Being overweight may affect men's semen quality

By Kathryn Doyle

NEW YORK Thu Dec 19, 2013 


(Reuters Health) - Overweight and obese men in a new study showed diminished quantity and quality of semen, suggesting that a weight problem might also affect fertility, researchers say.
"The heavier the men, the higher the chances of a low sperm count," urologist Dr. Keith Jarvi told Reuters Health. "I don't think that this message is well known or appreciated by men in general," said Jarvi, who was not involved in the new study.

Read the full Reuters Health report
 

Testosterone Conundrum: New Study Yields Clues

Lisa Nainggolan

November 22, 2013

A new study in older men, published online November 20 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, has shown that those with testosterone levels in the mid-range had the lowest rates of death from any cause.
This U-shaped association of testosterone with mortality differs from that seen in prior research, said lead author Bu Beng Yeap MBBS, FRACP, PhD, from the University of Western Australia, Perth.
"There was no benefit of having a high-normal testosterone level. Therefore, an optimal rather than a high testosterone level predicts [best] survival," Dr. Yeap told Medscape Medical News.

Read the full Medscape Medical News report

Study identifies marker for high-risk prostate cancers

NHS Choices

"Prostate cancer patients could be screened to detect aggressive tumours after scientists identified a protein linked to severe forms of the disease," reports The Daily Telegraph. The news is based on the results of a complex laboratory study looking at a protein called NAALADL2.
Scientists found that levels of NAALADL2 were high in prostate cancer when compared with healthy tissue, and levels were higher in more aggressive and more extensive prostate tumours.

Read the full NHS Choices report

Specific Occupations Linked to Aggressive Prostate Cancer

Yael Waknine

November 07, 2013

Long-haul truckers and men working in garden-supply shops might be more likely to have highly aggressive prostate cancer on diagnosis, according to a presentation at the 12th Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held in National Harbor, Maryland.
Plausible explanations for the findings include the whole-body vibrations commonly experienced by truckers and the potential chemical exposure from indoor pesticide storage, lead author L. Joseph Su, MD, MPH, from the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland, told Medscape Medical News.

Read the full Medscape Medical News report

Testosterone Therapy Linked With Adverse CVD Events

Heartwire
November 05, 2013

DENVER, CO — The use of testosterone therapy in men is associated with an increased risk of death, MI, or ischemic stroke, according to the results of a new study^[1]. The increased risk, which was about 30% higher in men treated with testosterone than in those who did not receive it, was observed in a cohort of Veterans Affairs (VA) patients with multiple comorbidities undergoing coronary angiography.
"We found an association; it's not causal, given the observational nature of the study," senior investigator Dr Michael Ho (Veterans Affairs Eastern Colorado Health Care System, Denver) told heartwire . "It does provide some evidence that testosterone therapy may be associated with some increased risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes. For patients who are starting therapy or who are currently on therapy, this might warrant a discussion with their physicians about the potential benefits of the therapy vs the potential risk. I think that decision should be individualized for each patient."

Read the full Medscape report

PSA Screening Does More Harm Than Good, Says New Analysis

Medscape Medical News

Roxanne Nelson

Sep 29, 2013

AMSTERDAM — To the ongoing debate over whether routine screening for prostate cancer reduces prostate cancer mortality comes a new analysis that suggests that it does more harm than good.

The total harms that men experience in terms of impotence, incontinence, and other side effects from prostate cancer treatment can severely affect their quality of life, lead author Mathieu Boniol, MD, said here at the European Cancer Conference 2013 (ECCO-ESMO-ESTRO).

Dr. Boniol and colleagues conducted a systematic review of the literature for data on results of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing, biopsy rates, and mortality/associated side effects from radical prostatectomy, as well as hospitalization rates associated with biopsy. They also used data from the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer, which is the study showing the most favorable outcomes for PSA screening.


