Marijuana use and testicular cancer

Young men who began using marijuana as adolescents or who smoked pot at least once a week were twice as likely as those who never used the drug to develop testicular cancer, according to researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

The association was strongest with nonseminoma, an aggressive, fast-growing subtype of testicular cancer that typically strikes men between ages 20 and 35.

"It's not just that you develop testicular cancer, but you develop a worse type of testicular cancer," said Dr. Glen Justice, director of the cancer center at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, who was not involved with the study.

About 40% of testicular cancers are nonseminomas. The rest are slower-growing seminomas, which tend to occur a decade or two later, when men are in their 30s and 40s. Since the 1950s, both kinds have increased by 3% to 6% a year in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Various studies have looked for environmental or lifestyle changes that could account for the increase. The study published online today in the journal Cancer was the first to look at marijuana, its authors said.

Researchers interviewed 371 men aged 18 to 44 who had been diagnosed with testicular cancer. They interviewed an additional 979 men of the same age group and from the same three Washington counties who did not have cancer.

The researchers found a 70% higher risk of testicular cancer in those who were using pot at the time of diagnosis, with an even higher risk associated with younger age at first use and frequency of use. Hormonal changes during puberty are thought to make that a particularly vulnerable period for environmental influences.

The findings were independent of known risk factors such as undescended testes and a family history of testicular cancer, and adjusted for cigarette smoking and alcohol use.

The senior author of the study, epidemiologist Janet R. Daling, got the idea to look at marijuana after learning that the testes, like the brain, have receptors for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical component of the marijuana high.

The researchers did not know why the association was seen with nonseminoma but not seminoma, because both subtypes have increased. In the U.S., the rise in seminoma has outpaced that in nonseminoma, but the opposite is true in the Netherlands.

Whether slow-growing or aggressive, testicular cancer is highly curable, Justice said, especially when detected early.

--Mary Engel

Photo credit: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[danagram]

wow. finally, after 70+ years of looking, the medical establishment has found evidence that marijuana can be harmful.
that's a pretty small sample size. why not also do one of those large scale surveys with survivors of testicular cancer? it shouldn't be too difficult. i must say i'm skeptical about the timing...michael phelps, anyone? "See, kids, pot REALLY IS BAD FOR YOU!"

[Geoff]

Uh...I like my testicles the way they are. You don't have to tell me twice: I think I'll abstain.

[PR. Opaganda]

of the 80 or so million who have smoked cannabis what percentage of those have any form of testicular cancer? propaganda ......shame shame L.A. Times. If this were true most of them would ...bad LA times BAD!

[Paul]

This sounds like garbage. The timing is great. 371 people? Really? C'mon now.

[jack]

Oh this is such a bull article. they have been using medical marijauna to FIGHT cancer for many, many, years. bull story just to make phelps look worse.

[Joseph]

Any institution wanting to do a study on the effects of marijuana needs to go through the U.S. Government to have samples released for testing. Remember, marijuana is federally illegal to possess. This includes scientific studies as well. Whenever the U.S. Government has oversight and control over a study on anything, they tend to make the results fit their predetermined agenda, especially when it comes to the subject of marijuana. I am not a smoker, and yet I find this coincidently-timed pile of BS just another attempt to insult the intelligence of the American people. Marijuana has been used for thousands of years by many cultures, and as far as I can tell, with 6.5 billion people on this planet and growing, it hasn’t affected reproductive organs one iota.

Let’s see more public announcements in the news about the dangers of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, aspartame, monosodium-glutamate, fast food, prescriptions drugs, over-the-counter medications, etc… etc… etc… Our taxpayer funded FDA has approved of dozens if not hundreds of dangerous and/or fatal substances. Clearly these people are being bought. Nobody has ever died from over-dosing on marijuana—legalize it.

[Zach M.]

Until the DEA stops the blocking of all medical research concerning marijuana I think that it outweighs many of the known health concerns related to other recreational drugs. Considering that consuming alcohol is known to cause brain cell damage on top of the fact that it has also been correlated to higher rates of breast cancer in women. Oh also drinking out of my #7 PC Nalgene bottle has been linked to an increase cancer. I mean what synthetic substance does not put us more at risk of cancer...

[WTF]

Given that nonseminomas occur at the rate of 1 in every 100,000 men, I'd say that the risk is extremely weak, albeit interesting. I question studies that rely on self-reports of marijuana use. If anyone is still feeling lily-livered by this fear-mongering media report, then vaporize!

