A major cause of Prostate Cancer-Bisphenol-A, in everything

MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE
WHAT IT'S IN
Products that might contain bisphenol-A:
• Hard, clear plastic baby bottles
• Hard, clear, sometimes tinted plastic water bottles
• Hard, clear plastic bowls, tableware and storage containers
• Liners inside food and drink cans
• Dental sealant to prevent cavities
• Electronic equipment
• Sports-safety equipment
• Medical devices
• Pet carriers
• Spray-on flame retardants
Source: American Plastics Council
SAFETY TIPS
Polycarbonates can be identified by the recycling No. 7, which often appears with arrows in the shape of a triangle on the bottom of containers. Bottles that show wear, are cracked, or are cloudy should be discarded. Exposing these products to high temperatures should be avoided.
Although its name may not be familiar, bisphenol-A is everywhere. It's in the lining of your soup can, the clear plastic of your baby's bottle and the sealants covering your teeth.
But it might be harmful to your health.
An expert panel of endocrinologists, statisticians and biologists was called together last week by a federal agency to review a report on this ubiquitous chemical. The final review, which was supposed to be announced earlier this month, was postponed.
For several years, scientists have been concerned about bisphenol-A. Hundreds of papers have shown that it can be toxic in extremely low doses.
Traces of bisphenol-A have been found in nearly every American tested for it.
The chemical mimics estrogen and binds to estrogen receptors on cells. In more than 100 experiments conducted on lab animals, it has been shown to cause genetic changes leading to prostate cancer, as well as decreased testosterone, low sperm counts and signs of early female puberty.
Work also has been done on human tissue, with results showing that exposure can cause changes in prostate and breast tissue.
The National Institutes of Health's Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction, which was charged with drafting the report, may be compromised, critics say. The environmental organization Environmental Working Group has evidence showing that a private consulting firm with close ties to the chemical industry did much of the work on this report, as well as for the center itself.
The firm, Sciences International, has had clients including BASF and Dow Chemical — companies that manufacture bisphenol-A — as well as DuPont, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, 3M, Union Carbide, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council.
Since allegations were made public earlier this month, Sciences International has been removed from the review. But questions remain about its role within the federal center and in the report it compiled for the expert panel's review.
However, the reason for the delay in the expert panel's conclusions was not any association with Sciences International, said Allen Dearry, the interim associate director of the NIH's National Toxicology Program, which is also associated with the reproductive-health center.
The delay, he said, is the result of the enormous volume of material required for the panel to review.
"They are reviewing 600 studies," said Christine Bruske-Flowers, spokeswoman for the federal National Institutes of Environmental Health Science, which is also involved with the center. "They haven't been able to get through them all."
The panel will reconvene in two or three months, officials said.
Sciences International referred all questions to the center.
Bisphenol-A is the raw material of polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins. Plastic manufacturers value this polymer for its ability to withstand high temperatures, its durability and its transparency. It is because of these characteristics that manufacturers use it for making drinking vessels such as water and baby bottles.
Epoxy resins are used on the inside of tin and aluminum cans to prevent corrosion.
According to Rudolph Deanin, a professor of plastics engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, bisphenol-A will leach from polycarbonate if exposed to hot liquids or alkaline material.
Other studies have suggested it can leach into water at lower temperatures.
The chemical has been highly controversial. Industry groups have claimed that human exposure levels are too low to cause harm. Indeed, they have provided about a dozen of their own studies to support this contention.
But researchers, including Patricia Hunt, a reproductive biologist at Washington State University, beg to differ.
Hunt became interested in bisphenol-A research after all of her laboratory mice started showing high levels of genetic abnormalities in 2003. She discovered the animals had been exposed to bisphenol-A that was leaching from their polycarbonate cages — and it was this chemical that had caused the abnormalities.
Since then, she has conducted experiments showing that at low doses, the chemical can cause problems. In a recent study, she demonstrated that bisphenol-A, when exposed to pregnant female mice, affected not only the pregnant mice, but the egg production of the female pups.
That's an effect that spans three generations — the pregnant mouse, the fetal mouse and the eggs of the fetal mouse.
"I fell into this by accident," she said. "But I'm pretty committed because I'm horrified by what I see."
Hunt said the chemical is more likely to leach as the product ages. Bottles that show wear or are cracked or cloudy should be discarded. And exposing these products to high temperatures should be avoided.
Polycarbonates can be identified by the recycling No. 7, which often appears with arrows in the shape of a triangle at the bottom of a bottle or container. Baby-bottle manufacturers are not required to label their bottles.
"I'm trying to walk a fine line," Hunt said, "between making consumers aware and freaking parents out and making them unable to sleep at night."
But she's concerned enough that she now stores her food in glass containers and never microwaves plastic.
WHAT IT'S IN
Products that might contain bisphenol-A:
• Hard, clear plastic baby bottles
• Hard, clear, sometimes tinted plastic water bottles
• Hard, clear plastic bowls, tableware and storage containers
• Liners inside food and drink cans
• Dental sealant to prevent cavities
• Electronic equipment
• Sports-safety equipment
• Medical devices
• Pet carriers
• Spray-on flame retardants
Source: American Plastics Council
SAFETY TIPS
Polycarbonates can be identified by the recycling No. 7, which often appears with arrows in the shape of a triangle on the bottom of containers. Bottles that show wear, are cracked, or are cloudy should be discarded. Exposing these products to high temperatures should be avoided.

