testosterone therapy; no prostate cancer link

[house1]

posted by blown s on pm



Testosterone Therapy: No Prostate Cancer Link
By Jeanie Lerche Davis
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
on Thursday, January 15, 2004
Contrary to Belief, Testosterone Doesn't Raise Risk of Prostate Cancer, Study Shows


Jan. 15, 2004 -- One of doctors' greatest fears about testosterone therapy is that it may cause prostate cancer. But a new study shows that it won't increase a man's risk of prostate cancer -- even if he has precancerous prostate cells.

The study sheds light on the risks of testosterone therapy, which is used in men with low testosterone levels to help restore a man's sexual function, mood, memory, even aspects of his physique -- muscle mass, strength, body fat, bone density.

However, doctors have been concerned that testosterone therapy could trigger growth of prostate cancer -- especially if a man already has precancerous cells in his prostate, writes researcher Ernani Rhoden, urologist with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.

Rhoden's paper appears in the December 2003 Journal of Urology.

His study involved 20 men who had precancerous cells in the prostate and 55 men who had no signs of these cells.

After one year of testosterone therapy, Rhoden's researchers looked at prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels for all the men. Rising PSA levels are an indication that a man may have prostate cancer.

The PSAs were very similar for both groups -- both before and after testosterone therapy, he reports.

These results indicate that testosterone therapy does not lead to prostate cancer and that men with a history of precancerous prostate cells may be able to safely take testosterone therapy, Rhoden

[house1]

remember this is just one small study -- but its a step in the right direction

[Pumpdogg]

Nice read House, thanx for the info

PD

[Mr I]

Great post, and you know what?

From all the reading that I have done on hormone treatment of any type I've developed a two general rules of thumb, 'if it aint broke, then trying to fix it may lead to problems' and 'you can have too much of a good thing'

This is ofcourse just an opinion, but what I'm getting at is that if someone is "deficient in something" then synthetically replacing it to accrue normal levels can only be a good thing leading to improved overall health.

However, if they arn't deficient in eg; a hormone and the hormone is none the less dramatically increased for a long period then you must surely be scewing natural balance and therefor putting yourself at increased risk of problems.

Thanks for the Thread House 1, one thing that isn't clear, or maybe I missed it, is whether the sample patients were deficient in testosterone to begin with.

I'm not flaming the use of hormones here, that would be hypocritical of me, what I am saying is that in my humble opinion, "rebus sic standibus" putting hormones including; insulin, testosterone, growth hormone into a human being that already has normal levels of these hormones must logically throw off the bodies natural balance, and it would be, again in my view, naive to think that there is some price to pay. I hope that in my case its just the post cycle doldrums I go through.

Inc.