Report finds big differences between cancer survivor groups
Written on May 7, 2011 by Jordan Ballard
LOS ANGELES Gay men are about twice as likely to be cancer survivors as straight men. Lesbian and bisexual women who are cancer survivors are more than twice as likely to report fair or poor health as heterosexual women who have survived cancer.
These discoveries, among others about gay, lesbian and bisexual cancer survivors, were published online Monday by the journal Cancer.
Researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health pored over California health survey data to learn more about gay, lesbian and bisexual cancer survivors in the U.S. a group not tracked by the public agencies that report cancer cases.
Gay men’s cancer survivorship was 8 percent, 1.9 times the prevalence among heterosexual and bisexual men and gay men tended to be diagnosed at a younger age than the rest of the male population (41, on average).
The study’s authors wrote that the higher incidence of cancer might be caused by a higher rate of anal cancer. They also speculated that HIV infection, which has been linked to some cancers, might contribute. The incidence of prostate cancer among gay men was about a third lower than that among straight and bisexual men.
The paper noted that studies have shown that HIV infection is linked to lower rates of prostate cancer. Gay men who had survived cancer reported health similar to that of other men.
Among lesbians and bisexual women, cancer prevalence was similar to that of other women, the survey found. But there were differences in uterine and cervical cancers. Forty-one percent of bisexual women reported having cervical cancer twice the prevalence of the disease among other women. And uterine cancer was most prevalent among lesbians.
Nationwide, according to 2006 statistics, about 4 percent of the U.S. population are cancer survivors.
Gastric bypass, alcoholism linked
LOS ANGELES Gastric bypass surgery for weight loss doubles the risk of developing alcoholism compared with Lap-Band surgery, Swedish researchers reported Monday. Researchers already knew that bypass surgery allows the body to absorb alcohol quicker, but the new findings, reported at the Digestive Diseases Week meeting in Chicago, are the first to suggest an increased risk of problems associated with the effect.
Dr. Magdalena Plecka Ostlund of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and her colleagues examined medical records for 12,277 patients who underwent bariatric surgery in Sweden between 1980 and 2006.
Before their surgery, the obese patients were significantly more likely than those in the general population to be treated for psychosis, depression, attempted suicide and alcoholism. After surgery, the risks of the various disorders remained higher than normal, with the exception of psychosis, Ostlund said.
After the surgery, however, the risk of developing alcoholism among the patients who underwent Roux-en-Y surgery, commonly known as gastric bypass, was 2.3 times higher than in the group who underwent Lap-Band surgery.
Also
An hour of low-intensity exercise a week could reduce the risk of colon polyps among people of various racial and ethnic groups, a study found. The study, presented recently at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Chicago, analyzed data on 982 patients who had colonoscopies. Polyps were found in 29.5 percent of the study subjects. Patients who hadn’t exercised at least one hour a week had a polyp prevalence of 33.2 percent, while the rate among those who did exercise one hour or more was 25.3 percent.
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