Cannabis linked to testicular cancer
Scientists find heavy use of marijuana can double risk of tumours among men
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The soaring rate of testicular cancer in the UK and other Western countries is linked today to the increased popularity of cannabis. Testicular cancer has more than doubled over the past 30 years and its rise parallels that of the use of cannabis, Britain's most popular illegal drug.
Researchers in the US have found that men who regularly smoke cannabis have a 70 per cent increased risk of testicular cancer. The risk was highest – twice that of those who never used the drug – in those who smoked it at least once a week or had a long history of use, beginning in adolescence.
The study is based on findings from 369 men with testicular cancer who were questioned about their history of cannabis use. The results were compared with 979 men who did not have cancer. Cannabis was linked with testicular cancer independently of smoking, drinking and family history.
Experts from Cancer Research UK said it was the first time a link had been suggested and the size of the study was small. More than three million people smoke cannabis and only a tiny proportion develop the cancer.
The results, published today in the journal Cancer, showed a link between cannabis use and one type of testicular cancer, called nonseminoma, which is aggressive, tends to strike younger men and accounts for 40 per cent of testicular cancer.
Stephen Schwartz, an epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, Washington, who led the research, said: "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."
There were 2,109 cases of testicular cancer in Britain in 2005 and 78 deaths. In 1975 there were 850 cases. Unlike other cancers, it is most common in young men with a peak incidence between the ages of 20 and 40.
The more common, slower growing type, called seminoma, was not linked with cannabis use, even though both types have been growing by 3 to 6 per cent a year since the 1950s in the US, UK and other developed countries.
Although testicular cancer is normally curable when caught early, some patients are not diagnosed until the disease is advanced. Undescended testes in childhood and a family history of the disease are known to increase the risk.
The disease is thought to begin in the womb when germ cells in the foetus (those that will eventually make sperm in the adult) fail to develop properly. Exposure to male hormones in adolescence is thought to trigger development of cancer in the affected cells. Chronic cannabis use is known to reduce sperm quality and increase impotence, which are linked with testicular cancer.
The testes have receptors for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, and the male reproductive system is known to naturally produce a cannabinoid-like chemical that is thought to protect against the disease.
The researchers speculate that cannabis may interfere with this anti-tumour effect, increasing the risk of the cancer developing.
Janet Daling, a member of the research team, said: "It has been suggested that puberty is a window of opportunity during which lifestyle or environmental factors can increase the risk of testicular cancer. 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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Comments
it still doesn't need to be illegal.
Why is it that just because something can do you harm, through your personal decision to use it, we need the state to make us criminals for making that choice?
The public need to be informed of the risks, but I see no logic in people being punished for choosing to take those risks.
What drugs legislation essentially says is: you are doing something that we have decided is bad for you and may under some circumstances (that may or may not apply to you) ruin your life, and so as punishment we are going to criminalise you and ruin your life... it's somehow for you own benefit.
Ingesting through tea, or cookies, or vaporizing with a proper medical vaporizer (aromed) is beneficial, and vaporization increases lung capacity and opens the alveoli in the lungs. Medically recognized fact.
I am utterly sick of this narrow view forced on the citizens of our country, that blindly follows anything and everything the US says like a weak little puppy.
We live in a backward society that criminalizes personal consumption of this relatively harmless substance. Abuse of anything leads to problems. Too much food makes you overweight, too much coffee strains the pancreas, too much booze your liver. Cannabis is a natural plant although the Hydroponically produced Skunk variety abnormally potent, deliberately so. Everything in moderation. You don't get Vodka in a pint glass do you?
You know adults who make their own informed judgements in life after being informed of the FACTS. This study is so small as to be ludicrous and only of use to those who would control through fear and ignorance. you know, the things you used to combat.
I look around me at the moment and stress is the real killer, even if you don't die from it. Things such as cannabis and snow days should be celebrated even if it's just for putting a smile back on peoples faces.
A point never discussed is the fact that small growers of pot know the risks of detection and so grow the fastest growing, highest yield and most valuable crop. skunk. I would much rather smoke Afghan Kush, less THC, less chemicals in cultivation, much nicer smoke......... Longer to grow etc. Impossible to get in Britain. Lighter prohibition would have the same effect on skunk as the end of prohibition in the states had on high volume hooch. It would still exist but it wouldn't be the only choice.
A reasoned debate from a reasonable newspaper please. Not this Daily mail tripe.
been happily smoking 25 years and will continue till i die - it could be cannabis that kills me or an Israeli air-strike - me i'll take my chances with the cannabis
thanks
I agree with what razygentry said, yes we do need to be made aware of the risks of using certain substances, but why are we not free to make our own choices? We are permitted to make the choice in terms of alcohol and tobacco, so wy not cannabis?
