marijuana - testicular cancer

Thought this might interest some of you.  It was just sent in by one
of my editors.  slp/fmrc
www.mushroomsfmrc.com
Subj:	 Marijuana use linked to increased risk of testicular cancer
Date:	2/10/2009 1:08:45 AM Central Standard Time
Marijuana use linked to increased risk of testicular cancer

February 9th, 2009 in Medicine &Health / Cancer/http://
www.Physorg.com /



Frequent and/or long-term marijuana use may significantly increase a
man's risk of developing the most aggressive type of testicular
cancer, according to a study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center. The study results were published online Feb. 9 in the
journal Cancer.

The researchers found that being a marijuana smoker at the time of
diagnosis was associated with a 70 percent increased risk of
testicular cancer. The risk was particularly elevated (about twice
that of those who never smoked marijuana) for those who used marijuana
at least weekly and/or who had long-term exposure to the substance
beginning in adolescence.

The results also suggested that the association with marijuana use
might be limited to nonseminoma, a fast-growing testicular malignancy
that tends to strike early, between ages 20 and 35, and accounts for
about 40 percent of all testicular-cancer cases.

Since the 1950s, the incidence of the two main cellular subtypes of
testicular cancer, nonseminoma and seminoma - the more common, slower
growing kind that strikes men in their 30s and 40s - has increased by
3 percent to 6 percent per year in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia
and New Zealand. During the same time period, marijuana use in North
America, Europe and Australia has risen accordingly, which is one of
several factors that led the researchers to hypothesize a potential
association.

"Our study is not the first to suggest that some aspect of a man's
lifestyle or environment is a risk factor for testicular cancer, but
it is the first that has looked at marijuana use," said author Stephen
M. Schwartz, M.P.H., Ph.D., an epidemiologist and member of the Public
Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center.

Established risk factors for testicular cancer include a family
history of the disease, undescended testes and abnormal testicular
development. The disease is thought to begin in the womb, when some
fetal germ cells (those that eventually make sperm in adulthood) fail
to develop properly and become vulnerable to malignancy. Later, during
adolescence and adulthood, it is thought that exposure to male sex
hormones coaxes these cells to become cancerous.

"Just as the changing hormonal environment of adolescence and
adulthood can trigger undifferentiated fetal germ cells to become
cancerous, it has been suggested that puberty is a 'window of
opportunity' during which lifestyle or environmental factors also can
increase the risk of testicular cancer," said senior author Janet R.
Daling, Ph.D., an epidemiologist who is also a member of the Center's
Public Health Sciences Division. "This is consistent with the study's
findings that the elevated risk of nonseminoma-type testicular cancer
in particular was associated with marijuana use prior to age 18."
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