Omega 6 found to speed up growth of prostate cancerÂ
[Nubella News]

The study in the Feb. 15 issue of Cancer prompted researchers to call for health providers to do a better job warning African-American men about the dangers of prostate cancer, their high risk of getting the disease, and the benefits of annual prostate exams.

Only 1 out of 4 black men between 60 and 69 are screened for prostate cancer using the common PSA blood test, which measures the level of prostate-specific antigen in the blood. In addition, only a third of them get annual digital rectal exams, according to researchers at the Medical College of Georgia.

"Healthy black men who have several first-degree relatives with prostate cancer are much less likely to have ever gotten a prostate screening than black men without a family history and white men in the general population," said Dr. Sally Weinrich, a nursing professor at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar. "However, these are the men who have a higher-than-average risk because of their positive family histories. Hereditary forms of prostate cancer are usually diagnosed at an earlier age than non-hereditary prostate cancer."

Black males are diagnosed with prostate cancer at an average age of 65. Just under 50 percent of all black males get blood tests and 38 percent get physical exams. Sixty-five percent of black males without a family history get the blood test and 45 percent get physical exams. By comparison, 81 percent of white males age 60-69 get blood tests and 68 percent get physical exams, according to the results.

Dr. Weinrich and her husband, Dr. Martin Weinrich, a biostatistician at the Medical College of Georgia, identified black males with positive family histories through the national African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and concluded in 2004.

According to prior research, black men have a 50 percent higher incidence of prostate cancer and more than double the mortality rate of white men. This research further suggests a glaring health disparity with access to health care and economics as key factors, Dr. Weinrich said.

"Black men have the right to be informed about prostate cancer screening options," she said. "We need additional research to study the reasons why black men with a positive family history have lower screening rates than black men in general."
She urged physicians to ask men specific questions about their family history. Men should also ask their families questions about who has had cancer and at what age they were diagnosed, experts say.

"While doctors cannot conclusively diagnose hereditary prostate cancer because no prostate cancer gene has been identified, answers to those questions are critical to our genetic revolution," Dr. Weinrich said. "People should also pay attention to the research. Thanks to genetic and scientific knowledge, we know more today about prostate cancer than we did five years ago and we will learn even more in the next five years."

The study also included researchers from Howard University, the National Human Genome Research Institute, Atlanta urologist James Bennett, and other participants of the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study.

Omega-6 fuels prostate cancer growth

In other news relating to men's prostates, a new study says that Omega-6 fats, such as those found in corn oil, cause prostate tumors to grow twice as fast. Researchers at San Francisco's Veterans Administration Medical Center determined that an omega-6 fatty acid, "arachidonic," turns on a gene signaling pathway that leads directly to tumor growth.

The results, which are published in the Feb. 1 issue of Cancer Research, show that omega-6 was turning on at least a dozen inflammatory genes known as important to cancer growth.

Researchers said their findings don't bode well for men because of the extremely high level of omega-6 fat in American diets. Most of the fat comes from vegetable oils, such as corn oil, which contains more than 25 times the level of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids found in canola oil, fish, and green vegetables.

During the past 60 years, the rate of growth the number of prostate cancer cases matches the steady increase in the intake of omega-6, they added.

Sources: Medical College of Georgia; University of California, San Francisco
Posted by: Steve Smith
Websites: www.mcg.edu; www.ucsf.edu

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