A new study at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests vigorous exercise causes changes in some 180 prostate genes among men with early stage prostate cancer. According to researchers, are included genes known to suppress tumor growth and repair DNA, which might mean that exercise could prevent or delay progression of the disease.

The finding is very important for cancer patients undergoing “active surveillance” - also known as “watchful waiting” - rather than active treatment.

A recent study at at the Cleveland clinic compares 3 common prostate cancer treatments: external beam radiation, surgery and brachytherapy. Experts have found external beam radiation therapy to be more toxic and expensive than either surgery or brachytherapy.

The findings were to be presented Tuesday at a meeting in San Francisco, hosted in part by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and focused on prostate cancer.

Researchers have revealed that too much testosterone can make people overvalue our own opinions and blind us to other people’s views, it makes people act less cooperatively and more egocentrically.

The study has shown that in fact testosterone also affects people decisions, by making them more egotistical. Most of the time, this allows people to seek the best solution to a problem, but sometimes, too much testosterone can help blind them to other people’s views. This can be very significant when we are talking about a dominant individual trying to assert his or her opinion in, say, a jury

The growth of the prostate gland depends on circulating androgens and intracellular steroid signalling pathways. The effects of androgens are mediated through the androgen receptor (AR), a nuclear transcription factor encoded by the AR gene. The common polymorphisms, CAG and GGN repeats, in exon 1 of this gene have been implicated as possible risk factors.

Variation in CAG repeat length had been associated with a number of andrological disorders, whereas very little was known about the GGN repeat when the work for this thesis was started.

A recent study hypothesized that variation in GGN length may modulate AR activity, and hence the individual susceptibility to male reproductive tract disorders. The investigators also assessed the relationship between male subfertility-dependent childlessness and prostate cancer (PCa) risk in a nested case-control study to test the hypothesis that subfertile men are at lower risk of developing PCa than fertile men, since they are frequently hypogonadal secondary to testicular dysfunction.

The study concluded subfertile involuntarily childless men are at an approximately 50% lower risk of being diagnosed with PCa than are fathers of at least one biological child. On the other hand, variants in a number of genes may play a role in linking male subfertility with reduced PCa risk through their associations with impaired reproductive function

A new study at the University of Western Australia has revealed production of sperm is more biologically taxing than previously thought, and expending energy on it has considerable health implications.
This study challenges the traditional view that sex, and sperm production, come cheaply to males. It is typically thought that females must invest heavily into reproduction, whereas males can freely produce millions of high-quality, tiny sperm on demand, with few costs. Study shows that the costs are in fact large, and these costs dictate how much effort a male will devote into any given sexual encounter

Scientists have discovered a new approach for treating cancer based on manipulating the immune response to malignant tumours.

Vaccines for infectious diseases are highly effective at generating immune responses that prevent infection with bacteria or viruses. The immune system can also protect us against tumours and in theory a vaccine approach should be effective against cancer.

In practice this has proven very difficult because unlike infectious diseases, tumours are derived from normal human cells, and not made up of foreign substances or antigens capable of triggering an immune response.

Experiments from the University of North Carolina suggests that zapping a male’s private parts with ultrasound could be one of the most effective and non-invasive forms of contraception.

According to the Daily Mail, the rsearch team found that rotating a three megahertz high frequency ultrasound beam around rats’ testes wiped out the germ cells that produce sperm. Best results were seen from two sessions lasting 15 minutes with the testes warmed to 37 degrees Celsius.

A recent study looks at whether there is a link between colon cancer and alcohol, and if so at what level of consumption, and the importance of a family history of the disease. A total of 1,801 cases of colon cancer were diagnosed during follow-up from 1980 onwards.

The present study provides some support for an association between higher levels of alcohol intake and the risk of colon cancer among subjects with a positive family history of such cancer.

Frequent ejaculations, especially in 20-something men, may reduce the risk of prostate cancer later in life, and men who had five or more ejaculations weekly while in their 20s reduced their risk of getting prostate cancer later by a third.  Frequent ejaculations, up to 21 or more a month, were linked to lower prostate cancer risk in older men, as well, compared with less frequent ejaculations of four to seven monthly.

A prostate expert from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, suggests physicians advising men whether to be screened for prostate cancer with a PSA test must rely more on available evidence when recommending screening, biopsies and treatments rather than long held beliefs that PSA-based testing is beneficial for all.

He states that the current system that relies on prostate-specific antigens levels in the blood is “deeply flawed,” and physicians must take into account the fact “the PSA test does not tell you if a man has cancer, just that he might have it.”

However, doctors currently do not have a reliable way to determine which of these small cancers, caught by biopsy, are potentially dangerous and which would not cause harm throughout a man’s lifetime. Moreover, all of the current treatments carry significant risks and long term side effects

More about his opinion you can read in the February edition of Scientific American.