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Testosterone Therapy: Scant Evidence of Benefit in CVD Risk

Medscape Medical News

Steven Fox

Sep 25, 2013

Although there is some evidence that low endogenous testosterone levels may be linked to cardiovascular risk, a review of the last 43 years of literature finds scant definitive evidence that testosterone supplementation affects that risk.

Johannes B. Ruige, MD, PhD, from the Department of Endocrinology, Ghent University Hospital, Belgium, and colleagues. report their findings in an article published online September 24 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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Healthy Habits Linked to Longer Telomeres in Prostate Cancer

Medscape Medical News (Oncology)
Neil Osterwell
Sept. 16, 2013

A comprehensive lifestyle intervention might help prostate cancer patients live to be longer in the tooth and in the telomere, suggest results of a very small pilot study reported online in The Lancet Oncology. 
 
Among 35 men with biopsy-proven, low-risk prostate cancer who opted for active surveillance, a comprehensive lifestyle intervention including diet, activity, stress management, and support was associated with lengthening of telomeres over 5 years compared with a loss of telomere length among controls, report Dean Ornish MD, director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, in Sausalito, California, and colleagues.


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FDA OKs New Device to Treat BPH

Medscape Medical News
Mark Crane
Sept. 13, 2013

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today authorized the marketing of the UroLift system, the first permanent implant to relieve low or blocked urine flow in men aged 50 years and older with an enlarged prostate.

The UroLift system relieves the urine flow by pulling back the prostate tissue that is pressing on the urethra.

"The UroLift provides a less invasive alternative to treating [benign prostatic hyperplasia] than surgery," Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a release. "This device also may offer relief to men who cannot tolerate available drug therapies."

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Complications of Robotic Surgery Underreported

Medscape Medical News
Robert Lowes
Sept 05, 2013

More injuries and deaths are linked to da Vinci robotic surgery than meet the eye, according to a new study published online August 27 in the Journal for Healthcare Quality.

As a result, "we're not learning from our performance," study coauthor Martin Makary, MD, MPH, told Medscape Medical News.

Between January 1, 2000, and August 1, 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received 245 adverse event (AE) reports related to the controversial da Vinci robotic surgical system, made by Intuitive Surgical. Scouring federal court records and media accounts, Dr. Makary and colleagues found 5 more cases that were never reported. They also discovered that 3 reported cases were problematic. One was submitted 930 days after the surgery, and another 292 days after. The latter case, as well as a third dubious one, was submitted to the FDA only after a media report of the patient's death appeared.

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Night Work May Shift PSA Level Higher

Medscape Oncology -

Nick Mulcahy

Aug 22, 2013

Men engaged in shift work, including working at night or on a rotating schedule, had an increased likelihood of having an elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) value, according to new American research.

Specifically, there was a statistically significant association between current shift work and an elevated PSA of 4.0 ng/mL or greater. The study is based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Read the full Medscape Medical News report here

Should Men Take Finasteride to Prevent Prostate Cancer ?

A recent update to an important study analyzes whether the benefits outweigh the risks to taking finasteride to prevent prostate cancer.

Dr. Gerald Chodak discusses this subject in this new video from ProstateVideos.com.

New Prostate Screening Guidance 'Unbalanced'?

Medscape - August 16, 2013
Gerald Chodak

At the Prostate Cancer World Congress in Australia, a group of experts came up with some new recommendations regarding prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing. This was partly in response to the US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations against routine screening. This 6-point recommendation has what Dr. Gerald Chodak thinks are a number of biased statements that potentially lead to misinformation.

Read/Watch Dr. Gerald Chodak's thoughts on this matter in this Medscape report
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Metformin tied to longer prostate cancer survival

Veronica Hackethal, MD
NEW YORK | Thu Aug 15, 2013


(Reuters Health) - In older men with diabetes and prostate cancer, taking the diabetes drug metformin was linked to a lower risk of death, according to a new study.

