2012-03-12 circumstitions.com - Circumcision dubiously tied to lower prostate cancer risk

[DerekV12345]

Circumcision tied to lower prostate cancer risk
- Frederik Joelving


(Reuters Health) - Circumcised men may have a slightly lower risk of developing prostate cancer than those who still have their foreskin, according to a new study.

The World Health Organization already recommends the controversial procedure [for adult volunteers] based on research showing it lowers heterosexual men's risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Last year, scientists also reported that wives and girlfriends of circumcised men had lower rates of infection with human papillomavirus or HPV, which in rare cases may lead to cervical and other cancers. And last week, researchers reported that African men who were circumcised were less likely to be infected with a particular herpes virus.

The new work jibes with those findings, [actually it has nothing to do with those findings] but it falls short of actually proving that removing a boy's foreskin will cut his future cancer risk, said Dr. Jonathan L. Wright, who led the research.

"I would not go out and advocate for widespread circumcision to prevent prostate cancer," Wright, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, told Reuters Health."We see an association, but it doesn't prove causality."
The results were published Monday in the journal Cancer and add to the longstanding debate over whether boys should keep their foreskin.

Although most Americans men are circumcised, the procedure has become less popular over the past decade, and various groups have spoken out against it.

In September, the Royal Dutch Medical Association discouraged circumcision, calling it a "painful and harmful ritual." And a few weeks later, California Governor Jerry Brown struck down an effort to ban circumcision in San Francisco arguing it would infringe on religious freedom.


WebLink: http://www.circumstitions.com/news/news44.html#prostate