The news that financier Warren Buffett, in the public eye lately thanks to the politics of the so-called proposed “Buffett Rule” that would raise taxes on the very wealthy, has been diagnosed with Stage 1 prostate cancer may be noteworthy, but it’s not surprising.

Buffett will be 82 on August 30. It’s a truism among urologists that just about every man who lives long enough will get prostate cancer, but that most men will die with, not of, the disease. In 2011, 240,890 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, and 33,720 men died of it.

As those numbers suggest, most men survive prostate cancer. Stage 1, the phase of disease Buffet announced he has, is the earliest, and least deadly stage. At Stage 1, the cancer is limited to one-half or less of one lobe of the prostate. Buffett's cancer was discovered after routine blood tests showed his PSA level had jumped.

"I feel great — as if I were in my normal excellent health," Buffett said. "And my energy level is 100 percent. I discovered the cancer because my PSA level (an indicator my doctors had regularly checked for many years) recently jumped beyond its normal elevation and a biopsy seemed warranted."

Buffett said he was diagnosed April 11 and has received tests including a CAT scan, a bone scan and an MRI. He said the tests showed no indication of cancer elsewhere in his body.

Buffett has chosen radiation treatment — five days a week for six weeks. During radiation treatment, people feel tired and have some risk of urinary and bowel problems but usually can work and live normally, said Dr. Sean Collins, a radiation oncologist at Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In general, treatments for Stage 1 prostate cancer can range from simple watchful waiting to treatments like surgically removing the prostate or implanting radioactive “seeds” to kill the tumor. Doctors in the UK recently announced in the journal Lancet Oncology that a new technique using ultrasound beams treated the cancer in test subjects without some of the serious side-effects like incontinence and impotence most men worry about.

Buffett's case is likely to renew controversy over PSA blood tests. A leading government task force warns against them for men older than 75 because prostate cancer usually grows so slowly in older men that it rarely proves fatal. That means many men are treated and suffer side effects unnecessarily. The American Cancer Society says only men in good health with a life expectancy of at least 10 years should consider a PSA test.

"Mr. Buffett made a decision to get it, but that may not be the right decision for every man in that age group," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer.

Likewise for treating the disease. Any man at that age should have "a careful conversation with his physician about the pros and cons of treatment," let alone which type is best, Lichtenfeld said. "We're becoming increasingly aware that not every man needs to be treated."

In a letter to shareholders, Buffett said, "The good news is that I've been told by my doctors that my condition is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way," he wrote in the letter.

Dr. Christopher Kane, chief of Urology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, told msnbc.com that for patients who are Buffett's age, if the cancer is determined to be slow growing (based on analysis of prostate specific antigen, or PSA), watchful waiting is a common tactic. If it’s more aggressive, then surgery or radiation using seeds or a focused beam may be considered.

Since the cancer is Stage 1, he said, “that implies the cancer is confined to the prostate, or that there is a low risk for metastases to other parts of the body.” Given that, Buffett’s prognosis would be good. 

Related: Warren Buffett tells investors he has cancer 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A chagrined man with a girlie magazine under his arm, shuffling into a small, clinical-looking room, has helped turn the act of semen collection into a sitcom staple. Now, a few sperm banks are hoping to change that unappealing image by inviting men to skip the office altogether.

On Monday, the Cleveland Clinic launched its “NextGen” sperm banking kit. Potential customers can request the kit, collect the sample “in the comfort of their own home,” as the cliché goes, and then send the kit back by overnight express.

That sounds much less embarrassing, but are American men really crying out for such a service? And while sperm are pretty hearty swimmers in their intended environment, can they really survive the punishment meted out by the UPS guy?

Sperm banking has traditionally been used for just a few reasons: for storing donor sperm for in vitro fertilization (IVF) when a would-be father is infertile, or a woman is single or part of a lesbian couple; to secure a man’s, or a boy’s, fertility before he begins cancer treatments that could kill off his sperm-making ability; men having a vasectomy who want to hedge their bets; and, in rare cases, as a repository for the sperm of men who have just died, or for men about to engage in some dangerous event, like going to war.

Those are pretty limiting reasons, and since sperm banks usually serve a local area, most have never been regarded as much of a profit center. They’ve been more of a necessary adjunct service for IVF providers and cancer centers.       

Now, though, by offering shipping, Ashok Agarwal, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s andrology laboratory and sperm bank said, the market becomes “anywhere in the U.S.” and the customer any man who’s worried about his future fertility for whatever reason.  

