Beer warding off prostate cancer

An ingredient of beer may someday help ward off prostate cancer, new animal experiments suggest.

The compound in question, xanthohumol, is found in hops — the bitter flavoring agent in beer — and is known to block the male hormone testosterone, which plays a role in the development of prostate cancer.

“We hope that one day we can demonstrate that xanthohumol prevents prostate cancer development, first in animal models and then in humans, but we are just at the beginning,” said lead researcher Clarissa Gerhauser, group leader of cancer chemoprevention in the division of epigenomics and cancer risk factors at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg.
HRT news

The incidence of breast cancer in the United States declined 7 percent between 2002 and 2003, but only part of that decrease can be attributed to reduced use of hormone replacement therapy by menopausal women, researchers say.

HRT use declined after the 2002 release of The Women's Health Initiative study, which concluded that hormone therapy increases the risk of breast cancer. Other studies have confirmed the link.

“We found that the change in hormone therapy use only accounted for a decline (in breast cancer) of about 3 percent, so there's another 4 percent that is being caused by something we do not yet know,” study leader Brian Sprague said in a news release.

Further research is needed to identify the other reasons for the decrease in breast cancer cases, Sprague said.