Hot MedFax

Have you heard the latest?   Circumcision can cut the risk of prostate cancer -- but only if it's done after 35. Yeah.  I winced, too. According to a new study, research has  shown that men circumcised after the age of 35 were 45% less at risk of later developing prostate cancer than uncircumcised men, newswise.com reports.   Researchers interviewed over 2,000 men living on the Island of Montreal. Half of them had been diagnosed with prostate cancer between 2005 and 2009, while the others participated in the study as the control group, the Web site explains. Questions covered their lifestyle and medical history, if they were circumcised, and if so, the age at which the operation had been performed. Across the board, the participants who were circumcised were 11% less likely to later develop a prostate cancer. But scientists point out this is not statistically significant (sure would be to me!).  " However, babies who were circumcised before the age of one...

If you're a man, you might want to take a stiff shot before reading this. But men in Africa are being forced to do much more. That's because some of the new devices being used for circumcision -- heavily promoted to staunch HIV and AIDS -- may be doing more harm than good.  And having people who are not doctors perform the procedure -- another reason these new devices were brought into use -- is adding to the complications risk, even though it is saving the country money.  In the U.S. and other countries, most circumcisions are done at birth. But in Africa, where this is not the custom, it's grown men who are now choosing to have this most painful of surgeries. According to Dave Mayers at smartplanet.com, circumcision can reduce the threat of spreading HIV, or being infected by it, by 60%.  That's why men are even considering it in this country where almost 24 million people live with the virus that causes AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region...