Coffee cuts risk of lethal prostate cancer

More is better when it comes to drinking coffee to ward off the risk of deadly prostate cancer, according to a major US study released on Tuesday by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Men who drank six or more cups per day had a 60 percent lower risk of developing the most lethal type of prostate cancer and a 20 percent lower risk of forming any type of prostate cancer compared to men who did not drink coffee, it said.

Even just one to three cups per day was linked to a 30 percent lower risk of developing lethal prostate cancer.

"Few studies have specifically studied the association of coffee intake and the risk of lethal prostate cancer, the form of the disease that is the most critical to prevent," said Harvard associate professor and senior author Lorelei Mucci.

"Our study is the largest to date to examine whether coffee could lower the risk of lethal prostate cancer," she said.

The effects were the same whether the coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated, leading researchers to believe the lower risk could be linked to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of coffee.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in US men, but it is not always deadly.

A blood test can detect it early, and the cancer can be graded on what is known as a Gleason score; the higher the score the more likely the cancer is to spread.

There are 16 million survivors of prostate cancer worldwide, and one in six men in the United States will get prostate cancer during their lifetime.

Risk factors are typically linked to Western high-fat diets, heredity, alcohol and exposure to chemicals.

The study examined 47,911 US men who reported on how much coffee they drank every four years from 1986 to 2008.

Over the course of the study, a total of 5,035 cases of prostate cancer were reported, including 642 fatal, or metastatic, cases.

The lower risk seen in coffee drinkers remained even after researchers allowed for other factors that typically boost risk and were more often seen in coffee drinkers than in abstainers, such as smoking and failure to exercise.

Why I left Malaysia

I’ve left Malaysia for about nine years now, and lived and worked in several countries such as Singapore, China and, now, Hong Kong.

The past and recent news reports on brain drain have pretty much summarised the reasons for leaving Malaysia except they were not accepted by our leaders. I’ll just echo some of the findings by relating my personal experience.

Social injustice

Unable to get into local universities even with good academic results. Mine was a working-class family and my dad had to work extremely hard to save (barely) enough money to put me through a private college (whose quality could be questioned).

It was a twinning program with an American university. A large portion of our class (100 per cent non-Bumiputera) didn’t end up going to the America for their final year to “twin” with the university because of financial difficulties. Those who did, like me, mostly have remained overseas.

Low income

I did return to work in Kuala Lumpur briefly. My salary was so pathetic I was constantly worried about having to work for 10-15 years before my dad’s investment in my education could be recovered.

Lack of meritocracy

My first job was with a government-linked corporation. We were educated, but quite explicitly some management positions were only given to the Malays. On the other hand, and to be fair, many private companies selectively avoid hiring Malays because of a general perception that they are less competent compared to the other races. Neither the GLCs nor private firms were actively promoting or hiring the best without an implied policy based on skin colour.

Barriers to returning

Today, after over a decade of working, I’ve established my finances, and started up a family in Hong Kong. Returning to Malaysia is not impossible but many barriers lie ahead.

My wife is Korean. We have heard of horror stories about the difficulty of foreign spouses not being able to get permanent residence/citizenship in Malaysia despite years of residency.

Our son was born in Korea. When we approached the Malaysian consulate to register him, we were told we would have to wait up to a year to get a reply. A year to register a child with an uncertain outcome? Something is very wrong.

At the same time, a friend’s construction company doesn’t seem to have any problem getting his Indonesian workers ICs with speedy approvals.

Education

If it’s so difficult to register our son, will he be able to get into a local school? What about quality of education? If I have to take a pay-cut (easily 60 per cent) to return to the country, I’d need to be reassured that quality education can be obtained cheaply (or at 60 per cent discount too).

It’s not very encouraging to learn from the news and ranking of Malaysian public universities that have been on the decline year after year. Will I want to return to the country and repeat the same history my dad went through to put his son to college?

Lack of economic focus

Years ago, this was manufacturing. What about now? What has happened to MSC and the various corridors? What’s our niche? What sectors can overseas Malaysian go back to? Banking? Biotech? Agriculture? Oil and gas? All I hear thousands of miles away in the past few years is some sexual allegations about Anwar Ibrahim.