To use the NextGen kit, customers call the lab and request it. The lab sends out a box with a specimen cup, sperm preservation media, ice packs, and a return shipping label. The media is stored in the refrigerator, the ice packs in the freezer. A man masturbates, ejaculating into a specimen cup, dumps in the media (essentially sperm food), packs the box with the sample and the ice packs, and sends it off. According to Agarwal, there’s virtually no difference in sperm quality between shipped and locally collected samples.

The andrology lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago also offers an at-home sperm banking kit, which it calls “OverNite Male.” It works about the same way.

The Chicago lab charges $50 for the kit, $150 for cryopreservation, and $275 per year for storage.  The Cleveland Clinic’s program charges $689 for the first banked sample, including the first year of storage, and an annual storage fee of $140 thereafter.

But Cappy Rothman, a pioneering UCLA urologist and the founder of the world’s largest sperm bank, California Cryobank, isn’t so sure either of these is a good idea. 

“It’s almost like gambling,” he declared. “The survivability [of sperm] is poor.” His outfit experimented with such kits, once over a decade ago and again more recently and “we found it unreliable. We did not think the results were good enough to encourage people to do it.”

Dr. Robert Oates, professor of urology at Boston University and president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology, agreed with Agarwal that when everything goes exactly according to plan, the kits can work. But, he said, the creation of such systems “is really about marketing a product” to men who may not need it.    

Of course, the fees and the risk may be worth it if they really do help people preserve their fertility. David Sampson, a spokesmen for the American Cancer Society (ACS), said the organization encourages doctors and patients to discuss fertility before beginning treatments, and, according to the ACS, “sperm banking is an effective way for men who have gone through puberty to store sperm for future use.” It encourages oncologists to offer banking to all men and boys. (Soon, female egg banking – which has recently shown improved results -- may be standard, too.)

But both Oates and Rothman pointed out that the mail-in option ought to be a last resort used mainly by men located in very rural areas, for example, where sperm banking may be unavailable. Most oncology, fertility and urology practices have local systems in place for storing sperm. “Practically every city has sperm banks,” Oates said.

“It would be more prudent for anybody having difficulty finding a sperm bank to go through an IVF center and have the specimen processed [frozen], and sent to the sperm bank of their choice,” Rothman said.  

And as for the idea of banking against risks, Oates believes some facilities seem to be encouraging very unlikely scenarios as a way to drum up business. “Marketing to those in dangerous professions means they’d have to get their testicles shot off,” he said. “I mean, if you do get them shot off, you are going to be happy you banked sperm, but those are very limited numbers of people.”  

Related: 

• Obese men at greater risk for infertility
• Soda-drinking men at higher risk for heart attack
• Yearly prostate cancer screening fails to reduce deaths

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Men who drink sugar-sweetened beverages, including sodas and non-carbonated fruit drinks, may have a higher risk of heart attack, a new study shows.

Harvard researchers found that men who drank one sugar-sweetened beverage per day had a 20 percent increased risk of heart attack compared to those who eschewed the sugary drinks, according to the study published in the journal Circulation.

And the risk rose with increasing consumption: Two sugary drinks a day was linked to a 42 percent increase in risk, while three was associated with a 69 percent increase.

The researchers also found that sugary drinks were associated with higher levels of inflammatory factors, such as CRP, that are thought to be involved in the development of heart disease.

The bottom line is that Americans need to pay more attention to what they’re drinking, said the study’s lead author, Lawrence de Koning, a research fellow in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. “The first thing to do is to reduce the intake of sodas and then eventually eliminate them,” de Koning said.

Related story: 5 great reasons to kick the soda habit

The new research found no connection between artificially sweetened drinks -- in other words, diet sodas -- and heart disease risk. “But there are probably better choices, such as water, coffee and tea,” de Koning said. Besides, another recently published study did indeed find a link between a daily diet soda and heightened heart attack risks. 

This study adds to the accumulating evidence that sugary beverages hurt your health, said Dr. Y. Claire Wang, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

The new report looked at data gathered as part of the Health Professionals Follow-up study, which has been gathering information on 42,883 men for the last 22 years. During that time there were 3,683 heart attacks in the men, some fatal and some not. And although this data set focused solely on men, past research has linked women's soda habits with heart disease, too. 

When de Koning and his colleagues looked at sugar-sweetened beverages, they found a strong correlation between sugary drinks and heart attack risk. And that link stayed strong even after the researchers accounted for factors such as smoking, physical activity, alcohol intake, vitamin use, family history and BMI. 

And while link doesn’t absolutely prove that sugary drinks increase the risk of heart disease, there is evidence from other studies showing that these beverages have an impact on risk factors, de Koning said. In one study, for example, volunteers who decreased sugary soda consumption experienced a reduction in blood pressure levels, he added.

