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Prostate cancer: The low down on lycopene and prostate cancer
Have you heard the latest? Apparently lycopene does not prevent prostate cancer.
I checked out the source of this information and found five excellent reasons to be angry about another half-baked study.
Anger management
As I've noted in previous e-Alerts, lycopene is an antioxidant carotenoid that gives tomatoes, watermelons, and pink grapefruit their red colour. Studies have suggested that lycopene may offer protection against prostate cancer, breast cancer, and heart disease.
In a new US study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, researchers looked for a link between carotenoids and prostate cancer risk. They began with data collected from an eight-year trial in which blood samples were taken from more than 28,000 men over the age of 55 who were cancer free. The Hutchinson team focused on nearly 700 subjects who developed prostate cancer and compared them to more than 840 subjects in the study who remained healthy.
Results showed that a higher blood serum level of lycopene was not associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer. The data also revealed an association between high levels of beta-carotene and aggressive prostate cancer.
Reason to be angry #1: In an eight-year trial only ONE blood test was taken? ONE blood test, and from that single test you want me to believe that we can comprehensively compare carotenoid levels with YEARS of prostate cancer development?
Reason to be angry #2: Other key factors were not taken into account, such as family history of prostate cancer and cigarette smoking - which is a huge consideration with beta-carotene.
You have to wonder: Were the Hutchinson researchers actually TRYING to make their study irrelevant?
Mixing the signals
Reason to be angry #3: In MedPage Today coverage of this study, lead researcher Ulrike Peters, Ph.D., M.P.H., offered this comment: 'It is disappointing, since lycopene might have offered a simple and inexpensive way to lower prostate cancer risk. Unfortunately, this easy answer just does not work.'
End of story! Dr. Peters is so taken with the results of his feeble study that he's ready to simply slam the door on the usefulness of lycopene in prostate cancer prevention. 'Does not work.' End of story.
Reason to be angry #4: Along with a report on this study, MedPage Today offered this helpful Action Point: 'Explain to patients who ask that lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomatoes and other red fruits and vegetables, does not appear to protect men against prostate cancer.'
And here's a reason to be angry #4 bonus... This sentence appears in the same MedPage Today article: 'Several large cohort studies, including the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and the Physician's Health Study, reported that lycopene had a protective effect.' So...let me get this straight...Dr. Peters' single study somehow trumps several large cohort studies? I hope no one actually takes any action on that misguided action point.
Finally - reason to be angry #5: Media outlets PLEASE stop reporting these meager studies as if they're the last word!
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