Re: Aspirin cuts stomach cancer risk



Ray Laughton wrote:
I don't think so. If your theory was correct, breast cancer would be much more common in
men than it is in women..

ray


James Howard <jmh.anthropogeny.com@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It is my hypothesis that increased testosterone may cause breast cancer
(International Journal of Cancer 2005; 115: 497). In some research, testosterone has been connected with increased stomach cancer. Aspirin and
other NSAIDs reduce testosterone production. I suggest this research
(British Journal of Cancer (2009) 100, 551-557) may be explained by a
reduction in testosterone levels.

James Michael Howard

Fayetteville, Arkansas, U.S.A.

Actually, you are both correct. Breast cancer (and prostate cancer) are ordinarily caused by high local levels of estradiol. This high level of estradiol is caused by testosterone being converted to estradiol by Aromatase (which has little or no activity in normal breast and prostate cells, but very high activity in breast and prostate cancer cells). This means that if your testosterone level is low enough, you ordinarily cannot get either breast cancer or prostate cancer.

However, testosterone itself protects against both breast and prostate cancer. E.g., men with defects that limit their testosterone production see big increases in their rate of breast cancer. There is a threshold level for this protection, with prostate cancer having a much higher threshold than breast cancer does.

Putting this all together, with no testosterone, there is little or no chance for either cancer. As the level of testosterone rises, you have to reach a minimum threshold at which you can now get the cancer. As your testosterone level rises still more, your risk increases as the testosterone level increases. However, once you reach the high threshold level appropriate for that cancer, you once again have little or no chance of getting that cancer.

This also explains why it is so rare to see either of these diseases in men or women in their teens or early twenties, when testosterone levels are at their highest. For those interested in the molecular biology of breast and prostate cancer, there is an article that explains the above plus much more at http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/28

Ed Friedman
.

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