Johns Hopkins Health Alert
Can Drinking Coffee Reduce the Risk of Prostate Cancer? Here’s What We Know …
After water and tea, the most popular beverage in the world is coffee. While it tastes great, and the caffeine provides a jolt to get you moving, coffee also appears to offer numerous health benefits. Here's an excerpt from a recent Prostate Disorders Bulletin that sheds light on this interesting topic.
Over the years, epidemiological studies have looked at daily coffee consumption to determine its impact on a person's overall health. Coffee beans contain many naturally occurring compounds, including polyphenols, antioxidant substances that are potentially health-enhancing.
Caffeine, a mild psychoactive substance that stimulates the central nervous system, has properties that inhibit cell growth and encourage apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Previous studies have reported that caffeine consumption in a variety of drinks may reduce the risk of several types of cancer, including basal-cell carcinoma, glioma (a cancer of the brain and central nervous system) and ovarian cancer.
A study published recently in Nutrition Journal found a reduced risk of aggressive prostate cancer in coffee drinkers. This confirms the 2011 Journal of the National Cancer Institute study by Harvard researchers, which reported that men who regularly consumed the most coffee had a 60 percent lower lower risk of advanced or lethal prostate cancer compared with non-coffee drinkers. Even one to three cups a day afforded a 30 percent lower risk.
And now, according to a new study by scientists from Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, published in the journal Cancer Causes and Control, coffee consumption is associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer recurrence and progression.
The researchers, led by Janet L. Stanford, Ph.D., co-director of the Program in Prostate Cancer Research, found that men who drank four or more cups of coffee per day experienced a 59 percent reduced risk of prostate cancer recurrence and/or progression as compared to those who drank only one cup or less per week.
The bottom line on coffee and prostate cancer. There certainly seems to be an association between daily coffee consumption and a reduction in the risk for diagnosis, disease progression and death from prostate cancer. However, based on the results of the various coffee studies published to date, there is still not enough information to recommend that anyone start drinking coffee solely for its potential anti-cancer benefits. Remember that all the studies we have are observational, and these research efforts do not prove any clear cause-and-effect relationship between coffee consumption and prostate cancer protection.
Posted in Prostate Disorders on February 6, 2014
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