Favorite Drink of Senior Citizens Coffee Appears to
Fight Advanced Prostate Cancer
More good news for senior men is FDA consideration
of prostate cancer vaccine, Provenge
Dec. 8, 2009 - Data presented at the American
Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research
Conference revealed a strong association between coffee consumption and
a lowered risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers. This follows
last month’s action by the Food and Drug Administration to consider the
merits of Provenge as a vaccine for prostate cancer.
Coffee, the favorite drink of senior citizens, sure
to get more popular with discovery of the memory recovery power of five cups
a day that reduces beta-amyloid protein in blood
"Coffee has effects on insulin and glucose
metabolism as well as sex hormone levels, all of which play a role in
prostate cancer. It was plausible that there may be an association
between coffee and prostate cancer," said Kathryn M. Wilson, Ph.D., a
postdoctoral fellow at the Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School
and the Harvard School of Public Health.
In a prospective investigation, Wilson and
colleagues found that men who drank the most coffee had a 60 percent
lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than men who did not drink any
coffee. This is the first study of its kind to look at both overall risk
of prostate cancer and risk of localized, advanced and lethal disease.
"Few studies have looked prospectively at this
association, and none have looked at coffee and specific prostate cancer
outcomes," said Wilson. "We specifically looked at different types of
prostate cancer, such as advanced vs. localized cancers or high-grade
vs. low-grade cancers."
Info more than doubled since coffee first linked to
reducing diabetes risk; unlikely just related to caffeine
Dec. 14, 2009 – Just days after the news that
coffee appears to substantially lower the risk of prostate cancer,
senior citizens today learned their favorite drink – coffee - appears to
lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a major threat for older
Americans.
Read more...
Caffeine is actually not the key factor in this
association, according to Wilson. The researchers are unsure which
components of the beverage are most important, as coffee contains many
biologically active compounds like antioxidants and minerals.
Using the Health Professionals' Follow-Up Study,
the researchers documented the regular and decaffeinated coffee intake
of nearly 50,000 men every four years from 1986 to 2006; 4,975 of these
men developed prostate cancer over that time. They also examined the
cross-sectional association between coffee consumption and levels of
circulating hormones in blood samples collected from a subset of men in
the cohort.
"Very few lifestyle factors have been consistently
associated with prostate cancer risk, especially with risk of aggressive
disease, so it would be very exciting if this association is confirmed
in other studies," said Wilson. "Our results do suggest there is no
reason to stop drinking coffee out of any concern about prostate
cancer."
This association might also help understand the
biology of prostate cancer and possible chemoprevention measures.
FDA to decide on prostate vaccine by May 1
Last month the Food and Drug Administration
committed to deciding the fate of the
prostate cancer vaccine
Provenge by May 1, 2010.
It could be the first vaccine approved to fight cancer, by enhancing the
body's
immune response to cancer
cells, according to a report in
U.S. News and World Report.
“Prostate cancer is an appealing target because it
moves slowly (even men whose cancer comes back after prostate surgery
often live for well over a decade),” the magazine reports.
“That wide window of opportunity gives a vaccine
time to prompt the
immune system into
fighting the body's own cells when they've become cancerous. (The immune
system routinely fends off some tumors on its own, generally tiny
cancers that are never detected, much less diagnosed.)”
On Nov. 20, Dendreon Corporation announced that the
FDA had accepted the company’s license application for consideration of
PROVENGE® (sipuleucel-T) for men with metastatic castrate-resistant
prostate cancer (CRPC).
If approved by the FDA, Provenge would represent
the first product in a new therapeutic class known as active cellular
immunotherapies.
Dec. 8, 2009 - Data presented at the American
Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research
Conference revealed a strong association between coffee consumption and
a lowered risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers. This follows
last month’s action by the Food and Drug Administration to consider the
merits of Provenge as a vaccine for prostate cancer.