“At the end of the day,” Wang said, “the best thing to drink is still water. 

Related: 

• BPA levels soar after lunching on canned soup
• Still too much sugar in kids' diets, researchers say
• 5 great reasons to kick your soda habit

By Rachael Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily 

Frequently screening for prostate cancer may not reduce deaths from the disease, a new study says.

In the study, which involved about 76,000 men, those who underwent yearly screening for prostate cancerwere just as likely to die from the disease over a 13-year period as those who underwent screening only if their doctor recommended it.

The findings suggest yearly screening for prostate cancer is not necessary for most men, the researchers said. Many of the cancers found were slow-growing cancers that would not go on to kill the patient, said study researcher Dr. Gerald Andriole, chief of the division of urologic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

That's not to say there's no benefit from screening, Andriole said. But screening should be focused on younger, healthy men and those at risk for the disease, such as those with a family history of prostate cancer.

"We need to modify our current practices and stop screening elderly men and those with a limited life expectancy," Andriole said.

The findings come a few months after the controversial decision by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force to recommend against routine screening for prostate cancer in healthy men using the prostate-specific antigen test (PSA).

Dr. Bruce Kava, an associate professor of urology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who was not involved in the new study, said that men, old and young, should speak with their doctors about whether they are candidates for screening.

"We shouldn’t be predetermining for patients" whether they should get screened, Kava said.

The study involved men in the United States between ages 55 and 74. Participants were randomly assigned to undergo yearly screening — six years of screening with a PSA test and four years with a digital rectal exam — or to receive standard care, which meant being screened only if their doctor recommended it.

The researchers reported early results of their study in 2009, when participants had been followed for seven to 10 years. At that time, the data showed that screening did not reduce prostate cancer deaths. However, some argued the follow-up period was not long enough, given that prostate cancer can take many years to be lethal.

In the new study, men were followed for at least 10 years, and more than half were followed for 13 years.

About 12 percent more cases of prostate cancer were detected in the group that received yearly screening than in the group that received standard care (4,250 cancers in the screening group and 3,815 cancers in the standard care group).

However, the number of deaths from prostate cancer were about the same in both groups: 158 deaths in the screening group and 145 deaths in the standard care group.

In addition, men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer and had a history of other conditions — such as heart attacks, strokes and diabetes — were much more likely to die of something other than prostate cancer, suggesting that screening finds cancers that aren't likely to be the reason a man dies, the researchers said.

A critical flaw in the study is that the doctors of about half of the participants in the standard care group recommended they be screened for prostate cancer, meaning the researchers cannot definitely say that screening for prostate cancer is not beneficial, Kava said.

In addition, men with prostate cancer typically live for 15 to 20 years after their diagnoses, and so the follow-up period should be longer still, Kava said.

Before men undergo screening for prostate cancer, they should be fully informed about its pros and cons, said study research Philip Prorok, of the National Cancer Institute. Possible harms of prostate cancer screening include unnecessary biopsies and subsequent treatments, which come with a risk of erectile dysfunction and loss of urinary control.

An approach known as active surveillance is intended to reduce harms from prostate cancer screening. With active surveillance, men diagnosed with low-risk prostate are be closely monitored, and treated only if their cancer progresses to a more aggressive form.

A panel convened by the National Institutes of Health recently recommended more men undergo active surveillance rather than treatment.

More from MyHealthNewsDaily:

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• 7 Surprising Reasons for Erectile Dysfunction
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featurepics.com

If you're the dance floor of a crowded bar - watch out for fisticuffs, says a new study.

By Cari Nierenberg

If you shake your booty on the dance floor of a crowded bar, you could be in for a world of hurt. And your lousy dance moves are not to blame. 

A recent study shows that the dance floor is the most likely place for fights to break out inside a large drinking establishment. The findings suggest that roughly 20 percent of the most harmful incidents took place on the floor itself; another 13 percent of them occurred near it.

The research, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review, looked at "hotspots" for aggression in bars and clubs.

In the study, researchers made more than 1,300 visits to 118 bars and clubs in Toronto over a two-year period. They went to bars that could hold more than 300 people, and they went on Fridays and Saturdays between midnight and 3 a.m.

Researchers observed the customers for aggressive behaviors, and they rated them on a scale of 1 (minor non-physical harm) to 5 (actions causing pain, including punching and kicking). They even gauged how intoxicated the customers seemed that night.

They found that the dance floor was the top spot for aggressive behavior. "There's a lot of sexual aggression and aggressive horseplay on the dance floor in late night, large-capacity bars and night clubs," says study author Kathryn Graham, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

Sometimes it was just sheer numbers -- the dance floor was the most crowded place on the premises and this sparked more incidents. And partly it was because that's where the most rowdiness between dancers and even bystanders took place.

