Misdemeanor
9th February 2009, 10:19 AM
Young men who smoke marijuana are more likely to develop an aggressive form of testicular cancer than those who have never tried the drug, a study has found.
Smoking the drug at least once a week, or using it regularly from adolescence, doubled the risk of a fast-growing form of the disease called nonseminoma, which tends to strike men in their 20s and 30s, researchers said.
The US study is the first to find evidence of a link between cannabis and testicular cancer, which is the most common type of cancer among British men aged 20 to 44. More than 1,900 new cases of the disease are diagnosed in the UK each year, but it responds well to treatment, with nine in 10 men surviving.
The findings suggest that smoking the drug before the age of 18 raises the cancer risk by coaxing immature cells in the testes to become tumours later in life.
The rest is here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/09/testicular-cancer-cannabis-risk
Smoking the drug at least once a week, or using it regularly from adolescence, doubled the risk of a fast-growing form of the disease called nonseminoma, which tends to strike men in their 20s and 30s, researchers said.
The US study is the first to find evidence of a link between cannabis and testicular cancer, which is the most common type of cancer among British men aged 20 to 44. More than 1,900 new cases of the disease are diagnosed in the UK each year, but it responds well to treatment, with nine in 10 men surviving.
The findings suggest that smoking the drug before the age of 18 raises the cancer risk by coaxing immature cells in the testes to become tumours later in life.
The rest is here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/09/testicular-cancer-cannabis-risk