Mens Health Updates

In addition to issues with erectile dysfunction and ejaculatory difficulties experienced by men who take antidepressant medications, a new study presented at the 64th annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco has shown that fertility may be reduced as well.

The research was conducted by the Harvard Medical School in Boston  and studied effects of  the drug paroxetine (Paxil) which belongs to a group of anti-depressants known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s).

Although the patients in the study showed normal semen analysis values (volume, concentration, movement and appearance), specialized tests revealed that an abnormally high number of sperm suffered damage to their genetic material (DNA fragmentation) thus rendering the patients less fertile.

Larger studies on other SSRI medications are now being planned.

Further details of the study are available in this Reuters report.

A recent study has shown that Vietnam War veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer.   In addition, those exposed to Agent Orange were likely to develop prostate cancer at an earlier age and for the cancer to be more aggressive.

The researchers recommend that exposure to Agent Orange should now be considered as a standard risk factor for prostate cancer (as family history and African American heritage already are).

Earlier studies had established only a weak connection between Agent Orange and prostate cancer.  The fact that the current study was conducted on men who were now older than those in the earlier study (and therefore at an age when prostate cancer is more likely to develop) is believed to explain the difference in results between the two sets of studies.

Further details of the study are available in this Reuters report.

Adding more fuel to the controversies surrounding PSA testing for prostate cancer and the effect of statins, Reuters reports on a new study which shows that statins reduce PSA levels -  although it is not known if the statins are actually reducing the risk of aggressive, advanced prostate cancer or merely ‘masking’ a higher PSA level which would otherwise be indicative of such tumors.

You can read the full report here .

Reuters reports on a study which shows that taking Vitamin E and Selenium supplements does not prevent prostate cancer.

Both supplements are anti-oxidants which were previously thought to hold some preventative potential but the current research project (which involved a study of 35,000 men) proves that these two nutrients have no effect, whether taken individually or together.

The researchers noted that men who took only one of the two supplements in fact had a slightly greater risk of developing prostate cancer but stressed that this observation was not statistically significant and may simply be due to chance.

The National Institute of Cancer helped to organize the study.

Reuters reports on a study published in the journal Modern Pathology which found that a gene which has already been linked to breast cancer is also associated with 70% of cases of prostate cancer.

The  gene (named BP1) was also found to overactive in a pre-cancerous change in the prostate called prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN).

As this gene is involved in the early development of cancer, researchers hope to be able to develop drugs which will target the overactivity of the gene.

The research was conducted by Dr. Patricia Berg and associates, of the George Washington University Medical Center and involved studying prostate tumour samples from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and the National Cancer Institute and comparing their findings with samples of healthy prostate tissue.