NEW YORK (Reuters) – Something about being circumcised may offer men a degree of protection from developing prostate cancer later in life, suggests a new study from Canada.
Researchers suspect the connection may be the lower rate among circumcised men of sexually transmitted diseases (STD), which raise prostate cancer risk, but they caution that more study is needed to confirm that theory.
“It’s still premature to say go ahead with circumcision to prevent prostate cancer,” said lead author Marie-Elise Parent. “But, we think it could be helpful.”
Based on interviews with more than 3,000 men, her team found that those circumcised as infants were 14 percent less likely than uncircumcised men to develop prostate cancer. The men who had been circumcised as adults were 45 percent less likely to develop the cancer than uncircumcised men.
Researchers have long known that Muslim and Jewish men have lower rates of prostate cancer than men in the West, suggesting that circumcision may play a role in cancer risk, the study team writes in the British urology journal BJU International.