The BroApp - Saving Relationships One Bro at a Time

Hilarious . . . except that it's real. WTF guys? Are men really becoming THAT pathetic?

This comes from Tucson Weekly's The Range blog.

BroApp Saving Relationships One Bro at a Time

Posted by David McGlothlin on Mon, Mar 3, 2014


For some bros it can be extremely tasking to adequately balance their time between their girlfriends and bro activities like lifting, video games, broing out, and chilling with the bros. This is a common bro-blem. Bros genuinely cares about their partner but for some reason sometimes accidentally forget to talk to her all day.

Luckily fellow bros share your pain and created the BroApp to bring an end to this bro-lemma.

With BroApp, you can spend as much time with the bros as you want while pre-selected thoughtful, sweet, and heart-felt text messages are sent through the app to your girlfriend during times of your choice that remind her you're always thinking about her.

Texts include:

• Hey babe, how was your day?
• :x
• Hey babe, what are you up to tonight?
• Miss you :)
• Hey babe, i'm leaving work now

If the bros who created the BroApp didn't properly capture the way you communicate with your girlfriend (or lack there of), you have the option of customizing and adding your own messages.

Every bro surely knows the importance of not getting caught in the act, which is why the app also has certain safeguards preventing your girlfriend from ever knowing.

You can choose which Wi-Fi networks are not bro-friendly so the app doesn't send her an automatic text when your both on the couch at her house. Also the bros claim they have a way to disguise the BroApp on your phone so she can never detect it.

As always bros prevail for their fellow bros and the BroApp is here to help any member of the bro community who need bro-sisstance.

Andy Haley - 13 Kick-Ass Fitness Challenges (Stack Media)

Andy Haley compiled this collection of fitness challenges for Stack Media. These are nice ways to mix up the workouts from time to time with something very challenging and/or completely different than what we normally do.

I am a big of the 2-Minute Squat Challenge - the first time I did it I was feeling strong at the one-minute mark, but with 30 seconds to go I was suddenly sucking air like a fish out of water.

I've also done the TRX 40-40 Challenge and like the intensity of it. The Atomic Push Ups I knew would be tough, but the 40 rows were much tougher than I expected after the first 25 or so.

Have fun with these - and it's not a good idea to do more than one of these in a week.

13 Fitness Challenges That Will Destroy You

Andy Haley | February 24, 2014

You think you’re strong and in shape. You crush every exercise in the weight room and blow by your teammates in conditioning drills. You’re in top physical shape, and it’s apparent to everyone around you.

Problem is, the world includes a lot more athletes. You can bet there’s someone out there who is stronger, trains harder and can outlast you.

So, how do you challenge your body, improve your game and determine where you STACK up (pun intended)? Take one of the following fitness challenges, designed by elite strength and conditioning experts to push athletes to the limit.

Note: Perform a max of one challenge per week.

60,000 Pounds in 60 Minutes Challenge

Alan Stein: Here is an awesome workout challenge that is perfect for athletes of any level to do once every couple of weeks during the off-season. It’s a fantastic way to break up the monotony of training, add some variety to your workout and spark your competitiveness.

How To: Multiply the weight you lift by the number of reps you perform to get total poundage for that set. If you Bench Press 135 pounds 10 times, record 1,350 pounds for that set. Keep a running total and then add everything up at the end (use the calculator on your smartphone so you don’t waste time doing math.) Here are the rules:

• Only full range of motion reps count.
• Pull-Ups are the only bodyweight exercises allowed (use your body weight as the weight for the exercise).
• Lift free weights and dumbbells as much as possible to keep things universal.
• When using dumbbells, count the total weight lifted. If you’re doing a Dumbbell Bench Press with 50 pounds, you count 100 pounds toward your total (2x50 pounds).
• Start the clock on your first rep and end the workout in exactly 60 minutes.

2-Minute Back Squat

Lee Boyce: The 2-Minute Back Squat creates balance and kicks the crap out of your conditioning in the process. Guys over 200 pounds, or taller athletes, should be completely torched after this bad boy.

How To: Load the bar so it's equal to your body weight and squat through a full range of motion for two minutes straight. You can stand up and breathe between reps as long as you need (don't rack the weight), but try to do as many reps as you can.

10/10 Treadmill Fitness Test

Mike Boyle: What you get here is really a true fitness test because you’re running uphill. You measure who can run up the hill the longest.

How To: Perform as shown in the video.

Inverted Ladder

Tony Gentilcore: This killer 10-15-minute circuit will torch anyone. Your goal should be to complete it in less time every week.

How To: Perform a circuit with Goblet Squats, Kettlebell Swings and a constant exercise, such as Chin-Ups or Push-Ups. Rest only as needed.

10 Squats, 1 Swing, 1-3 Chin-Ups
9 Squats, 2 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
8 Squats, 3 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
7 Squats, 4 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
6 Squats, 5 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
5 Squats, 6 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
4 Squats, 7 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
3 Squats, 8 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
2 Squats, 9 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups
1 Squat, 10 Swings, 1-3 Chin-Ups

Iron Pirate Walk-Over

Rick Scarpulla: This one is something we use at Ultimate Advantage to mix things up. It’s fun and will completely shred your upper body.