But Graham was a little surprised that the area at or near the serving bar was the second most common location for bad behavior. She figures this was mainly a traffic and congestion issue.

Tempers there could also flare between patrons and staff over drink service. And when hot heads get hammered, it can get ugly.

"I suspect that a lot of the aggression near the serving bar was in the form of male-to-male violence where egos are on the line when people get bumped," says Graham.

Then again, "It may also be that this is a good place to hang around if you're looking for trouble," she adds.

While the dance floor was the #1 hotspot for aggressive behavior and the space near the serving bar was second, the tables came in third. This was followed by the hallways, aisles, and stairs in fourth, the entrance was fifth, and the pool tables were sixth.

Although only 4 percent of incidents took place at pool tables, the area had a high rate of barroom brawls likely brought on by people's competitive juices mixing with alcohol.

So, when you head out for a night on the town, now you'll know the high-risk locations at your favorite watering hole. And feel free to pass along this research to the bar staff so they'll keep things from getting out of hand in these potential trouble spots.

The worst fights? They took place outside the bar, of course.

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A huge spike in the number of head and neck cancers linked to HPV over nearly two decades is raising alarms about the risk of the sexually contracted infections in a whole new population: men.

Between 1988 and 2004, head, neck and throat cancers that tested positive for the human papilloma virus rose an astounding 225 percent, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Within the next decade, the study authors argue, the incidence of such cancers — which are almost always contracted as a result of oral sex — will surpass that of cervical cancer, and the majority of those cases are going to be in men.

That’s a point often missed in public talk about HPV infection — and the vaccine that can prevent it.

In the recent controversy over comments made by presidential candidate Michele Bachmann about the HPV vaccine, the focus was squarely on young women and cervical cancer. But HPV, mainly a strain called HPV-16, also causes oropharyngeal and anal cancer, a fact not often publicized because medical organizations, the government, and academics would rather not step into any debates about sex practices.

Until recently, head and neck cancers were primarily diagnosed in older people, with an average age of 60, said Dr. Gregory Masters, an expert with the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Those cancers were usually caused by smoking or drinking too much booze, exposures that take 20 years or more to trigger disease. And, they typically didn't test positive for HPV markers. In fact, the incident of HPV-negative head and neck cancers declined by more than 50 percent during the 16-year study period, mostly because of declines in smoking and other tobacco use.

Now, however, oncologists like Masters, who is affiliated with the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center in Newark, Del., are seeing the average age of head and neck cancer diagnoses drop as younger people develop HPV-caused cancers resulting from sexual exposure.

The study authors collected their data from the three states that participate in a government cancer incidence database for oropharyngeal cancer: Hawaii, Iowa and Louisiana. They determined the HPV status of 271 tumors and found that the prevalence of HPV-related cancers increased from 16.3 percent during 1984-1988 to 71.7 percent from 2000 to 2004. 

An accompanying commentary noted that “we can expect some 10,000 to 15,000 patients with (the cancers) per year in the United States, with the great majority having HPV-positive (cancers)."

Consultants to drug companies that make HPV vaccines are represented among the study’s authors; clearly the companies have an incentive to suggest that males be vaccinated. But in many cases, health experts believe that economics and health are aligned on this issue and that boys and young men ought to be receiving the HPV vaccine right now. For instance, Dr. James Turner, a past president of the American College Health Association and a liaison to the Advisory Committee on Immunization practices has long advocated vaccinating all boys against HPV.

Yet neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor medical organizations such as ASCO have recommended it, although the vaccines are approved for use in males. The reason, suggested Masters, is squeamishness.

“When we get more comfortable as a society with the whole discussion of sexually-related cancer, then you will, I think, see us saying it makes a lot of sense for all boys and girls to get vaccinated … I am not, as a representative of ASCO, saying we recommend it, but I think (such recommendations) are forthcoming.”

Meanwhile, suggested a commentary accompanying the study, “patients should be encouraged to minimize behaviors that put them at risk.”

That, of course, would mean reducing oral and anal sex, two activities now firmly entrenched in the American mainstream. According to the National Survey of Family Growth issued last March by the National Center for Health Statistics, about 90 percent of both men and women have engaged in oral sex with an opposite-sex partner, and 36 percent of women and 44 percent of men have had anal sex.

Statistics like that, and the new study’s findings on head and neck cancer rates may combine to make a broader vaccine recommendation more urgent.  

Follow Brian Alexander on Twitter.

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