Western countries, see a much smaller percentage of those cells become cancerous. One previously reported study, for example, finds that 1.8 percent of men in China develop prostate cancer versus 53.4 percent of U.S. males. These findings led researchers to consider dietary differences between the cultures, particularly isoflavones.
Using a novel gene therapy approach that boosts the body?s immune system, a researcher has cured cancer in laboratory mice. In experiments reported in the Dec. 15 issue of Cancer Research, Chung Lee and colleagues at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University applied the gene therapy technique to render immune cells insensitive to transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta), a powerful, naturally occurring substance in the body called an immunosuppressor that enables cancer cells to evade surveillance by the immune system. The approach boosted the mice?s immune system, which virtually eliminated cancerous tumors in the animals' lungs and prostate gland.
