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Senior Citizen Health & Medicine
Lack of Sons Puts Men at Higher Risk for Prostate
Cancer Says New Study
The more sons a man has the lower his prostate
cancer risk
 January 3, 2007 – Prostate cancer, probably because
it is such a common cancer in men, always draws a lot of attention from
researchers. The latest study says men who fathered only daughters have
a higher risk of prostate cancer than men with at least one son. And,
the more sons a man has, the more his risk of prostate cancer
diminishes. It's okay to have a daughter but you just better also have
at least one son. The scientists conclude that prostate cancer must,
therefore, have something to do with genes on the Y chromosome.
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In this new and unique study to determine if genes
on the Y chromosome are involved in prostate cancer, researchers at
prestigious institutions - Columbia University's Mailman School of
Public Health in conjunction with Hebrew University of Jerusalem - say
that since men with only daughters had a higher risk of prostate cancer
it must involve a possible defect on the father's Y chromosome.
The results, published in the January 3, 2007 issue
of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, further indicate that
the relative risk of prostate cancer decreases as the number of sons
increases.
The researchers in the Mailman School's Department
of Epidemiology analyzed the relative risk of prostate cancer by the sex
of offspring among fathers registered in a family-based research cohort
in Israel. From this cohort of 38,934 men, followed from the birth of
their offspring (in 1964 through 1976) until 2005, the authors conclude
that genes on the Y chromosome may be involved in prostate cancer risk
in this population.
"We surveyed vital status and cancer incidence, and
found a strong trend for a decrease in prostate cancer risk as the
number of sons increased," said Susan Harlap, MD, professor of clinical
Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, and the leader of
the research team.
"We anticipate that this finding will have a
significant impact on the direction of research in this field going
forward." Overall, there was a 40% increase in prostate cancer in men
lacking sons.
The offspring's sex depends on whether it receives
an X or a Y chromosome from the father. A man with a damaged Y
chromosome will be less likely to have sons and those with a damaged X
chromosome may be unable to sire daughters.
"Our findings suggest that the biological
significance of lack of sons – whatever it is that leads to increased
risk of prostate cancer - becomes increasingly important as family size
increases," observes Dr. Harlap.
"Overall, our findings are consistent with
hypotheses that tie Y chromosome loci to prostate cancer, although other
explanations cannot be excluded," implies Dr. Harlap.
The researchers also looked at men lacking
daughters.
For example, in men with exactly two offspring,
those with no daughters had an 11% increase in the incidence of prostate
cancer, and those with no sons had a 47% increase, compared with men who
had one son and one daughter.
"The increased risk of prostate cancer in men with
no daughters is probably due to chance," says Dr. Harlap, "but it might
indicate a problem with a gene on the X-chromosome."
In addition to the Columbia University Mailman
School of Public Health and Columbia University Department of
Psychiatry, the international team of scientists included researchers
from Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and the Braun
School of Public Health, Jerusalem, Israel.
The Jerusalem Perinatal Cohort is among those being
followed by the life course studies program within the Mailman School's
Department of Epidemiology. Department Chair Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH, has
been building a program of life course research -- called the Imprints
Center -- in which epidemiologists seek to uncover the causes of a broad
range of disease and health outcomes, by following individuals from an
early point in life and examining their risks for disease. Life course
studies are particularly well positioned to examine the interplay of
genetic and environmental risk factors - the key to understanding many
complex diseases.
Editor's Notes:
The study is supported by the National Institutes
of Health.
Source: About the Mailman School of Public Health
The only accredited school of public health in New York City, and among
the first in the nation, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public
Health provides instruction and research opportunities to more than 950
graduate students in pursuit of masters and doctoral degrees. Its
students and more than 300 multi-disciplinary faculty engage in research
and service in the city, nation, and around the world, concentrating on
biostatistics, environmental health sciences, epidemiology, health
policy and management, population and family health, and sociomedical
sciences. (www.mailman.hs.columbia.edu)
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