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More evidence that ejaculation tends to reduce risk of prostate cancerPSA Rising, New York April 22, 2004. New evidence suggests that ejaculation frequency may protect against prostate cancer and does not cause prostate cancer. Ejaculation frequency, a measure of sexual activity, is not associated with a higher risk for prostate cancer, according to a study in the April 7 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In fact, a high ejaculation frequency may be linked to a decreased risk of prostate cancer. Sexual activity has been hypothesized to play a role in the development of prostate cancer, according to background information in this JAMA article. Given that sexual activity is common and that prostate cancer risk is high, any association between these factors would have clinical and public health relevance. But last year Australian researcher Graham Giles broke mold and reported that the more often men ejaculate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer. Giles compared men who were under the age of 70 when they were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and with a group of similarly aged healthy men. The study surveyed 1079 men with prostate cancer and 1259 healthy men. "The study looked at ejaculation in the context of sexual activity with another person, masturbation, nocturnal emissions etc.," Giles said. "This is a different approach from previous studies which have mostly looked at links between sexual intercourse and prostate cancer." "Our research indicates that there is no association between prostate cancer and the number of sexual partners, Giles said, "which argues against infection as a cause of prostate cancer in the Australian population. We also found no association between maximum number of ejaculations in a 24 hour period and prostate cancer. Therefore, it is not men's ability to ejaculate that seems to be important." USA repeats the Australian studyBut the old view had not been demolished and Australian men might be rare birds. So Michael F. Leitzmann, M.D., of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Md., and colleagues re-examined the association between ejaculation frequency (which includes sexual intercourse, nocturnal emission, and masturbation) and risk of prostate cancer. Their study used data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (February 1, 1992, through January 31, 2000) of 29,342 men in the U.S., aged 46 to 81 years, who provided information on history of ejaculation frequency on a self-administered questionnaire in 1992 and responded to follow-up questionnaires every 2 years to 2000. Ejaculation frequency was assessed by asking participants to report the average number of ejaculations they had per month during the ages of 20 to 29 years, 40 to 49 years, and during the past year (1991). Among the participants, there were 1,449 new cases of total prostate cancer, 953 organ-confined cases, and 147 advanced cases of prostate cancer. "Higher ejaculation frequency was not related to increased risk of prostate cancer," Leitzmann says. "Our results suggest that high ejaculation frequency possibly may be associated with a lower risk of total and organ-confined prostate cancer. These associations were not explained by potential risk factors for prostate cancer, such as age, family history of prostate cancer, history of syphilis or gonorrhea, smoking, and diet," the authors write. The study is reported in JAMA. 2004;291:1578-1586. It was paid for by grants to co-author Dr. Walter Willett from the National Institutes of Health and by a Cancer Epidemiology Training grant to Dr. Leitzmann from the National Cancer Institute This page reported by J. Strax, last updated April 23, 2004
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Timeline: a history of prostate cancer Prostate Cancer Treatment Guidelines for Patients Gene expression profiling to Masturbation lowers risk of prostate cancer, Australian study - July 2003 Obesity Linked to More Aggressive Prostate Cancer Higher PSAs and Gleason scores, higher risk of recurrence. Dec 23, 2003 Heavy Smoking Doubles Risk of Aggressive Prostate Cancer August 1, 2003.
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