November is here...or should I say Movember! It's the month dedicated to growing your mo and raising awareness to prostate health. Men all over the world are starting the month off right with a clean shaven face, and will spend the rest of the month perfecting their perfect stache. If you are interested in joining in on the festivities or at least contributing to the cause, visit: http://mobro.co/teamprimovember.Currently medical doctors are ordering PSA tests to monitor the health of the prostate gland. Research today is questioning how affective this test is at preventing and detecting prostate cancer.
Factoids about prostate health from Dr. Hoffman at the University of New Mexico:
— Nine out of 10 prostate cancers in this country are detected through PSA screening.
— A 2009 European study involving more than 182,000 men found only a slight reduction in prostate cancer deaths among those who had regular PSA screening, and that was seen only among men between 55 and 69.
— A U.S. study of 77,000 men, also published in 2009, found no reduction in death (from prostate cancer or any cause) among those who had regular PSA screening.
— Most men who have "abnormal" PSA readings (usually considered above 4.0) do not have prostate cancer, but many of them will have biopsies to look for it, and most of those biopsies will be normal.
— A normal PSA level is no guarantee that a man doesn't have prostate cancer — although it may be a cancer that would never have been detected. In the large Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, about one in seven men with normal PSA readings turned out to have cancer when their prostates were biopsied.
— Just because doctors find prostate cancer doesn't mean it's going to kill you. Among men who didn't have treatment, 8 to 26 percent ultimately died of prostate cancer, while other causes killed nearly 60 percent. The PSA test doesn't tell you who has a dangerous kind and who doesn't.
Help bring awareness to men's health and cancer research!
Pura Vida!
Alica Ryan, NTP
No comments:
Post a Comment