A small study garnered significant media attention last week, with headlines blaring an association between masturbation and prostate cancer.
Before anyone gets really worried, obstetrician-gynecologist Amy Tuteur takes a closer look at the data, and is not impressed.
The retrospective, case-control study actually didn’t reveal any significant initial findings, so the authors kept manipulating the variables until they saw a possible association.
Dr. Tuteur believes that the random associations, including the widely reported one suggesting that men in the 20’s who had frequent sexual activity increased their risk of prostate cancer, were “almost certainly anomalies, reflecting the small sample size, and the limitations inherent in any case-control studies.”
In fact, when she looks back at similar studies, “there is no consistent pattern among all the studies taken together [which] further reinforces the conclusion that there is no relationship between sexual activity and risk of prostate cancer.”
Some of you can start breathing easier now.
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- Is prostate cancer being overdiagnosed?
- Poll: Testosterone replacement therapy in men with prostate cancer
- Poll: Should men still be screened for prostate cancer?
- Prostate cancer screening in blacks, and the lack of balanced information
- Will patients accept the limitations of prostate cancer screening?
{ 7 comments }
The sanctity of science and research….. is gone!
Boy is masturbating in his bedroom.
His mother comes in the room, yells at the kid:
“Don’t you know if you do that, you’ll go blind?”
Kid says: “Gee, Mom, can I do it until I need glasses?”
Where’d that come from? I thought it was Woody Allen, but all I can find from him is:
Don’t knock masturbation, it’s sex with someone I love.
I for one am relieved!!!! It’s been like five years and well… at this rate, it might just be another five or ten years. Such a sad life I lead…
“so the authors kept manipulating the variables”
*Snort*
Don’t they know they could go blind doing that?
If true, I am as good as dead.
C’mon the British Journal of Urology published an article several years back with exactly the opposite findings, Self-Love gives a protective effect, flushing out those evil seminal humours…only problem is you gotta do it at an early age, like learning a language…Sorry, gotta go prevent some Prostate Cancer…
Well self-love and “frequent sexual activity” are not exactly the same…
Aitor Guitarte
Somos Medicina
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