Mon Apr 3, 12:53 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A compound formed when meat is charred at high temperatures — as in barbecue — encourages the growth of prostate cancer in rats, researchers reported on Sunday.

Their study, presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, may help explain the link between eating meat and a higher risk of prostate cancer.
It also fits in with other studies suggesting that cooking meat until it chars might cause cancer.

The compound, called PhIP, is formed when meat is cooked at very high temperatures, Dr. Angelo De Marzo and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reported.

It appears to both initiate and promote the growth of prostate cancer in rats, they said.

“We stumbled across a new potential interaction between ingestion of cooked meat in the diet and cancer in the rat,” De Marzo said in a statement.

“For humans, the biggest problem is that it’s extremely difficult to tell how much PhIP you’ve ingested, since different amounts are formed depending on cooking conditions.”

For the study, Yatsutomo Nakai and other members of De Marzo’s team mixed PhIP into food given to rats for up to eight weeks, then studied the animals’ prostates, intestines and spleens. They found genetic mutations in all the organs after four weeks.

Source: Reuters: Barbecue meats linked with prostate cancer - Yahoo! News

In the past few years we have reported on a number of studies indicating that aspirin and other NSAIDs (non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) may protect men against prostate cancer. For example:

Use of aspirin or other NSAIDs increases survival for men with prostate cancer October 5, 2004.

But one study of NSAIDs and cancer turned out to be fake. In April 2005 Dr. Jon Sudbø reported at the annual meeting of American Association for Cancer Research in Anaheim, CA that NSAIDs prevent some cancers but increase cardiovascular deaths. His paper was published in a leading medical journal. But in January 2006 the entire study was revealed as a fake built from fabricated data.

Now a Canadian team has confirmed that men who take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may receive protection against prostate cancer.
(full story…)

Doctor’s Guide ranks this as the top-read abstract about prostate cancer for the week of March 23, 2006. The stretch of one statistical finding in this study is remarkable - “The recovery of potency following radical prostatectomy varies from 16% to 86%.” This finding is in line with a review a couple of years ago in Greece which found:
(full story…)