How To: Set up four 6-inch hurdles about 5 feet apart in a straight line.Assume a push-up position with the course in front of you. Place your hands on two 25-pound hex dumbbells. Wrap a resistance band around your feet and have a partner lift your legs off the ground so they are slightly above head level.

Do five Push-Ups.
Walk forward with your hands over the first hurdle.
Do another five Push-Ups.
Continue through the course.

Tip: For added fun, have your partner swing your legs back and forth.

3-Minute B Meyer Blast

Bryan Meyer: This is a simple total-body test that will challenge an athlete at any level. It’s very safe, builds up your confidence and won’t break you down mentally. Try it once per month.

How To: Perform the exercises consecutively with no rest. Repeat for two sets, resting one minute between sets.

5-yard Sprint and Backpedal x 10
Speed Squats (with triple extension) x 10
Push-Ups x 10
X, Y Supermans x 10

500-Meter Row

Pete Holman: This is an awesome physical and mental challenge and a great test of strength, endurance and anaerobic power.

How To: Row as fast as you can on a rowing machine for 500 meters. A good time is between 1:30-1:35, a great time is between 1:25-1:30, and an excellent time is between 1:20-1:25. If you score under 1:20, you're a superhero!

Super Leg Circuit

Mark Roozen: This leg circuit will let you know if you’re ready to handle any type of speed work and plyometric training. You’ll also get an idea of your anaerobic conditioning, which is critical for powering through tough moments during a game. When you can handle this test, you’re ready to handle the toughest of workouts.

How To: Perform the exercises consecutively without rest. Strive to complete each set in 90 seconds, resting for two minutes between sets. Repeat for a total of five sets.

20 Bodyweight Squats
20 Bodyweight Squat Jumps
20 Alternating Lunges (10 each leg)
20 Split-Squat Jumps (10 each leg)
10 Alternating Step-Ups/Step Jumps

Triangle Drill Challenge

Doug Crashley: The Triangle Drill Challenge is a variation of a drill we use to develop speed and reaction time. But the challenge component causes further fatigue and improves decision-making during high-pressure situations during a game.

How To: Perform the drill as demonstrated in the video. Choose a work-to-rest ratio that simulates your sport. If you’re a football player, work for about 10 seconds and rest for about 30 seconds.

100-Yard Power Wheel Challenge

Ryan Hoover: In my opinion, one of the simplest but toughest exercises is the 100-Yard Power Wheel Challenge, which we regularly use at Fit to Fight. The University of California at Berkeley did a study that deemed the Power Wheel “the most effective core trainer.” My clients and students think it's evil.

How To: Assume a Push-Up position with your feet on a power wheel. Crawl for 100 yards.

300-Yard Shuttle Speed Test

Nick Tumminello: This will test your speed and power/endurance (i.e., your conditioning).

How To: Place two cones or water bottles 25 yards apart. Have a friend time you. Sprint as fast as you can back and forth between the cones, touching each cone. Repeat for 12 lengths for a total of six round trips.

Scorecard:

Males:

• Greater than 70 sec. – Poor
• Less than 67 sec. – Below Average
• Less than 65 sec. – Average
• Less than 60 sec. – Above Average
• Less than 58 sec. – Fast
• Less than 55 sec. – Stud

Females:

• Greater than 75 sec. – Poor
• Less than 74 sec. – Below Average
• Less than 70 sec. – Average
• Less than 68 sec. – Above Average
• Less than 65 sec. – Fast  

Barbell Complex

Trainer Scot Prohaska’s barbell complex combines four strength and power moves performed back-to-back-to-back-to-back. You build full-body strength, explosive power and muscular endurance in less than a minute per set.

How To: Do six reps of High Pulls From the Floor, Power Cleans, Shoulder Presses and Bent-Over Rows with no rest between them. When you finish all four movements, don't put the bar down. Go back to the beginning of the circuit and perform five reps of each move. You’ll do a total of 44 reps before you put the bar down. That’s one set. Perform three sets, resting 60 to 90 seconds between them. Click here for more info.

TRX 40-40 Challenge

Todd Durkin: Do 40 TRX Atomic Push-Ups and 40 TRX Rows. It's going to be tough. Get your mind right.

How To: Perform as shown in the video.

Read More:

• Try This Brutal Single-Plate Workout
• The STACK Top 5 HardCORE Exercises
• Can You Pass the Chicago Bears Conditioning Test?

Plastics Are Unsafe in Any Form for Foods

We have known for a long time that bisphenol A (BPA) is a dangerous endocrine disruptor, but now we also know it is associated with prostate cancer.  Here is the introduction to the press release of the new study published in PLoS ONE, which is open access.

BPA linked to prostate cancer, study shows

March 4, 2014CINCINNATI—Findings by Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers show that levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in men's urine could be a marker of prostate cancer and that low levels of BPA exposure can cause cellular changes in both non-malignant and malignant prostate cells. 

