A research team from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, concluded that an increased long-term risk of colon cancer in men who have undergone external radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

The risk of colorectal cancer among the men who did not have radiation therapy was not increased compared to the general population, but it was 3.4-times higher than normal among the men who did have radiation, the team reports in the International Journal of Cancer.
On further analysis, the risk was significantly increased for colon cancer specifically but not for rectal cancer.
The risk of colon cancer was mainly elevated in the 5- to 9-year period after diagnosis, according team leader opinion.

Low levels of LDL cholesterol as well as high levels are associated with cancer in patients with type 2 diabetes, found a prospective cohort study published in Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Researchers from the Hong Kong Institute of Diabetes and Obesity, the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences and The Chinese University of Hong Kong conducted a study of 6107 Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes and found a V-shaped risk relation between LDL cholesterol and cancer in patients not receiving statin therapy. read more about ldl cholesterol in diabetes

According to a new analysis from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin, men who have too much calcium in their bloodstreams may have an increased risk of fatal prostate cancer,

The research appears in the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

A man’s height is a modest marker for risk of prostate cancer development, but is more strongly linked to progression of the cancer, say British researchers who conducted their own study on the connection and also reviewed 58 published studies.

In the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 12 British researchers at four universities in England studied more than 9,000 men with and without prostate cancer and estimated that the risk of developing the disease rises by about six percent for every 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) in height a man is over the shortest group of men in the study.

According to researchers who conducted their own study on the connection and also reviewed 58 published studies, the man’s height is a modest marker for risk of prostate cancer development, but is more strongly linked to progression of the cancer. That means a man who is one foot taller than the shortest person in the study would have a 19 percent increased risk of developing the disease.

Still, these increases in risk are a lot less than those linked with other established risk factors, such as age, family history of the disease, and race. Because of that, the researchers do not suggest that taller men be screened more often than is typical, or that their cancer treatment be altered.

Using the expression patterns of various genes, US researchers have created a model that can predict systemic progression or death due to prostate cancer in men with high-risk disease who have undergone radical prostatectomy.

As reported in the August 20th issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the researchers analyzed gene expression data from 102 prostate tissue samples. Candidate genes were those that were overexpressed in tumor samples compared to normal tissue and those that showed higher expression in Gleason patterns 4 and 5 than in 3.

Examination of the candidate genes and creation of the predictive model was done in case-control study of 157 high-risk patients. The model was then validated in a separate case-control study of 57 patients.

The older the father, the greater his child’s risk for bipolar disorder.

That’s the conclusion of a new study by Swedish researchers who compared 13,428 people with bipolar disorder to more than 67,000 people without the condition.

Children of older mothers also had an increased risk, but the risk was less pronounced than that associated with older fathers. In cases of early onset bipolar disorder (diagnosed before age 20), the effect of the father’s age was much stronger, while the mother’s age had no effect, the study found.

The study was published the September issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Bipolar disorder is a common, severe mood disorder involving episodes of mania and depression. Other than a family history of psychotic disorders, few risk factors for the condition have been identified, according to background information in the article.

Australian researchers are working on drugs that could activate a gene known to block the growth of cancerous cells.

Led by Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR) director Peter Klinken, they have screened a large collection of drug-like molecules and also identified a number of compounds which can increase levels of the Hls5 gene, ScienceAlert reported Friday.

Physicians and patients who are concerned about preventing prostate cancer deaths choose to screen with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests because an inconclusive but increasingly compelling body of evidence shows that the screening reduces suffering and death from prostate cancer — the second-leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States.

Numerous studies have shown that PSA-based tests, such as those that detect increases in PSA over time and the percentage of PSA floating free in the blood, help to decrease unnecessary biopsies and also identify men with the most aggressive tumors so that they can receive timely treatment.

Numerous media reports followed a federal task force’s announcement this month that there is insufficient medical evidence to assess the risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening in men younger than 75 and that doctors should stop testing men over age 75.

Men should follow the recommendations of the American Urological Association, the American Cancer Society and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, all of which recommend screening for early detection and treatment of prostate cancer. Eliminating screening also eliminates the possibility for early diagnosis and curative treatment in healthy men.

Men with depression may be less likely than women to get relief from a commonly used, inexpensive antidepressant drug, a new national study from the University of Michigan Depression Center finds. But many members of both sexes may find that it helps ease their depression symptoms.

The persistence of a gender difference in response to the drug — even after the researchers accounted for many complicating factors — suggests that there’s a real biological difference in the way the medication affects women compared with men. The reasons for that difference are still unclear, but further studies are now examining hormonal variations that may play a role.

The study involved citalopram, a commonly used antidepressant that is available both as a generic drug and under the brand name Celexa.

The new findings, which represent the largest and most rigorous analysis ever of gender differences in response to an antidepressant, are published online in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

Canadian researchers are challenging the widely held belief that flu shots help protect older people from potentially deadly diseases such as pneumonia.

While the researchers say the vaccine does protect against certain strains of influenza, its overall benefit seems to have been exaggerated by so-called observational studies that found a big reduction in “all-cause mortality” among older patients who’d gotten a flu shot.

After compensating for a variety of factors that the researchers said weren’t considered or available in the earlier studies, the study authors concluded that any “all-cause mortality” benefit “if present at all, was very small and statistically non-significant and may simply be a healthy-user artifact that they were unable to identify.”

The new research was expected to be published in the first September issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.