I agree with the posters who have commented on the choice factor in smoking cannabis. For avoidance of doubt, I doubt anyone is claiming that it is good for you to smoke cannabis, however, smoking cigarettes is bad for you, as it drinking alcohol, as is eating too much salt, sledging (as previously proven in my test), driving, crossing the street...
The actual bottom line is that the greatest danger is from the tobacco, not the cannabis. It is tobacco that is highly addictive, where cannabis is not addictive. It is tobacco that releases radioactives (well, Virginia tobacco anyway), where cannabis (being grown elsewhere) does not.
It makes me very sad that such a useful anti-depressant, with few adverse side-effects and low toxicity, is hounded in this irrational way by the idiots that run America. I've been smoking cannabis for over 36 years and I remain very healthy and perfectly sane, capable of doing a professional job and raising a family without any of the 'problems' that we regularly read are caused by cannabis. I have had more success in fighting depression and severe stresses in this life with cannabis than any of a number of other treatments and remedies prescribed by the NHS and others. The risks are low unless you are already susceptible to such things as schizophrenia, and I have yet to develop a strong urge to murder grannies and eat their bones. >(8^D)
Steve the Healer.
Current issue: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour
Early view of the next issue: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour
I suggest you should write an exact reference, because obviously this article that you are writing about was not "published today in the journal Cancer". Perhaps it was a press release about an upcoming publication?
This is an example of using statistics and inconclusive research to further a political agenda.
Stevethehealer:So you've been smoking dope for 30 years to fight depression without a problem. There are many smokers who smoke for 30 years without a problem as well. That doesn't make smoking safe. As a health care practitioner, depression in the majority of cases is best treated with medication and therapy for the best outcome. It can be a treatable disease that can resolve with the proper treatment. There are exceptions to this as in everything but a good number get off meds within a year. Seems to me 36 years is a long time for your treatment to work. Have you considered the secondary gain as a reason to continue smoking THC? Maybe after 36 years of smoking a substance without long-term studies backing it up you should be tested for chronic lung disease and heart disease. Until you do, you can't conclude that after 36 years of smoking dope you don't have a problem.
Seriously, what's the point of this tiny study? Razygentry's point trumps all. To restate it:
In a country of supposedly free and rugged individuals, beholden neither to popes nor kings (i.e., the USA), who has the right to tell anyone else what they may or may not ingest or smoke?
And isn't it ironic, doncha think, that the "cure" for this alleged antisocial behavior is JAIL TIME, which in the USA at least, is far more dangerous to one's health than reefer.
2010 - we still claim that "What young men should know is first, we know very little about the long-term health consequences of marijuana smoking, especially heavy marijuana smoking"
...This from a PLANT that has been around as long as the EARTH.
the politics of cannabis is immeasurably stupid.
This is also evident in the mental health versus cannabis argument. Those under 15 heavily using are by far the worse at risk, followed by those under 18 due to the developing brains ballance of natural chemichals.
But whilst the dealers have control cannabis will remain a gateway drug as it is sold by the same people selling cocaine, herion etc. They push the hard drugs onto the people and the fact cannabis very much portayed as a dangerous drug maybe in turn makes the move over to hard drugs a step closer already?
The government and media just seem to get all the evidence very, very twisted causing a paranioa they have generated about something fairly harmless if used correctly.
Also, please note that they've shown a link to *one type* of testicular cancer - I find that suspicious. Presumably, they could not find a statistically significant link overall to testicular cancers, and so narrowed the scope until they found a correlation they could publish. Bear in mind that their sample size for nonseminoma sufferers would have been 40% of 369, or about 148. With a sample that small, I'll bet you could find a link to just about anything.
And then there's this line: "Chronic cannabis use is known to reduce sperm quality and increase impotence, which are linked with testicular cancer." Low sperm quality and impotence are indeed linked to testicular cancer. They are *symptoms* of it. The fact that cannabis smoking causes the same symptoms absolutely does NOT mean that it causes cancer. A causes B, C causes B, therefore C causes A is a ridiculous piece of logic!
This whole article smacks of the kind of lazy, uncritical journalism that makes people so cynical about journalists. I expect better from the Independent!
Having failed in the 'cannabis makes teenagers schizophrenic' nonsense, they are now embarked on this scare story, that no one but the trully intellectually challenged could possibly fall for. What next, cannabis causes baldness? I've also noticed an increasing number of very young bald men in the last twenty years, COINCIDENTALLY the same period cannabis use has increased. Well that surely proves it then.
Why don't you include in your story (probably created as a scare tactic anyway), how people can VAPORIZE it instead of COMBUSTING it, then you will find how much of a joke your article is...