This research, published in the March 3 edition of PLOS ONE, provides the first evidence that urinary BPA levels may help predict prostate cancer and that disruption of a cell duplication cycle through exposure to low-dose BPA may cause cancer development in the prostate.

BPA, an environmental pollutant with estrogen activity, is used to make hard, clear plastic and is common in many food product containers. It has been linked to neurological defects, diabetes and a number of cancers, including breast and prostate.

Many of us who care about our health have tried to eliminate BPA from our lives and hoped that would be good enough to protect us somewhat. Not so much.

In a new article from Mother Jones, it seems all of those BPA-free plastics have a lot of different, and sometimes even more toxic, endocrine disrupting chemicals. Oh joy!

The Scary New Evidence on BPA-Free Plastics

And the Big Tobacco-style campaign to bury it.

—Mariah Blake | March/April 2014 Issue


Photographs by Evan Kafka

Update (3/3/14): After this story went to press, the US Food and Drug Administration published a paper finding that BPA was safe in low doses. However, the underlying testing was done on a strain of lab rat known as the Charles River Sprague Dawley, which doesn't readily respond to synthetic estrogens, such as BPA. And, due to laboratory contamination, all of the animals—including the control group—were exposed to this chemical. Academic scientists say this raises serious questions about the study's credibility. Stay tuned for more in-depth reporting on the shortcomings of the FDA's most recent study.

EACH NIGHT AT DINNERTIME, a familiar ritual played out in Michael Green's home: He'd slide a stainless steel sippy cup across the table to his two-year-old daughter, Juliette, and she'd howl for the pink plastic one. Often, Green gave in. But he had a nagging feeling. As an environmental-health advocate, he had fought to rid sippy cups and baby bottles of the common plastic additive bisphenol A (BPA), which mimics the hormone estrogen and has been linked to a long list of serious health problems. Juliette's sippy cup was made from a new generation of BPA-free plastics, but Green, who runs the Oakland, California-based Center for Environmental Health, had come across research suggesting some of these contained synthetic estrogens, too.

He pondered these findings as the center prepared for its anniversary celebration in October 2011. That evening, Green, a slight man with scruffy blond hair and pale-blue eyes, took the stage and set Juliette's sippy cups on the podium. He recounted their nightly standoffs. "When she wins…every time I worry about what are the health impacts of the chemicals leaching out of that sippy cup," he said, before listing some of the problems linked to those chemicals—cancer, diabetes, obesity. To help solve the riddle, he said, his organization planned to test BPA-free sippy cups for estrogenlike chemicals.

The center shipped Juliette's plastic cup, along with 17 others purchased from Target, Walmart, and Babies R Us, to CertiChem, a lab in Austin, Texas. More than a quarter—including Juliette's—came back positive for estrogenic activity. These results mirrored the lab's findings in its broader National Institutes of Health-funded research on BPA-free plastics. CertiChem and its founder, George Bittner, who is also a professor of neurobiology at the University of Texas-Austin, had recently coauthored a paper in the NIH journal Environmental Health Perspectives. It reported that "almost all" commercially available plastics that were tested leached synthetic estrogens—even when they weren't exposed to conditions known to unlock potentially harmful chemicals, such as the heat of a microwave, the steam of a dishwasher, or the sun's ultraviolet rays. According to Bittner's research, some BPA-free products actually released synthetic estrogens that were more potent than BPA.

Estrogen plays a key role in everything from bone growth to ovulation to heart function. Too much or too little, particularly in utero or during early childhood, can alter brain and organ development, leading to disease later in life. Elevated estrogen levels generally increase a woman's risk of breast cancer.

Estrogenic chemicals found in many common products have been linked to a litany of problems in humans and animals. According to one study, the pesticide atrazine can turn male frogs female. DES, which was once prescribed to prevent miscarriages, caused obesity, rare vaginal tumors, infertility, and testicular growths among those exposed in utero. Scientists have tied BPA to ailments including asthma, cancer, infertility, low sperm count, genital deformity, heart disease, liver problems, and ADHD. "Pick a disease, literally pick a disease," says Frederick vom Saal, a biology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia who studies BPA.



BPA exploded into the headlines in 2008, when stories about "toxic baby bottles" and "poison" packaging became ubiquitous. Good Morning America issued a "consumer alert." The New York Times urged Congress to ban BPA in baby products. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) warned in the Huffington Post that "millions of infants are exposed to dangerous chemicals hiding in plain view." Concerned parents purged their pantries of plastic containers, and retailers such as Walmart and Babies R Us started pulling bottles and sippy cups from shelves. Bills banning BPA in infant care items began to crop up in states around the country.

Today many plastic products, from sippy cups and blenders to Tupperware containers, are marketed as BPA-free. But Bittner's findings—some of which have been confirmed by other scientists—suggest that many of these alternatives share the qualities that make BPA so potentially harmful.