Lack of positive publicity and encouragement

Every time when we return to Malaysia for holidays or when we meet Malaysians outside of the country (getting very often these days), we are asked not to return by friends, relatives and strangers.

Some even asked us how to get out of the country! Imagine having your foreign spouse hearing all these negative comments about your own country... not to mention, it’s getting easier to meet your friends and relatives outside of the country than in Malaysia.

Lack of sleep may lead to gaining weight

SLEEP deprivation makes the day drag and appears to put a drag on metabolism too, causing the body to use less energy, according to a European study.

The results, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, add to evidence that sleep loss can promote weight gain - not just by boosting hunger but also by slowing the rate at which calories are burned.

The study suggests that getting plenty of sleep might prevent weight gain, said Christian Benedict of Uppsala University in Sweden, who led the study. 'Our findings show that one night of sleep deprivation acutely reduces energy expenditure in healthy men, which suggests sleep contributes to the acute regulation of daytime energy expenditure in humans,' he wrote.

Previous studies have linked sleep deprivation with weight gain and also shown how disrupted sleep also disrupts levels of stress- and hunger-related hormones during waking hours.

To help identify the exact mechanisms by which a lack of sleep might have these effects, Mr Benedict and his colleagues put 14 male university students through a series of sleep 'conditions' - curtailed sleep, no sleep, and normal sleep - over several days, then measured changes in how much they ate, their blood sugar, hormone levels and indicators of their metabolic rate.

They found that even a single night of missed sleep slowed metabolism the next morning, reducing energy expenditure for tasks like breathing and digestion by 5 percent to 20 per cent, compared with the morning after a good night's sleep. The young men also had higher morning levels of blood sugar, appetite-regulating hormones such as ghrelin, and stress hormones such as cortisol after sleep disruption.

Leading a Healthy Life

Too much stress and chronic fatigue can hurt the immune system, increasing the risk of cancer, suggests a senior cancer specialist in Beijing.

Sun Yan, academician of China Engineering Academy, made the remarks at the Beijing-based Cancer Institute and Hospital under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences on April 23, on the occasion of the 12th national Cancer Awareness Week for the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer.

"For decades, the biggest misunderstanding shared among ordinary people is that cancer is untreatable," Sun noted. "The proper way that we always educate the public in fighting against cancer is early screening, early diagnosis, and early treatment."

According to Sun, leading a healthy life is the best way to lower one's risk of cancer. That includes avoiding unhealthy habits such as smoking and staying up late, getting a yearly physical examination, and keeping fit.

During the Cancer Awareness Week, leading cancer institutes and hospitals provided free checkups and screening for early detection of cancer as well as health seminars to educate the public on how to prevent cancer. The event attracted around 4,000 participants.

According to statistics from the National Center for Cancer Registries, the cancer death rate has increased by 1 percent every year from 1998 to 2007. Doctors diagnose 3 million new cases of cancer every year.

Astronomers launch search for alien life on 86 planets

A MASSIVE radio telescope in rural West Virginia has begun listening for signs of alien life on 86 possible Earth-like planets, US astronomers said on Friday.

The giant dish began this week pointing toward each of the 86 planets - culled from a list of 1,235 possible planets identified by Nasa's Kepler space telescope - and will gather 24 hours of data on each one.

'It's not absolutely certain that all of these stars have habitable planetary systems, but they're very good places to look for ET,' said University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Andrew Siemion. The mission is part of the Seti project, which stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, launched in the mid 1980s.

Last month the Seti Institute announced it was shuttering a major part of its efforts - a US$50 million (S$62 million) project with 42 telescope dishes known as the Alien Telescope Array (ATA) - due to a budget shortfall.

Astronomers hope the Green Bank Telescope, a previous incarnation of which was felled in a windstorm in 1988, will provide targeted information about potential life-supporting planets, even if on a smaller scale.

'We've picked out the planets with nice temperatures - between zero and 100 deg C - because they are a lot more likely to harbour life,' said physicist Dan Werthimer, a veteran Seti researcher. The project will likely take a year, and will be helped by a team of one million at-home astronomers, known as Seti@home users, who will help process the data on personal computers.