Multiple partners versus prostate cancer-Men beware

The actual title for my writing reads -Sex with 21 women reduces your prostate cancer risk, but men of West African ancestry must tread cautiously.

I know you are actually very happy with the headlines and probably you have read this story online or head it somewhere,but can men of West African ancestry have more sex with 21 women to reduce their risk of prostate cancer? Actually this is not the first time that sex and prostate cancer is making the headlines.

In fact, there have been a couple of earlier studies proposing that frequent sexual activity may be related to reduced prostate cancer risk. But this current study that's hit the headlines was done by investigators at the University of Montreal in Canada as part of a bigger study looking for environmental factors influencing men’s risk of getting prostate cancer.

The investigation team interviewed 1,590 men with prostate cancer and 1,618 men without prostate cancer and asked them about the number of both male and female sexual partners they’d had over their lifetime, as well as a number of other questions relating to their sexual history and this sound interesting anyway.

The study authors realized that men who stated never having had sex were almost twice as likely (194 per cent) to have been diagnosed with prostate cancer than men who said they had, which has been stated in some papers as ‘celibacy doubles the risk of the disease’ – no sex please people !

Though, their findings must be treated carefully because, as the investigators themselves point out, the statistics are very small. Only 15 of the 1,590 prostate cancer cases and ten of the 1,618 non-prostate cancer controls said that they’d never had sexual intercourse - and the difference was not statistically important.

The study investigators also realized that men who stated having sex with more than 20 women was 28 per cent less likely to have been diagnosed with prostate cancer compared to men who for instance only had one female sexual partner. Some newspapers have also picked up on the finding that of the men diagnosed with prostate cancer, those who said they’d had more than 20 female sexual partners were 19 per cent less likely to have the aggressive form of the disease compared to men who for instance had one female sexual partner. However, again, this result is not statistically significant, so should be treated with caution.

The study authors also found that men who had more than 20 male sexual partners were almost twice as likely to have been diagnosed with prostate cancer as men who for instance had only female sexual partners. Interesting findings but however, again, the number of men who said that they ever had a male sexual partner-gay was low - only 78 of the 1,590 prostate cancer cases and 63 of the 1,618 non-prostate cancer controls. And their result was not statistically important.

From the research the big problems with this type of study is that it is based on the people being questioned remembering correctly, and telling the truth about, the number of sexual partners they’ve had over their lifetime. The investigators noted this as a limitation of their study, although they go on to say that the questioners thought the majority of respondents (96 per cent) to be giving ‘truthful’ or ‘probably truthful’ responses.

Other interesting point men of West African descent must note is that the men in this study were mainly Canadians of French descent, so we can’t say with confidence that the patterns observed in this population would be the same in any other population groups because remember black men are more prone to prostate cancer and until more studies are done in black men and sex connection we can’t say yes! So tread cautiously guys!

Lastly, the most significant care message is that the investigators have spotted a link (association)) between two things – number of sexual partners and risk of prostate cancer – but this is not the same as saying that one factor causes or prevents the other. So i can’t say from this finding that having multiple female sexual partners will prevent a man from getting prostate cancer, or that having two or more male partners will cause it.

My conclusion is that while this is a stunning story, it is extremely challenging to pull any tangible deductions on the relationship between the number of women a man has had sex with and his prostate cancer risk. So don’t let this results of this research should encourage you to sleep with more women to protect yourself against this dreaded disease.

But be careful with your lifestyle and acquaint yourselves with the recognized risk factors for prostate cancer – being over 40 years old, family history of the disease, or being of Black ethnic origin. If you fall into any of these groups, it’s important that you talk to us at Men’s Health Foundation Ghana so SORRY GUYS! Yours in Prostate Health!