Those startling results set off a bitter fight with the $375-billion-a-year plastics industry. The American Chemistry Council, which lobbies for plastics makers and has sought to refute the science linking BPA to health problems, has teamed up with Tennessee-based Eastman Chemical—the maker of Tritan, a widely used plastic marketed as being free of estrogenic activity—in a campaign to discredit Bittner and his research. The company has gone so far as to tell corporate customers that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected Bittner's testing methods. (It hasn't.) Eastman also sued CertiChem and its sister company, PlastiPure, to prevent them from publicizing their findings that Tritan is estrogenic, convincing a jury that its product displayed no estrogenic activity. And it launched a PR blitz touting Tritan's safety, targeting the group most vulnerable to synthetic estrogens: families with young children. "It can be difficult for consumers to tell what is really safe," the vice president of Eastman's specialty plastics division, Lucian Boldea, said in one web video, before an image of a pregnant woman flickered across the screen. With Tritan, he added, "consumers can feel confident that the material used in their products is free of estrogenic activity."

Eastman's offensive is just the latest in a wide-ranging industry campaign to cast doubt on the potential dangers of plastics in food containers, packaging, and toys—a campaign that closely resembles the methods Big Tobacco used to stifle scientific evidence about the dangers of smoking. Indeed, in many cases, the plastics and chemical industries have relied on the same scientists and consultants who defended Big Tobacco. These efforts, detailed in internal industry documents revealed during Bittner's legal battle with Eastman, have sown public confusion and stymied US regulation, even as BPA bans have sprung up elsewhere in the world. They have also squelched debate about the safety of plastics more generally. All the while, evidence is mounting that the products so prevalent in our daily lives may be leaching toxic chemicals into our bodies, with consequences affecting not just us, but many generations to come.

THE FIGHT OVER THE SAFETY of plastics traces back to 1987, when Theo Colborn, a 60-year-old grandmother with a recent Ph.D. in zoology, was hired to investigate mysterious health problems in wildlife around the Great Lakes. Working for the Washington, DC-based Conservation Foundation (now part of the World Wildlife Fund), she began collecting research papers. Before long, her tiny office was stacked floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes of studies detailing a bewildering array of maladies—cancer, shrunken sexual organs, plummeting fertility, immune suppression, birds born with crossed beaks and missing eyes. Some species also suffered from a bizarre syndrome that caused seemingly healthy chicks to waste away and die.

While the afflictions and species varied widely, Colborn eventually realized they had two factors in common: The young were hardest hit, and, in one way or another, all of the animals' symptoms were linked to the endocrine system, the network of glands that controls growth, metabolism, and brain function, with hormones as its chemical messengers. The system also plays a key role in fetal development. Colborn suspected that synthetic hormones in pesticides, plastics, and other products acted as "hand-me-down poisons," with parents' exposure causing affliction in their offspring. Initially, her colleagues were skeptical. But Colborn collected data and tissue samples from far-flung wildlife populations and unearthed previously overlooked studies that supported her theory. By 1996, when Colborn copublished her landmark book Our Stolen Future, she had won over many skeptics. Based partly on her research, Congress passed a law that year requiring the EPA to screen some 80,000 chemicals—most of which had never undergone any type of safety testing—for endocrine-disrupting effects and report back by 2000.

Around this time, the University of Missouri's vom Saal, a garrulous biologist who previously worked as a bush pilot in Kenya, began studying the effects of synthetic estrogens on fetal mouse development. The first substance he tested was BPA, a chemical used in clear, hard plastics, particularly the variety known as polycarbonate, to make them more flexible and durable. (It's also found in everyday items, from dental sealants and hospital blood bags to cash register receipts and the lining of tin cans.) Naturally occurring estrogens bind with proteins in the blood, limiting the amount that reaches estrogen receptors. But vom Saal found this wasn't true of BPA, which bypassed the body's natural barrier system and burrowed deep into the cells of laboratory mice.

Vom Saal suspected this would make BPA "a hell of a lot more potent" in small doses. Working with colleagues Susan Nagel and Wade Welshons, a professor of veterinary biology, he began testing the effects of BPA at amounts 25 times lower than the EPA's safety threshold. In the late 1990s, they published two studies finding that male mice whose mothers were exposed to these low doses during pregnancy had enlarged prostates and low sperm counts. Even in microscopic quantities, it seemed, BPA could cause the kinds of dire health problems Colborn had found in wildlife. Before long, other scientists began turning up ailments among animals exposed to minute doses of BPA.

These findings posed a direct threat to plastics and chemical makers, which fought back using tactics the tobacco makers had refined to an art form. By the late 1990s, when tobacco companies agreed to drop deceptive marketing practices under a settlement agreement with 46 states, many of the scientists and consultants on the industry's payroll transitioned seamlessly into defending BPA.

Plastics and chemical interests worked closely with the Weinberg Group, which had run Big Tobacco's White Coat Project—an effort to recruit scientists to create doubt about the health effects of secondhand smoke. Soon Weinberg, which bills itself as a "product defense" firm, was churning out white papers and lobbying regulators. It also underwrote a trade group with its own scientific journal, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, which published studies finding BPA was safe.