[chris]

I believe that if I go drink a beer I increase my chances of sticking a hot poker in my eye. These findings are hilarious. I love that it's the boys that are now most at risk.

Michael Phelps should not have apologized for his bong hit. He should have maintained that he was merely acting like a majority of people his age. He should have noted that he was merely joining a club that included Barack Obama, the lying Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, Newt Gingrich, probably good ol' W, John Lennon, and Bob Marley.

[jack, again]

let us not forget proposition 5 (the one about making weed legal) I'm sure that these "findings" are not only conveniently timed for the unfortunate Phelps but, if it is true, it is also a bad, bad sign for the American people in general. We were going to legalize a killer thing like this? Oh no everyone run away. The fact of the matter is weed is safe. The only reason they don't want it to get legalized is because it makes you not give a damn. I have to admit it would be pretty hard to run our Country if everyone was smoking weed.

[Jesse]

I wonder how they came across those statistics, when the numbers of interviewed people with cancer were 2.6 times (That's a lot statistically) less than those without cancer.

Kinda skewed/irresponsible if you ask me.

[Bill]

Its funny...smoke pot all of your life and get cancer.. then go to the doctor to get a legal medical marijuana card claiming its for the cancer. (California is great isn't it)

[roxi]

Default
90% of kids who get cancer eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Therefore peanut butter and jelly sandwiches must raise the risk of cancer. See how that works :)

[steve]

Oh, Puhlease! If these statistics were at all accurate, the earth would be depopulated by now. Talk about skewing the data! Billions smoke or have smoked. Where's the pandemic? Where's the overflowing cancer wards? Increase in the cancer? Sure - that can be measured. Why? The jury is still out - but fearmongers want to make their propaganda. Unfortunately, the headlines overwhelm the reasoning mind. The greatest risk is still getting busted. The police state wants to track every one of us... after all, we must all be doing something wrong and should be monitored at all times. What better way than to bust you and start the file.

[Mike]

They took the one form of cancer they thought would freak out kids most and made the play ....Can't blame them for trying or fault their ingenuity.

[steve]

Go to a cancer ward in Washington State and ask the residents if they've smoked pot. Why not ask them if they ever drank water! I'm sure there's a correlation in there somewhere!

[bob1421]

I have a friend who is 52 years old and dying of "COPD' directly related to smoking weed all of his life. So to all you smokers who think weed is harmless i say, "Light up and get happy."

[Megian]

...Of course now they want to say weed gives you cancer right at the time when were trying to leagalize it.

[George]

So they used as their sample a bunch of guys from Seattle? Seattle is a pot-smoking mecca due to its proximity to Vancouver. You can be sure the average number of marijuana smokers is higher in Washington. Real scientific.

[chrissy]

So, we have known for how many years that cigarettes cause far worse problems, and still nothing is done about it. If Phelps had been pictured smoking a cigarette no body would have thought twice about it.
Medical Marijuana is being used not to FIGHT cancer, but to help cancer patients get through the tough treament by mitigating nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety. It can also be used in less harmful ways than smoking, such at through a vaporizer or ingestion.
As a substance that has proven to be less harmful than tobacco, it's way past time to legalize it.

[Jarod]

So they're saying adolescents shouldn't smoke marijuana because it's bad for their developing bodies? NO WAY! Drugs are bad for adolescents, period, which is why it should be regulated so our kids can't get a hold of it so easily. Since when do drug dealers ask for ID?

[A Garcia]

More War on Drugs propaganda, this story is beneath the LAT.

[Christine]

As a scientist, I find it appalling that these types of studies keep making headlines. What about uncontrolled variables? This is a huge unexplained source of variation. The fact of the matter is that most pot is grown with numerous pesticides, fungicides, and “inert” ingredients such as nonylphenol that have been shown to be hormonally active and dramatically significant. See, for example, www.ourstolenfuture.org. Also, there was a story recently about Mexican drug cartels growing pot in the Redwood forests using major amounts of pesticides, but did the authors correct for this? Answer: No.

Until these “scientists” start being a lot more honest about their sources and methods, I think we can call this obfuscation and subterfuge. And yes, there is an ulterior motive.

[mizzle]

It's funny, I arrived at this article by a link from another article reporting on how the doctor who set off the "vaccination causes autism" scare falsified his data to support his point. You don't think these guys did that, do you?

[Skyler]

Haha they should show pictures of the testicles with cancer to make it seem more dramatic....

Way to try and build up hype