Researchers found metformin's apparent benefits accumulated over time. Among men with diabetes in Ontario, Canada, who were over age 66, the study found a 24 percent reduction in prostate-cancer mortality for every six months of metformin use, and a similarly lower risk of death from any cause for the first six months.

"Among diabetic men with prostate cancer metformin should be considered the drug of choice, not only for diabetes control but possibly to improve prostate cancer outcomes," Dr. David Margel, a urologist at Rabin Medical Center, Petah Tikva, Israel, and lead author of the study, told Reuters Health in an email.

Read More of this Reuters Health Report 

Chemoprevention for Prostate Cancer: New Data

Medscape Medical News -

Zosia Chustecka

Aug 14, 2013

Long-term data confirm the finding that finasteride reduces the risk for prostate cancer by about a third, but they also show no effect on overall survival or on survival after a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

The new data, from an 18-year follow-up of men taking part in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), are published in the August 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The new data should reopen the debate about using finasteride for the prevention of prostate cancer, says Eric Klein, MD, from the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio, who was not involved in the study.

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Prostate cancer hormonal therapy tied to kidney risks

By Genevra Pittman

NEW YORK | Tue Jul 16,


Reuters Health) - Men who are treated for prostate cancer with hormone-targeted therapy have a higher risk of developing kidney problems, a new study suggests.

The treatment, known as androgen deprivation therapy, lowers the risk of death among men with advanced, aggressive prostate cancer.

However, researchers said it's increasingly being used to treat possible recurrences among men with less advanced disease - for whom the benefits are less clear, and the risks more worrisome.

Read the full Reuters Health report

Evidence of prostate cancer, omega-3 link

AAP - July 11, 2013

US scientists say they have confirmed a surprising 2011 study that found a higher risk of prostate cancer among men who consume omega-3 fatty acids, raising new questions about the safety of supplements. 
 
The research in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported a 71 per cent higher risk for dangerous high-grade prostate cancer among men who ate fatty fish or took fish-oil supplements, which are often touted for their anti-inflammatory properties.

"We've shown once again that use of nutritional supplements may be harmful," said Alan Kristal, researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre and senior author of the paper.

Read the full news. com.au  report

Soy doesn't prevent prostate cancer return: study

NEW YORK | Tue Jul 9, 2013

(Reuters Health) - Men who took soy supplements after having their prostate cancer removed were just as likely to see their cancer return as men who didn't take soy, in a new study.

"I think this study clearly demonstrates men in this particular situation… will not benefit," said Maarten Bosland, the study's lead author from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Read the full Reuters Health report 
 

Men With ED: 25% Are Aged 40 Years or Younger

Traditionally considered the bane of aging men, erectile dysfunction (ED) is surprisingly common in younger men as well, the authors of a new study report.

Of 439 men visiting a sexual medicine outpatient clinic complaining of new-onset ED, 114 (26%) were 40 years old or younger, lead author Paolo Capogrosso, MD, from the Department of Urology, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy, and colleagues write in an article published online May 7 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Moreover, the rate of severe ED was similar in younger and older men, and scores on the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) also were similar between the age groups. "Therefore, the observation as a whole appeared to us as a worrisome picture from the everyday clinical practice," the authors write.

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Heart-Healthy Diet May Be Prostate Cancer Healthy Too

UPDATED June 13, 2013 — A diet that reduces carbohydrates and animal fat intake and boosts vegetable fat consumption could benefit men with prostate cancer, a new observational study concludes.
This dietary-fat mix mirrors a heart-healthy diet and was associated with better overall and prostate-cancer-related mortality in a large cohort of men, report the authors, led by Erin Richman, ScD, from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

"Overall, our findings support counseling men with prostate cancer to follow a heart-healthy diet in which carbohydrate calories are replaced with unsaturated oils and nuts to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality," write the authors.

Nuts and vegetable oils (such olive and canola oil) were the 2 sources of vegetable fats associated with reduced overall and disease-specific mortality.

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