The industry also worked hand in glove with the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, a think tank affiliated with the university's school of public health that has a history of accepting donations from corporations and then publishing research favorable to their products. In the early 1990s, its founder, John D. Graham—who was later tapped as George W. Bush's regulatory czar—lobbied to quash an EPA finding that secondhand smoke caused lung cancer, while soliciting large contributions from Philip Morris.



In 2001, as studies on BPA stacked up, the American Chemistry Council enlisted the center to convene a panel of scientists to investigate low-dose BPA. The center paid panelists $12,000 to attend three meetings, according to Fast Company. Their final report, released in 2004, drew on just a few industry-favored studies and concluded that the evidence that low-dose BPA exposure harmed human health was "very weak." By this point, roughly 100 studies on low-dose BPA were in circulation. Not a single industry-funded study found it harmful, but 90 percent of those by government-funded scientists discovered dramatic effects, ranging from an increased breast cancer risk to hyperactivity. Four of the 12 panelists later insisted the center scrub their names from the report because of questions about its accuracy.

Chemical interests, meanwhile, forged deep inroads with the Bush administration, allowing them to covertly steer the regulatory process. For decades, the Food and Drug Administration has assured lawmakers and the public that BPA is safe in low doses. But a 2008 investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that the agency had relied on industry lobbyists to track and evaluate BPA research, and had based its safety assessment largely on two industry-funded studies—one of which had never been published or peer reviewed.

The panel the EPA appointed to develop guidelines for its congressionally mandated endocrine disruptor screening was also stocked with industry-backed scientists. It included Chris Borgert, a toxicology consultant who had worked closely with Philip Morris to discredit EPA research on secondhand smoke. He later served as the president of the International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the Weinberg Group-sponsored outfit, which met in the offices of a plastics lobbyist.

Members of the EPA panel say Borgert seemed determined to sandbag the process. "He was always delaying, always trying to confuse the issue," recalls one participant. And the screening approach the EPA settled on came straight from the industry's playbook. Among other things, the chemicals would be tested on a type of rat known as the Charles River Sprague Dawley—which, oddly, doesn't respond to synthetic hormones like BPA.

How best to test for estrogenic activity would become a key front in the fight over plastic safety. The American Chemistry Council joined forces with an unlikely ally, PETA, to fight large-scale chemical-safety testing on animals. At the same time, Borgert and other industry-funded scientists made the case that the other common method for testing—using cells that respond in the presence of estrogen—did not necessarily tell us how a substance would affect animals or humans. In fact, a massive, ongoing NIH-run study has found that cell-based tests track closely with animal studies, which have accurately predicted the effects of synthetic estrogens, particularly DES and BPA, on humans.

Stanton Glantz, who directs the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California-San Francisco, argues the chemical industry's real aim in challenging specific testing methods is to undermine safety testing altogether. "Like the tobacco companies, they want to set up a standard of proof that is unreachable," he says. "If they set the standard of proof, they've won the fight."

DURING THE HEIGHT of the battle over BPA, vom Saal periodically traveled to Texas and huddled around the dining table with his old friend George Bittner, whose home overlooks a walnut grove on the outskirts of Austin. Bittner, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford, is quirky and irascible. But he has a brilliant mind for science and an interest in applying it to real-world problems—in his lab at UT-Austin, he had developed a nerve-regeneration technique that had helped crippled rats walk within days. And he had taken a keen interest in vom Saal's research on endocrine disruption. "It struck me as the most important public health issue of our time," Bittner told me when we met at his lab. "These chemicals have been correlated with so many adverse effects in animal studies, and they're so pervasive. The potential implications for human health boggle the mind."

In the late 1990s, Bittner—a squat, ruddy man with thinning red hair and Napoleon Dynamite glasses who had made a tidy sum investing in real estate and commodities—began mulling the idea of launching a private company that worked with manufacturers and public health organizations to test products for endocrine disruptors. He believed this approach could help raise awareness and break the regulatory logjam—while also reaping a profit.

In 2002, armed with a $91,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, Bittner launched a pair of companies: CertiChem, to test plastics and other products for synthetic estrogens, and PlastiPure, to find or develop nonestrogenic alternatives. Bittner then enlisted Welshons to design a special test using a line of breast cancer cells, which multiply rapidly in the presence of estrogen. It features a robotic arm, which is far more precise than a human hand in handling microscopic material.



But before long Bittner began butting heads with Welshons and vom Saal. Bittner wanted the researchers to sign over the rights to the test Welshons had developed, while they insisted it belonged to the University of Missouri. Eventually, they had a bitter falling out. Welshons and vom Saal filed a complaint with the NIH, alleging that Bittner had misrepresented data from Welshons' lab in a brochure. (Bittner maintains that he merely excluded data from contaminated samples; the institute found no evidence of wrongdoing.) Bittner, meanwhile, enlisted V. Craig Jordan, a pharmacology professor at Georgetown University with an expertise in hormones—he discovered a now-common hormone therapy that blocks the spread of breast cancer—to refine the testing protocol. By 2005, Bittner had opened a commercial lab in a leafy office park in Austin. He managed to attract some big-name clients, including Whole Foods, which hired CertiChem to advise it on endocrine-disrupting chemicals and test some of its products.

