Marijuana Testicular Cancer Link |
Frequent or long-term marijuana use may raise a man's risk of testicular cancer, American research suggests. The study of 369 men, published in the journal Cancer, found being a regular marijuana user doubled the risk compared to those who never smoked it. Dr Janet Daling, one of the authors, said that puberty might be a "window of opportunity" during which boys were more vulnerable to environmental factors such as the chemicals in marijuana. "This is consistent with the study's findings that the elevated risk of nonseminoma-type testicular cancer in particular was associated with marijuana use prior to 18," she said. Another research, Dr Stephen Schwartz, said: "What young men should know is first, we know very little about the long-term health consequences of marijuana smoking, especially heavy marijuana smoking, and second, our study provides some evidence that testicular cancer could be one adverse consequence." The next step, he said, would be to look more closely at cells in the testicles to see if any of them had receptors set up to respond to cannabis chemicals. Henry Scowcroft, from Cancer Research UK, said: "As the researchers themselves point out, this is the first inkling that there is any association between chronic marijuana use and testicular cancer. "But the researchers only interviewed a relatively small number of men. "So before we can reach any firm conclusions about whether this is a cause-and-effect relationship, rather than a statistical blip, the result needs to be replicated in a much larger study."
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