Skip to main content

Finger Length Could Point to Prostate Cancer Risk

Men may hold the future in the palm of their hands -- or more specifically, in the tips of their fingers if they're wanting to know their chances of getting prostate cancer later in life.

A new study has found that men whose index fingers are shorter than their ring fingers have a greater risk of getting the disease than those whose index fingers are longer than their ring fingers.

Those with longer first fingers are a third less likely to develop prostate cancer, according to researchers from the U.K.'s University of Warwick and the Institute of Cancer.

Previous studies have shown men with longer ring fingers may exhibit more traditionally "masculine" traits like aggressiveness because they are believed to have been exposed to more testosterone in the womb, according to LiveScience.
"The genes involved in how the hand grows seem also to be involved in how the testicles develop," Peter Hurd, a psychology professor at the University of Alberta in Canada who has researched finger length but didn't participate in this study, told LiveScience.

The reason behind the link between finger size and prostate cancer seems to stem from a pair of genes responsible for both sexual growth and finger length called HOXA and HOXD.

Researchers measured the fingers of 3,000 healthy men and 1,500 with prostate cancer over a 15-year period. Participants were told to look at photos of hands and choose those that most closely resembled their own.

Men whose index fingers were longer than their ring fingers were 33 percent less likely to have prostate cancer than those whose ring fingers were bigger. The risk was 87 percent lower in men younger than 60.

There was no difference between the men whose fingers were the same length and those whose ring fingers were longer than their index fingers, the authors said.

Still the numbers are still fairly modest.

"Thirty-three percent is still a pretty small effect, so it doesn't make sense for men to look at their own hands and think, 'Oh, I better get screened,'" Hurd said.

Prostate cancer is already known to be associated with men's sensitivity to testosterone.

During the unborn male baby's development, the amount of testosterone produced by the testicles has an impact on the masculine features of the brain, as well as on the size of the fingers. Typically, males with shorter index fingers than ring fingers produced more testosterone in utero -- though scientists say other factors like genetics are also involved.

The findings were published this week in the British Journal of Cancer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Final lunar eclipse of 2010 set for early morning of December 21

Skygazers hoping to catch the last lunar eclipse of 2010 on Tuesday morning best be ready to stay up late (or wake up very early) to watch the full moon as it goes through a range of dramatic color changes. The December 21 lunar eclipse is expected to last about three-and-a-half hours from its start as a partial eclipse at 1:33 a.m. ET to its finish at 5:01 a.m. ET, according to NASA. The previous lunar eclipse occurred June 26 . During a lunar eclipse, the moon, the Earth, and the sun align so that the sun's rays are shielded from the moon. An eclipse of the moon can only take place if the moon is full, and only if the moon passes through some portion of Earth's shadow, which is composed of two cone-shaped parts, one nested inside the other. The start of the total eclipse is expected around 2:41 a.m, when the entire moon passes through the Earth's umbra, or inner shadow, which blocks all direct sunlight from reaching the moon. The moon will tak...
Post a Comment
Read more

Men With Breast Cancer Face Worse Prognosis

Men who are diagnosed with breast cancer are more likely than female patients to die in the next 15 years, researchers report. "This may be due to a difference in tumor characteristics and treatment," says study leader Hui Miao, a PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore. Male breast cancer is rare, accounting for less than 1% of all breast cancers in the U.S. Given its scarcity, few studies have assessed its prognosis "and we know of no recent studies looking at trends in survival," Miao tells WebMD. So Miao and colleagues studied 459,846 women and 2,664 men diagnosed with breast cancer in Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, and Sweden between 1970 and 2007. Among the findings, presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: Men were diagnosed at an older age: 69 vs. 61 for women. Twice as many men had later stage III or IV disease: 18% vs. 9% of women. Only 25% of men were alive 15 years after diagnosis, compared with 44...
Post a Comment
Read more

Permitted non-hormonal performance-enhancing substances

What? Performance enhancers? For decades athletes and non-athletes have been using performance-enhancing drugs/supplements> However most of the time the news  flash comes when a competitive athlete is caught using banned hormonal & non-hormonal substances. They can be broadly classified as: Stimulants Prescription medications Blood buffers Nutritional supplements Energy beverages STIMULANTS They are both physical and cognitive performance enhancers.  Beneficial effects include increase in: Energy level,  Endurance,  Anaerobic performance, r Reaction time,  Concentration, and alertness.  Adverse effects include Headache,  Nausea,  Insomnia,  Anxiety,  Tremor,  Agitation,  Panic attacks,  Hypertension, and tachycardia.  Rarely, stimulants may cause myocardial ischemia, stroke, psychosis, heatstroke, or rhabdomyolysis. While many stimulants (eg, methylhexana...
Post a Comment
Read more