Men who sleep with more than 20 women have lower chances of getting prostate cancer- study...

A s the pink October comes to an end, a new study shows that men sleeping with more women have a lower chance of getting prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer accounts for 9.4 per cent of registered cancer cases in Kenya.

"Compared to men who have had only one partner during their lifetime, having sex with more than 20 women is associated with a 28 per cent lower risk of one day being diagnosed with prostate cancer," the findings obtained as part of the Montreal study PROtEuS (Prostate Cancer & Environment Study) show.

 Promiscuity among men further reduces their chances of contracting aggressive types of cancer by 19 per cent, the study suggests.

"It is possible that having many female sexual partners results in a higher frequency of ejaculations, whose protective effect against prostate cancer has been previously observed in cohort studies," Professor Marie-Elise Parent explained.

The report however showed that the case is not the same for gay men. A homosexual man having more than 20 partners increases his risk of getting prostate cancer two fold compared to a man who has never slept with another man.

A total of 3,208 men responded to a questionnaire on their sex lives and other topics. Of these men, 1,590 were diagnosed with prostate cancer between September 2005 and August 2009, while 1,618 men were part of the control group, ScienceDaily reported.

Marie-Elise Parent and Marie-Claude Rousseau, professors at University of Montreal's School of Public Health, and their colleague Andrea Spence, published their findings in the journal Cancer Epidemiology. 

Based on 2002 data from the Nairobi Cancer Registry, of all the cancers registered, breast cancer accounted for 23.3 per cent, cervical cancer for 20 per cent and prostate cancer for 9.4 per cent. 

In Kenya, cancer ranks third as a cause of death after infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases. It causes 7 per cent of total national mortality every year.

The risk of getting cancer before the age of 75 years in the country is 14 per cent while the risk of dying of cancer is estimated at 12 per cent.

Multiple partners however has been blamed for the increase in HIV infections in the country.

Source: The Star Online