Israeli and American researchers reported this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on a new study suggesting that postmenopausal women taking alendronate (Fosamax) were less likely to develop colorectal cancer.

The results are “intriguing,” said Eric Jacobs, the American Cancer Society’s Strategic Director of Pharmacoepidemiology in Reuters Health. However, Jacobs cautioned, a recent large United Kingdom study showed no link between bisphosphonates and colon cancer, but a higher risk of esophageal (throat) cancer. Bone-density drugs are taken by millions of people for osteoporosis and there have been rare but severe side effects including jaw-bone deterioration. Effects of long-term use are not yet known.

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A commonly used treatment for prostate cancer may increase the risk of colorectal cancer.

Older men with prostate cancer who received treatment that reduced androgen had a 30 to 40 percent higher risk of getting colorectal cancer than men who didn’t have the therapy. The longer they received the treatment, the greater their risk.

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is approved for treatment for men with advanced prostate cancer, but its use is controversial in older men with earlier, low-risk cancer although it is widely used in those men.

The link of ADT to colorectal cancer may help lower-risk men make a decision about therapy for their prostate cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

The Finns are among the heaviest coffee drinkers in the world, with each person in Finland consuming more than twice as much coffee every year as the average European and nearly three times as much as Americans.

Yet, when more than 60,000 Finns were followed for more than 18 years, there was no difference in colon or rectal cancer between those who drank more than 10 cups a day and those who didn’t drink coffee at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Are those steaks and hot dogs bad for you?

Several studies have found a connection between eating red and processed meat and colorectal cancer.  But the reason for that connection hasn’t been clear.

To answer the question, researchers collected detailed information about the type of meat eaten by a large group of over 300,000 men and women and how the meat was  cooked. Read the rest of this entry »

No participants in a study of the German colonoscopy screening program who had a clear colonoscopy developed colorectal cancer almost twelve years after their exam.

Advanced adenomas were also reduced significantly. Read the rest of this entry »