The Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, who just celebrated his 63rd birthday, has undergone a robot-assisted prostatectomy on February 16, 2015, after being found to have prostate cancer. The company’s first-ever “The New York Times”, which is the only one of its kind in the world, is the first of its kind in the world.
In retrospect, it was found that from former South African President Nelson Mandela to “The God of Stock” Warren Buffett, from media mogul Murdoch to famous Japanese writer Junichi Watanabe, many famous people have unfortunately been infected with prostate cancer. The incidence of this disease is also increasing in China. What kind of people are susceptible to prostate cancer and what factors are associated with the occurrence of prostate cancer? We’ll summarize this with the relevant literature.
Increasing Incidence
Prostate cancer has long been the most common malignant tumor in adult men in Europe and the United States, but in recent years, the incidence of prostate cancer has been on the rise in many Asian countries where the incidence rate was low. The incidence of prostate cancer is related to the socio-economic development status, such as population aging, improvement of living standards, changes in diet structure and environmental pollution, and developed regions often show a trend of high incidence of prostate cancer. Data show that the incidence of prostate cancer in China has increased dramatically in the last decade, with major cities being the “hardest hit” areas.
Studies have shown that the age of prostate cancer incidence gradually increases after 55 years old, with the peak age being 65 to 75 years old. In recent years, the incidence of prostate cancer is also trending younger.
Lifestyle-related
The exact cause of prostate cancer is still not clear. Age, genetics, environment and lifestyle are the main risk factors for the disease. The occurrence of any cancer is more or less related to lifestyle and diet, and this is certainly the case with prostate cancer. It has been found that a high-fat diet is likely to trigger prostate cancer. In addition, smoking and drinking alcohol are risk factors, while men who often consume foods high in animal fat are also vulnerable to prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is not terrible, as long as it is detected early, it can be effectively controlled or even cured. The cure rate of early stage prostate cancer is over 95% and the recurrence rate is very low.
Annual checkup should be done over 50 years old
How can prostate cancer be detected early? Men over the age of 50 should have their PSA (prostate specific antigen) checked once a year. If PSA is found to be elevated, further examination should be performed and prostate puncture biopsy should be performed if necessary. Many patients are worried that “a puncture biopsy to confirm prostate cancer will cause the cancer to spread”, but this is really something to think about.
Some people even call prostate enlargement a benign tumor. However, the fact is that the two diseases are not necessarily related and there is no transformational relationship. The former is a benign hypertrophy and the latter is a tumor.
Possible related influencing factors
A team of researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK analyzed the eating habits and lifestyle habits of about 20,000 British men aged 50 to 69. Researchers found that men who ate more than 10 servings of tomatoes per week, which included fresh tomatoes, tomato juice, and roasted tomatoes, reduced the incidence of prostate cancer by 18 percent.
A new study from the University of Glasgow in England found that men who drink too much tea may have an increased risk of prostate cancer. The new study followed the health of more than 6,000 men aged 21-75 for 37 years, starting in 1970. The results showed that men who drank more than seven cups of tea a day had a 50 percent increased risk of prostate cancer compared to men who drank less than three cups of tea a day.
The medical journal “Cancer Research” has published an article saying that American cancer experts have found that men who get sunlight regularly have half the chance of getting prostate cancer than men who don’t get sunlight regularly, even less than 65%.
Poor sleep may increase the risk of prostate cancer
Poor sleep can leave people mentally drained and unable to focus, but the effects of poor sleep go far beyond that. A new study shows that poor sleep may also increase the risk of prostate cancer in men.
University of Iceland researchers reported May 7 in the American Journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention that sleep problems that impair health have become a common problem in modern society. For example, a previous study found that women who do not sleep well have a high risk of developing breast cancer. But scientists were not aware of the link between sleep problems and prostate cancer in men.
In this new study, researchers looked at the effect of sleep on prostate cancer risk in more than 2,100 Icelandic men between the ages of 67 and 96. They first investigated the quality of sleep of these subjects and found that 14.4 percent of them had severe or very severe sleep problems, including difficulty falling asleep, waking up easily at night and waking up too early in the morning. None of these individuals had prostate cancer at the time of study participation, but after 5 years of follow-up, 6.4% of them had prostate cancer.
