Academic Journal
Main Category: Prostate / Prostate Cancer
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs; Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 15 Nov 2011 - 5:00 PST
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According to an investigation published in BMJ Open, the use of the contraceptive pill is linked with an increased risk of prostate cancer worldwide. In developed countries prostate cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer among males and the use of the contraceptive pill has significantly increased over the past 4 decades.
In order to determine prostate cancer rates, deaths as well as the ratio of women using common methods for contraception for 2007, the investigators used data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the United Nations World Contraceptive Use report.
The data was then examined for individual nations and continents worldwide in order to determine if there was any association between women using the contraceptive pill and illness and death caused by prostate cancer.
According to their calculations condoms, intrauterine devices, or other vaginal barriers were not linked with an increased risk of men developing prostate cancer.
However, in the population as a whole irrespective of the wealth of a nation, the use of the contraceptive pill in individual countries around the world was substantially linked to both the number of new prostate cancer cases and deaths from prostate cancer.
The researchers stress that their research is speculative and designed in order to instigate additional consideration of the issues. At present definitive conclusions cannot be drawn as their examination does not verify cause and effect.
However they refer to many recent investigations which indicate that oestrogen exposure might increase the risk of men developing prostate cancer.
Increased oestrogen exposure is known to cause cancer, and the researchers believe that widespread use of the contraceptive pill may increase environmental levels of endocrine disruptive compounds (EDCs) - which include by-products of oral contraceptive metabolism.
The researchers explain:
"These don't break down easily, so can be passed into the urine and end up in the drinking water supply or the food chain, exposing the general population.Themporal increases in the incidence of certain cancers (breast, endometrial, thyroid, testis and prostate) in hormonally sensitive tissues in many parts of the industrialized world are often cited as evidence that widespread exposure of the general population to EDCs has had adverse impacts on human health."
Written by Grace Rattue
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
David Margel, Neil E Fleshner
BMJ Open doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2011-000311 Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
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8 Dec. 2011.
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posted by DCBookAngel on 15 Nov 2011 at 5:21 am
Contraceptive pill use is also associated with highly industrialized countries (e.g. Germany) which have both higher background carcinogens AND better detection of prostate cancer. All this study proves is that we know more about the populations of those countries, not that there is a causative effect between pill use and prostate cancer that is hormonal/chemical in nature. The researchers could have posited (from this lack of good scientific reasoning) that pill use = more sex= more prostate cancer.
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posted by Deborrah Cooper on 18 Nov 2011 at 9:18 am
I find this type of "research" to be insulting and indicative of a political agenda. Everywhere we turn lately there is a group of men doing or saying things that support eradication of women's rights to control what comes out of their womb.
Blaming women's birth control for male prostate cancer is ridiculous. Are these researchers aware of the racial disparity in incidences of prostate cancer diagnosis and death here in the U.S. Well let me share. The National Cancer Institute states "African American/Black men have the highest incidence rate for prostate cancer in the United States and are more than twice as likely as White men to die of the disease." Using their logic, it would appear that Black women use the pill more than White women.
These researchers need to look at the lifestyle of men that develop prostate cancer and not point the finger of blame at women attempting to control their bodies and childbirth.
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