Don’s secret to avoiding prostate cancer

Pupils take part in the Nakuru Hospice Charity Walk at the Provincial General Hospital in Nakuru Town on May 10, 2014. The walk was aimed at creating cancer awareness. FILE PHOTO |

What you need to know:

  • Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) urologist Peter Mungai Ngugi said although promiscuity may be ‘macho’, it exposes men to increased health hazards.
  • Nairobi Hospital-based urologist Maina Kanyi said the cause of prostate cancer has not even been identified and therefore a study could implicate monogamy in the disease.

Experts are querying the validity of research findings that men with multiple sexual partners are less likely to develop prostate cancer.

The study carried out by researchers at the University of Montreal in Canada, and published in the Journal Cancer Epidemiology, says men who have sexual relations with up to 20 partners over their lifetime reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer by 28 per cent, and are also protected from developing the most virulent forms of cancer.

However, in a swift response, Kenyan doctors have questioned the conclusions of the study dubbed PROTEUS — an acronym for Prostate Cancer and Environmental Study.

PROMISCUITY ‘MACHO’

Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) urologist Peter Mungai Ngugi said although promiscuity may be ‘macho’, it exposes men to increased health hazards.

Prof Ngugi, who is also the East African Kidney Institute of Nairobi Director, said: “You are always safe with one partner with whom you can have as much sex as you want with than (having) many.”

He said that although he had not done studies to back up monogamy in relation to development of prostate cancer, the prostate’s epithelium gets “worn out by too much sexual activity” leaving the organ exposed.

He said even with barriers such as condoms, which protect promiscuous men from impregnating women, there are certain proteins and antigens that are still passed on to men during sexual intercourse.

The don told the Nation: “Every time the body receives these different proteins from other people, it treats them as foreign objects and fights them (in) a battle that further erodes the epithelium and exposes men to diseases.”

Another expert, Nairobi Hospital-based urologist Maina Kanyi, said the cause of prostate cancer has not even been identified and therefore a study could implicate monogamy in the disease.

“However, there are previous studies which have found that sexual intercourse may have a protective effect against prostate cancer because it reduces the concentration of carcinogenic crystal-like substances in the fluid of the prostate,” he said.

Still, Prof Mungai challenged this insinuation by saying that the prostatic fluid is natural in the body and has very little cancer-causing elements.

“That would need a level 1 proof and I’m afraid this is barely level 4,” he said.

Dr Kanyi, on the other hand, said monogamy had a way of preventing other factors that may pre-dispose men to sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

“Being promiscuous, even with protection, will introduce viruses to a man’s system that expose them further to the cancer,” Dr Kanyi asserted, adding that men should instead opt for healthier nutrition.

“Avoid red meat (and also) ensure you get treated for bacterial and viral infections that affect the reproductive organ,” he said.

The two urologists recommend that men undergo regular tests, which cost Sh2,000 at the KNH, but said the cost could be higher in private health facilities.

MOST PREVALENT

A study by the Nairobi Cancer Registry Centre of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) in 2012 showed that breast and prostate cancer were the most prevalent types of cancer at 33.5 and 17.3 per cent respectively.

The study by the Canadian researchers offers no hope for virgin and monogamous men: the latter increase their chance to develop the aggressive form of the cancer by 500 per cent, while the former (the virgins) are twice as likely to develop the cancer.

However, homosexual men have double the risk of developing prostate cancer compared to heterosexual men.

The lead researcher and epidemiologist, Dr Marie-Elise Parent said one of the explanations for the vulnerability of homosexual men is their risk in contracting sexually transmitted infections and damage during anal intercourse, which causes trauma to the prostate.

FEMALE PARTNERS

Having many female sexual partners on the other hand, results in higher frequency of ejaculations, which reduce the concentration of cancer-causing substances in the prostatic fluid, which is a constituent of semen, and other structures associated with cancer.

Dr Parent clarified that sleeping with many women did not mean all at the same time. “It means 20 women over a lifetime,” she said.

Asked whether she would approach public health to champion promiscuity, Dr Patent said: “We are not there yet.”

LIFESTYLE FACTORS

Speaking to the Telegraph newspaper on Tuesday when the study was released, Dr Parent said her team had studied 3,208 men over four years from 2005 to 2009.

The men were observed and asked questions about various lifestyle factors such as their work and their sexual lives.

Some 1, 590 of the participants, she said, had developed cancer while the rest were used as a “control group”. A control group does not receive the factor under study and serves as a comparison group when results are evaluated.

The study is the first to established a link between number of sexual partners and cancer.