At this point, BPA was among the most studied chemicals on the planet. In November 2006, vom Saal and a top official at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences convened a group of 38 leading researchers from various disciplines to evaluate the 700-plus existing studies on the subject. The group later issued a "consensus statement" that laid out some chilling conclusions: More than 95 percent of people in developed countries were exposed to levels of BPA that are "within the range" associated with health problems in animals, from cancer and insulin-resistant diabetes to early puberty. The scientists also found that there was "great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans," especially given the steep uptick in these same disorders.

At the same time, a new body of research was finding that BPA altered animals' genes in ways that caused disease. For instance, it could switch off a gene that suppresses tumor growth, allowing cancer to spread. These genetic changes were passed down across generations. "A poison kills you," vom Saal explains. "A chemical like BPA reprograms your cells and ends up causing a disease in your grandchild that kills him."

Scientists were also uncovering links between endocrine-disrupting chemicals known as phthalates and health problems, including genital abnormalities and infertility in humans. These chemical additives were commonly found in soft, pliable plastics, such as those used in pacifiers and baby bottle nipples. In 2008, Congress passed a law banning six types of phthalates in children's products. As concerns about BPA hit the mainstream, Congress also launched an investigation into the industry's efforts to manipulate science and regulation, and a number of states proposed BPA bans.

In 2009, the BPA Joint Trade Association—which included the American Chemistry Council, Coca-Cola, and Del Monte, among others—gathered at the Cosmos Club, a members-only retreat in Washington, DC's Dupont Circle. According to meeting minutes leaked to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the group explored messaging strategies, "including using fear tactics (e.g., 'Do you want to have access to baby food anymore?')." The "'holy grail' spokesperson," attendees agreed, was a "pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA."

Even as the industry crafted defensive talking points, some companies began offering BPA-free alternatives. But they often didn't bother testing them for other potentially toxic compounds or synthetic hormones. Nor did they have to: Under US law, chemicals are presumed safe until proven otherwise, and companies are rarely required to collect or disclose chemical-safety data. Michael Green, the Center for Environmental Health director who worried about his daughter's sippy cup, says this results in a "toxic shell game": Corporations that come under pressure to root out toxins often replace them with untested chemicals, which sometimes turn out to be just as hazardous. "It's an unplanned science experiment we're doing on our families," Green told me when I visited him at his Bay Area home, where Juliette, now 5, was padding around in a pink princess costume.

One of the most popular BPA-free options, especially among companies catering to families and health-conscious consumers, was Tritan, a clear, sturdy, heat-resistant plastic that Eastman rolled out in 2007. (Eastman also produces the chemical that sullied the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginians in January.) A company founded by alternative medicine guru Dr. Andrew Weil launched a line of Weil Baby bottles made from Tritan, which it touted as "revolutionary" and "ultra-safe" material. Thermos began churning out Tritan sippy cups, decorated with Barbie and Batman. With more and more consumers demanding BPA-free products, Nalgene, CamelBack, Evenflo, Cuisinart, Tupperware, Rubbermaid, and many other companies also worked Tritan into their production lines.



Eastman, a $7 billion company that was spun off from Eastman Kodak in the 1990s, assured its corporate customers that it had done extensive safety testing on Tritan. But its methods were questionable. According to internal Eastman documents, in 2008 Eastman signed a two-year contract with Sciences International, another product defense firm that had played a key role in the tobacco industry's scientific misinformation campaign. On Sciences' advice, Eastman then commissioned a study that used computer modeling to predict whether a substance contains synthetic estrogens, based on its chemical structure. The model suggested that one of Tritan's ingredients—triphenyl phosphate, or TPP—was more estrogenic than BPA.

Eastman, which never disclosed these findings to its customers, later commissioned another study, this one involving breast cancer cells. Again, the initial results appeared positive for estrogenic activity. In an email to colleagues, Eastman's senior toxicologist, James Deyo, called this an "oh shit moment."

Read the whole article.

Hmmmm . . . my father was 40 when I was born. I certainly got the ADHD thing. In my 20s, I was suicidal more than once. And according to my girlfriend, I am on the autistic spectrum a wee bit. Thanks dad!

This comes via Dr. Jeremy Dean at PsychBlog.

Higher Risk of Mental Illness for Those With Older Fathers

Massive study finds children with older dads much more likely to have autism, ADHD and bipolar disorder.
A new study has found that the children of older fathers have a much greater risk of serious mental illness.

The findings come from a huge number of people: everyone born in Sweden between 1973 and 2001 (D’Onofrio et al., 2014).

The researchers included over 2.5 million people, representing almost 90% of the population.

They found associations between older fathers and psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism and ADHD.

When they compared fathers who were 24-years-old with those who were 45-years old, they found that children of the older fathers were:

• 25 times more likely to have bipolar disorder,
• 13 times more likely to have ADHD,
• 3.5 times more likely to have autism,
• 2.5 times more likely to have suicidal behaviour.

