Eggs and prostate cancer

[sinwha321]

Hey guys I was reading:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/235321.php

Cliffs:
They found that men who ate 2.5 eggs or more a week had a significant 81% higher risk of developing lethal prostate cancer compared to men who ate fewer than 0.5 eggs a week on average.

The researchers conclude that "consumption of eggs may increase risk of developing a lethal form of prostate cancer among healthy men".

This seems like a huge risk increase in the risk of cancer from eating eggs...thoughts?

[in10city]

Random correlations do not and should not imply causation. There is SO much more involved in cancer development and progression such that you will generally not even by a long shot be able to pin it on a single isolated food.

[Dujin77]

Random correlations do not and should not imply causation. There is SO much more involved in cancer development and progression such that you will generally not even by a long shot be able to pin it on a single isolated food.

/thread.

[SOJA]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21930800

Cherry picked, anecdotal research. What's half an egg? Not going to put faith in this crap.

[Noviceplus]

The researchers conclude that "consumption of eggs may increase risk of developing a lethal form of prostate cancer among healthy men".

So they decided to do a study using dietary data from 27,607 men...
Using a "case only" approach, they also analyzed survival rates in relation to the post-diagnosis consumption of these same foods in 3,127 of men...
The researchers report that for the risk analysis, they noted there were 199 observed events...
For the case-only survival analysis, they observed 123 events during 19,354 person-years. From these data points they found a suggestion, but this was not statistically significant...

First thought is that I'd like to take a look at the 198 other events.
Second thought is that they only zeroed in on food.
Math said it wasn't significant. So... Wait, what?!

Final thought is that it wasn't worth the 5 minutes to go over it.

[alexalive]

But I drink 4 coffees a day, which counters the egg caused prostate cancer advance, and thus results in a never ending war of cancer but not actually cancer in my prostate.

[sinwha321]

First thought is that I'd like to take a look at the 198 other events.
Second thought is that they only zeroed in on food.
Math said it wasn't significant. So... Wait, what?!

Final thought is that it wasn't worth the 5 minutes to go over it.

The 'may' part comes part of ALL cancer risk associations. All bodies are different, so you can't GUARANTEE that something will increase the risk of cancer.
Hm...this "statistically insignificant" part irked me a little, but I think that it meant that the other factors, besides egg/ processed red meat/ etc. weren't statitstically significant

But I drink 4 coffees a day, which counters the egg caused prostate cancer advance, and thus results in a never ending war of cancer but not actually cancer in my prostate.

Great pic


Also as for in10city's comment: usually your way of thinking is any new study says: DOING BLAH BLAH GIVES YOU CANCER!!
But I'm getting slightly wary since the actual rate percentage: 81% in this case seems pretty darn high.

[Noviceplus]

The significance (lack of) was directly on point:

From these data points they found a suggestion, but this was not statistically significant, that eating poultry and processed red meat after a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer was linked to progression to lethal disease

I don't even know why the issue was brought up, since it was nothing but a guess. Well, other than a scare factor that meat and poultry spreads cancer.

Well, it does raise some serious question about the neutrality of the article.

[WonderPug]

Here is the full-text (subscription required) for the underlying study.*






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* Snorkelman noted this study a week or two ago.

[sepul^]

An interpretation from a cancer researcher:

An 81% increased risk of developing prostate cancer was found in men who ate 2.5 or more eggs per week compared with men who ate less than half an egg per week. This relationship was statistically significant (less than 1% chance of it being a random association).

A few things to note:

An 81% increased risk sounds like a lot, but to put this in context this should be added to the overall risk of developing prostate cancer. So, the difference between the overall risk and the risk with this potential additional risk factor may mean that the overall risk of developing prostate cancer is still low. You would need to check the official stats to check the exact expected risk, though.

Secondly, while eggs may increased the risk of developing prostate cancer (and other cancers potentially) they may be beneficial to other aspects of health (e.g. cholesterol regulation and therefore risk of cardiovascular disease - just a guess). Combine this with differences in genetics (people who are more Vs less predisposed to develop prostate cancer) and differences in lifestyle (people who lead a higher risk Vs a lower risk lifestyle) means that egg consumption becomes one of many variables that might influence your risk of prostate cancer. What I think is useful is to estimate your total risk factors of lifestyle, genetics in the context of different diseases to get an idea of which you may be more inclined to develop. If you realise that there are some preventable measures you can take to reduce your risk of a disease you may be predisposed to, then you can think about changing your lifestyle.

The borderline statistically significant findings were for survival following prostate cancer diagnosis with poultry and processed red meat consumption.