After taking into account age and other influences, the researchers found that the risk of prostate cancer in people with poor sleep was 1.6 times to 2.1 times higher than in people without sleep problems. If this result is validated by further studies, sleep may be a potential target for intervention to reduce the risk of prostate cancer, the researchers said.
Possible link between baldness and prostate cancer in African-American men
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have reported that baldness in African-American men may be associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer, particularly in those with early baldness, but whether this association applies to other populations remains to be confirmed.
According to the National Cancer Institute, African-American men are at the highest risk for prostate cancer in the United States, more than twice as high as white men. A total of 537 men of African descent participated in this study, 318 of whom had prostate cancer. The researchers compared the types of baldness among balding men and the age at which baldness began, and they found that overall balding men had a 69 percent higher risk of prostate cancer than those who were not balding, and those who went bald before age 30 had more than twice the risk of developing malignant prostate cancer by age 60 than those who were not balding.
Researchers speculate that this association may be related to a hormone called dihydrotestosterone. Dihydrotestosterone is a steroid hormone secreted by the testes, which can lead to hair loss, among other things, if overdone, and prostate enlargement in middle-aged and elderly people is also closely related to dihydrotestosterone. This study was only done on African-American men, and they will be doing more research on other populations.
Eating more tomatoes may help prevent prostate cancer
In a new study, British researchers have experimentally confirmed the anti-cancer effects of lycopene. Because the lycopene consumed by the body tends to accumulate in the prostate gland, researchers believe that eating more tomatoes can help prevent prostate cancer.
Researchers at the University of Portsmouth report in the British Journal of Nutrition that they grew some cancer cell tissue in test tubes and tested the effects of lycopene on these tissues. The results showed that a variety of cancer cells get their blood supply in a relatively similar way, and that lycopene was able to interfere with this process and limit the blood supply to the cancer cells, suggesting that lycopene can have a broader anti-cancer effect.
However, tomatoes are perhaps most effective against cancer or preventing prostate cancer, as researchers found that the area where lycopene gathered the most after people consumed tomatoes was prostate tissue.
Researchers Maridula? Chopra said that although lycopene can fight cancer, it has to be effective in areas where it can easily reach. The current study showed that the concentration of lycopene needed to limit the growth of cancer cells in a test tube could be easily reached in the prostate area by consuming tomatoes.
Lycopene is a natural pigment contained in plants and is found in many fruits and vegetables, such as watermelon, grapes and carrots, but is still most abundant in tomatoes, which appear red because of its presence.
Surgery more effective for some prostate cancer patients
Swedish researchers have published a new study in the British Medical Journal that says surgery is more effective than radiation therapy for patients with limited prostate cancer to increase their chances of survival.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and other institutions followed more than 30,000 prostate cancer patients over the past 15 years and found that patients with limited prostate cancer had a higher survival rate if they chose surgery than those who chose radiation therapy. Limited prostate cancer is a type of cancer in which the tumor does not penetrate the prostate envelope and does not metastasize to other sites.
In Europe, approximately 350,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year. Patients are usually faced with two options: surgery, which means the prostate will be completely removed, and radiation therapy, which involves irradiating the tumor with high-energy radiation to inhibit the growth of cancer cells and tumors. Surgical treatment may bring side effects such as impotence and urinary incontinence, while radiation therapy may damage surrounding organs.
Therefore, the researchers emphasized that the results of this study only concerned the survival time of patients after receiving the treatment and did not take into account factors such as side effects and quality of life. This result can be used as a reference for prostate cancer patients and doctors when choosing a treatment option.
In addition, most of the patient information used in this study came from the Swedish database, so more studies are needed to verify the applicability of this result in other populations as well.
In conclusion, diet should be started by reducing the intake of high-fat diet. Catechic acid in green tea, vitamin E and selenium in fresh fruits and vegetables, and lycopene in tomatoes can inhibit the development of prostate cancer. Soy is rich in phytoestrogens, and the lower incidence of prostate cancer in Asian countries is thought to be related to soy. All these foods can be eaten appropriately. The most important thing is to avoid smoking and alcohol abuse, and to avoid frequent and unclean sexual intercourse.