The findings remained after they controlled for birth order, education and a host of other variables.

Brian D’Onofrio, the study’s lead author, expressed surprise at these numbers:

“We were shocked by the findings. The specific associations with paternal age were much, much larger than in previous studies.”

Faulty sperm

The authors suggest that the explanation for the association is that, while women are born with all their eggs, men continue to produce sperm, which degrades in quality over their lifetime.

People are exposed to all kinds of environmental toxins which could cause this kind of genetic mutation.

Molecular genetic studies have indeed found just this degradation in the quality of men’s sperm with age.

D’Onofrio concludes:

“While the findings do not indicate that every child born to an older father will have these problems, they add to a growing body of research indicating that advancing paternal age is associated with increased risk for serious problems. As such, the entire body of research can help to inform individuals in their personal and medical decision-making.”

With the average age at which men have children increasing in many countries, these findings could have important implications for both public policy and for individual decisions about when to procreate.

Image credit: Nisha A

Dr Jeremy Dean is a psychologist and the author of PsyBlog. His latest book is "Making Habits, Breaking Habits: How to Make Changes That Stick". You can follow PsyBlog on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Pamela Druckerman - What You Learn in Your 40s (and What I Learned)

This piece from The New York Times is pretty accurate, for men as well as for women. As I approach 47, I tend to think of my 40s as the decade when I finally figured who the hell I am and what my own unique purpose is in this lifetime. I also learned it is okay to fail - most people are too self-obsessed to notice, and those who aren't are my likely to lend a hand than to laugh. I wish I had known that in my teens and 20s.

There are a few things important in my life that are not in Druckerman's list, and these may be issues more important to men than to women (or not).

• Aging does not require that we become overweight and sedentary and, in fact, staying fit makes the numbers we associate with age mean nothing. I was the most fit I have ever been when I turned 40 - and even now I am only a 2-week carb restriction from being that lean again, and now with more muscle. Oh yeah, aging does not mean we still cannot increase muscle mass - it's harder, but it is still possible.
• As libido decreases with age, the quality of sex increases in many profound ways (if you are conscious). Quality is way better than quantity.
• Grey hair and gradual hair loss do not make me old or less masculine. I will never color my hair again . . . unless I go goth again for some strange reason.
• Clothes should comfortable and functional. I could not care less if I am stylish but am not at all comfortable. Utility beats fashion every time for me.
• It's okay for man to have 10 or more pairs of shoes. I have 6 or 7 different pairs of athletic shoes, each with its own functional quality that I like. I have some casual shoes, some dress shoes, and hiking boots. Okay, so maybe I have 15 or more pairs of shoes (not including soccer cleats [2] and cycling shoes [3]).

What have you learned in your 40s?

What You Learn in Your 40s

SundayReview | Contributing Op-Ed Writer
FEB. 28, 2014

Pamela Druckerman 

PARIS — IF all goes according to plan, I’ll turn 44 soon after this column appears. So far in my adult life, I’ve never managed to grasp a decade’s main point until long after it was over. It turns out that I wasn’t supposed to spend my 20s frantically looking for a husband; I should have been building my career and enjoying my last gasp of freedom. I then spent my 30s ruminating on grievances accumulated in my 20s.

This time around, I’d like to save time by figuring out the decade while I’m still in it. Entering middle age in Paris — the world’s epicenter of existentialism — isn’t terribly helpful. With their signature blend of subtlety and pessimism, the French carve up midlife into the “crisis of the 40s,” the “crisis of the 50s” and the “noonday demon” (described by one French writer as “when a man in his 50s falls in love with the babysitter”).

The modern 40s are so busy it’s hard to assess them. Researchers describe the new “rush hour of life,” when career and child-rearing peaks collide. Today’s 40ish professionals are the DITT generation: double income, toddler twins. 

The existing literature treats the 40s as transitional. Victor Hugo supposedly called 40 “the old age of youth.” In Paris, it’s when waiters start calling you “Madame” without an ironic wink. The conventional wisdom is that you’re still reasonably young, but that everything is declining: health, fertility, the certainty that you will one day read “Hamlet” and know how to cook leeks. Among my peers there’s a now-or-never mood: We still have time for a second act, but we’d better get moving on it.

I think the biggest transition of the 40s is realizing that we’ve actually, improbably, managed to learn and grow a bit. In another 10 years, our 40-something revelations will no doubt seem naïve (“Ants can see molecules!” a man told me in college).

But for now, to cement our small gains, here are some things we know today that we didn’t know a decade ago:

If you worry less about what people think of you, you can pick up an astonishing amount of information about them. You no longer leave conversations wondering what just happened. Other people’s minds and motives are finally revealed.

•People are constantly trying to shape how you view them. In certain extreme cases, they seem to be transmitting a personal motto, such as “I have a relaxed parenting style!”; “I earn in the low six figures!”; “I’m authentic and don’t try to project an image!”

•Eight hours of continuous, unmedicated sleep is one of life’s great pleasures. Actually, scratch “unmedicated.”

