Could the pill be associated with increased incidence of prostate cancer in the world? This provocative question is raised to a new study published this week in the BMJ Open.
Dr. Neil Fleshner, urologic oncologist and researcher at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, said that he and his co-author of long wondered why people in North America and Europe to develop and die from prostate cancer than men in other countries.
"For many years, there are fears that it might be, exposure to pesticides or some sort of connection to our food or water may be responsible for prostate cancer," he says.
So he and his team reviewed data from the World report of the United Nations use of contraception, looking at the use of contraceptives among women worldwide.
They found that the use of an IUD (intrauterine device), condoms and other vaginal barriers were not associated with increased risk of developing prostate cancer, but the use of birth control pills were significantly associated with the number and country of new cases of prostate cancer and mortality from prostate cancer .
When countries such as Canada and the United States, both of which have a high proportion of women using oral contraceptives compared with countries like Japan, which has a low level of use, there are nearly eight times the difference in rates of prostate cancer death.
"There seems to be the link between oral contraceptive use among the population and the development of prostate cancer in these populations," Fleshner said.
The authors emphasize that their study is very preliminary, and they do not try to draw conclusions about cause and effect. However, they say that their finding should prompt further consideration of the idea that birth control pills nourish the prostate.
As for how to use contraceptives in women can affect men, Fleshner said that it is possible that synthetic estrogen is currently allocated in the urine of women who then pollute our water.
"Prostate sexual organs, and we know that it is sensitive to reproductive hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, which means that communication," he says.
"All this is possible and likely that in some way, that is working its way back into our network of food and water chain, and therefore may be responsible for it."
Other studies have shown that trace amounts of dozens of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, antidepressants, and - this is the ultimate in our wastewater. Most of the existing filtration systems can not remove these chemicals and some of them may disrupt hormones.
Dr. Laurence Klotz, chief of urology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, says the study is interesting, but there are still many questions left to answer.
"This is a very preliminary study, it only shows the association and the association does not mean causation," he says.
"This is the first time it was considered that way, and it's a comprehensive look at him. But the difficulty with this large association studies, they do not show cause."
Klotz says there are many reasons likely to develop prostate cancer, which include environmental reasons, lifestyle reasons, and genetics.
"We know a lot about prostate cancer. This is partly genetic, it is partly due to diet, the consumption of trace elements. In Japan, a low incidence of prostate cancer, and when they adopted a more Western diet, their rate of prostate cancer shot up," he says .
Fleshner said that his study should not encourage women to throw their oral contraceptives.
"The main take-home message from our study is that we need to examine the relationship between these two conditions, between the use of oral contraceptives and cancer of the prostate. There's no need to panic," he said.
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