Men – Do You Have a Son?

If so, you may have a lower risk of getting prostate cancer than fathers of daughters only. A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute examined the frequency of prostate cancer in different groups of men. One of the categories was fatherhood, where almost 40,000 Israeli fathers were included. Men who have at least one son have a 40% lower risk of developing prostate cancer than fathers of daughters only; each additional boy was linked to a still lower risk. There were no statistically significant changes in risk associated with the birth of one or more daughters.

This rather surprising finding stimulates many questions. But the principal one concerns the usefulness of the discovery. First, the authors believe that it shows that the Y chromosome is involved in prostate cancer. This may help researchers better identify the responsible gene or genes, opening the way in the distant future to ‘engineering’ a reduced risk, or eliminating it entirely. Second, having daughters but no boys may provide an additional risk factor to help raise suspicion for prostate cancer – additional to age, family history, race, and fatty diet, for instance.

The results of the study can be criticized as being merely a 13-year snapshot of fathers’ lives, no adjustments were made for other risk factors, and results from an Israeli population may not hold true for other populations. But future studies will sort all this out. At present, there are no real practical consequences.