Prostatitis Pain can be Intestinal Gas

sci.med.prostate.prostatitis

I know that you'all are going to have a hard time
believing this.
cp is the most misdiagnosed disease in the world.
cp is nothing more than trapped gas in the intestines.
large amounts of gas do not bother most people,
but people with what has been diagnosed cp have a
severe sensitivity to trapped gas and suffer severe
pain which is radiated into the groin and lower back.
it is a known fact that cp patients fart very little
especially during what is called a cp flare-up.
a cp flare up is nothing but gas trapped in a persons bowels.
this gas build up can last several hours or several days and even
months in some people.when you have low gas your cp goes into
remission, until it builds up again to the severe level.
one of the best ways to help relieve the gas is to
drink a lot of water and see your dr. about getting some
medication to relieve the gas.
away goes your gas and away goes cp.
i know one person who has to take a pill
everytime he eats because of severe gas ,but can't
recall what it is.anyway he suffered severe ,disabling pain
from gas everytime he ate.
get rid of your gas and you will have no more trouble with cp

Negative Prostate Biopsies cause Sexual Problems

Reactions to 'false-positive' prostate cancer screenings assessed

University of Iowa study, Reported in Urology Online, February 2007

Men who get a "false-positive" prostate cancer result -- an abnormal screening test followed by a biopsy indicating no evidence of cancer -- appear more likely to worry about their subsequent risk of cancer and report more problems with sexual function compared to men with normal screening results, according to a University of Iowa study. The study findings, based on telephone surveys of 210 men, appear in the February online issue of the journal Urology. Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin malignancy diagnosed in men in the United States. The majority of men in the United States are screened beginning at age 50 with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. "This study emphasizes the importance of doctors' discussing the pros and cons of prostate cancer screening with patients," said the study's lead author David Katz, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, and of epidemiology in the UI College of Public Health. "Because screening affects a large number of men relative to those who are expected to benefit from treatment, even a small adverse effect of apparently false-positive results on cancer-related worry and quality of life could have a substantial impact on public health," said Katz, who also is a staff physician and researcher with the Department of Veterans Affairs Iowa City Health Care System and its Center for Research in the Implementation of Innovative Strategies and Practices.

The study team interviewed 101 men who had normal PSA levels and 109 men who had an abnormal PSA reading or abnormal digital rectal examination, but whose biopsy for prostate cancer then was negative. Men with false-positives were about three times as likely to report being at least somewhat worried about getting prostate cancer and nearly twice as likely to report being bothered by their sexual function. Katz said that the increased problems with sexual function reported by men with false-positives could be a residual effect of the biopsy, which can cause short-term pain or other side effectsterm, or it could be an effect from worry about the possibility of still having cancer. "This finding warrants further investigation," he said. "Men's perceptions following a false-positive prostate screening test are parallel to those of women who have an abnormal mammography exam but whose follow-up biopsy shows no breast cancer," Katz said. "It's understandable that false-positive prostate exams could affect men's outlook on their health." As with other prostate cancer screening studies, the UI-led study raises the question whether men without any prostate cancer symptoms should receive PSA testing. Katz said that given the lack of definitive evidence that PSA screening saves lives in asymptomatic men, deciding whether to have a PSA screening test needs to be an individualized decision that considers the patient's current health status and risk factors, such as being African-American and/or having a family history of the disease. "Men can discuss the pros and cons of getting a PSA test with their doctors. However, once a man decides to go ahead and get a PSA test, if its results are abnormal, he typically should have ongoing follow-up and surveillance for prostate cancer," Katz said. Katz said that a strength of the UI study was that it did not rely on volunteers. "Volunteers who sign up for a prostate cancer screening study represent a different type of population than that comprised by the individuals in our study, who were patients seen in the usual course of care," he said. However, Katz noted, a limitation of the study is that the researchers were not able to obtain baseline data on how the men originally felt about their health prior to screening. In addition, the study focused primarily on Caucasian men.