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gregorio
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Pot and Bladder Cancer
#5276369 - 02/08/06 06:25 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20060204/hl_hsn/potsmokingcouldraiseoddsforbladdercancer
Quote:
FRIDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Smoking marijuana may raise the risk for bladder cancer occurring relatively early in life, new research shows.
"We noticed several younger patients who had developed transitional cell carcinoma were similar in that they all shared a history of marijuana smoking," senior study author and urologist Dr. Martha Terris, of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, said in a prepared statement.
Her team's study of 52 men, aged 44 to 60, with transitional cell bladder cancer found that 88.5 percent of them had a history of smoking marijuana. Nearly 31 percent still smoked marijuana at the time of the study.
"The literature has suggested that marijuana smoking increases the risk of head and neck cancer and lung malignancies, and that these tumors tend to develop earlier and behave more aggressively in marijuana smokers," Terris noted.
Cigarette smoking is a major risk factor for bladder cancer. This study suggests that smoking marijuana may be as bad or worse a risk factor.
"Marijuana smoking might be an even more potent stimulator of malignant transformation in transitional epithelium [bladder lining] than tobacco smoking," the study authors wrote.
The researchers noted that marijuana metabolites have a half-life in urine about five times greater than nicotine metabolites. This means that THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, stays in the bladder and urine for a long time. THC has been found to have both anti-tumor and tumor-producing properties.
The study was published in the January issue of Urology.
Terris suggested that when a doctor detects blood in a young patient's urine sample, the doctor should ask the patient about his or her marijuana use, and more strongly consider bladder cancer as a cause of the blood in the urine.
Bladder cancer patients may also want to reconsider the use of marijuana to treat the side effects of chemotherapy, she said.
"If they are getting chemotherapy for their bladder cancer and smoking marijuana to increase their appetite, they may be undoing the benefits of chemotherapy," Terris said.
Any thoughts on this?
Is the tests sample size of only 52 men large enough to base any kind of conclusions on?
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


Registered: 04/27/01
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Re: Pot and Bladder Cancer [Re: gregorio]
#5276386 - 02/08/06 06:51 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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> Is the tests sample size of only 52 men large enough to base any kind of conclusions on?
Yes, but the confidence of the conclusion would not be very high.
For example, they state:
Quote:
Her team's study of 52 men, aged 44 to 60, with transitional cell bladder cancer found that 88.5 percent of them had a history of smoking marijuana. Nearly 31 percent still smoked marijuana at the time of the study.
How many of those eat meat. How many of those drink coffee. How many of those sit in rush hour traffic each day. How many of those...
Without a large sample size, it is very difficult to determine a causal relationship. For example, it took literally hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of lung cancer cases to prove that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer. However, it only took a few cases to create a suspicion that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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gregorio
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Re: Pot and Bladder Cancer [Re: Seuss]
#5276421 - 02/08/06 07:22 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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I hear what your saying. My thought was that maybe water might have something to do with it.
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leery11
I Tell You What!

Registered: 06/24/05
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Re: Pot and Bladder Cancer [Re: gregorio]
#5278423 - 02/08/06 04:57 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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well we all know (most of us) that smoking anything is bad for you.
all the more reason to eat THC I guess..... or would that cause problems too?
See it's really sketchy, they have shown THC to have anti-tumor properties, but then they go and say this "This means that THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, stays in the bladder and urine for a long time. THC has been found to have both anti-tumor and tumor-producing properties."
-------------------- I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo! ....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human...... Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!
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DoctorJ


Registered: 06/30/03
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Re: Pot and Bladder Cancer [Re: gregorio]
#5281292 - 02/09/06 10:38 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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I would think that drinking healthy amounts of water and taking a good multi-vitamin daily would greatly reduce the risk of bladder cancer caused by smoking.
I know that when I eat vitamins half those anti oxidants end up passing through my bladder anyway!
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Mitchnast
Toadmonger


Registered: 10/27/99
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Re: Pot and Bladder Cancer [Re: DoctorJ]
#5281740 - 02/09/06 01:06 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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badchad
Mad Scientist

Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 13,372
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Re: Pot and Bladder Cancer [Re: Mitchnast]
#5281946 - 02/09/06 02:00 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Extraneous variables such as: eating red meat, exposure to agent orange, etc. etc. were controlled for through a questionnaire.
The major flaw was in choosing the participants. In the study they found 52 men who ALREADY PRESENTED "transitional cell carcinomas". Then through the survey, they found that of the 52 men who already presented with cancer, 88.5 % smoked marijuana; and then the correlation was made. Thus, the population surveyed was flawed to begin with.
-------------------- ...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge. It is an indellible experience; it is forever known. I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did. Smith, P. Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27. ...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely. Osmond, H. Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436
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