•There are no grown-ups. We suspect this when we are younger, but can confirm it only once we are the ones writing books and attending parent-teacher conferences. Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently.

•There are no soul mates. Not in the traditional sense, at least. In my 20s someone told me that each person has not one but 30 soul mates walking the earth. (“Yes,” said a colleague, when I informed him of this, “and I’m trying to sleep with all of them.”) In fact, “soul mate” isn’t a pre-existing condition. It’s an earned title. They’re made over time.

•You will miss out on some near soul mates. This goes for friendships, too. There will be unforgettable people with whom you have shared an excellent evening or a few days. Now they live in Hong Kong, and you will never see them again. That’s just how life is.

•Emotional scenes are tiring and pointless. At a wedding many years ago, an older British gentleman who found me sulking in a corner helpfully explained that I was having a G.E.S. — a Ghastly Emotional Scene. In your 40s, these no longer seem necessary. For starters, you’re not invited to weddings anymore. And you and your partner know your ritual arguments so well, you can have them in a tenth of the time.

•Forgive your exes, even the awful ones. They were just winging it, too.

•When you meet someone extremely charming, be cautious instead of dazzled. By your 40s, you’ve gotten better at spotting narcissists before they ruin your life. You know that “nice” isn’t a sufficient quality for friendship, but it’s a necessary one.

•People’s youthful quirks can harden into adult pathologies. What’s adorable at 20 can be worrisome at 30 and dangerous at 40. Also, at 40, you see the outlines of what your peers will look like when they’re 70.

•More about you is universal than not universal. My unscientific assessment is that we are 95 percent cohort, 5 percent unique. Knowing this is a bit of a disappointment, and a bit of a relief.

•But you find your tribe. Jerry Seinfeld said in an interview last year that his favorite part of the Emmy Awards was when the comedy writers went onstage to collect their prize. “You see these gnome-like cretins, just kind of all misshapen. And I go, ‘This is me. This is who I am. That’s my group.’ ” By your 40s, you don’t want to be with the cool people; you want to be with your people.

Just say “no.” Never suggest lunch with people you don’t want to have lunch with. They will be much less disappointed than you think.

•You don’t have to decide whether God exists. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t. But when you’re already worrying that the National Security Agency is reading your emails (and as a foreigner in France, that you’re constantly breaking unspoken cultural rules), it’s better not to know whether yet another entity is watching you.

Finally, a few more tips gleaned from four decades of experience:

•Do not buy those too-small jeans, on the expectation that you will soon lose weight.

•If you are invited to lunch with someone who works in the fashion industry, do not wear your most “fashionable” outfit. Wear black.

•If you like the outfit on the mannequin, buy exactly what’s on the mannequin. Do not try to recreate the same look by yourself.

•It’s O.K. if you don’t like jazz.

•When you’re wondering whether she’s his daughter or his girlfriend, she’s his girlfriend.

•When you’re unsure if it’s a woman or a man, it’s a woman. 


~ Pamela Druckerman is the author of “Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting,” and a contributing opinion writer.

Alex Dang Slams Down A Bigoted Question So Hard He Brings Down The House

Beautiful . . . . From UpWorthy.

A Man Slams Down A Bigoted Question So Hard He Brings Down The House

By Joseph Lamour


People of color are often asked, "What kind of ____ are you?" in relation to their ethnicity. It's quite a different question than "Where are you from?"

Example: A Korean-American is asked which country in Asia they're from. Or they're asked, "What kind of Asian are you?"

Doesn't that kind of sound like someone is asking what brand they are? Even if it doesn't to you, it's quite a loaded question — one that Alex Dang ponders above.

A Third of American Children Are Growing Up in Homes Without Their Biological Fathers

Dads DO matter, a lot. There is ever increasing piles of evidence showing that children who grow up without their biological father (or any good father figure) do worse in school, have more social and behavioral problems, and are at increased risk of mental illness. Those are the facts.

But we also know that children who grow in homes with "family problems" are also more prone to many of the same issues.

This is a no-win situation for the kids. The only solution is for fathers to have more access to their children in the event of divorce or having fathered a child out of wedlock (the family court system is still blatantly anti-fathers in many areas of the country). Of course, that requires the fathers to WANT to be involved, which is more often the case now than ever before.

This article comes from The Atlantic.

Why Dads Matter

A third of American children are growing up in homes without their biological fathers.

Lois M. Collins & Marjorie Cortez Feb 23 2014



MIDVALE, Utah — Jordan Ott was the third of his mother’s six children, born over the course of four marriages.

By age 8, he’d had two step-dads; his brothers and sisters had more or fewer based on birth order. Each child also had different numbers of siblings, depending on whether their own dads fathered other children. Ott has one full sister, four half-siblings and at one point had three step-siblings “that I know of,” he said. His own father has mostly lived far away.

His story is not uncommon today. More than half of babies of mothers under 30 are born to unmarried parents. The divorce rate among those who do marry exceeds 40 percent, according to the 2012 State of Our Unions report.

These statistics play out most often in the form of absent fathers—or the arrival and departure of serial father figures involved in romantic relationships with a child’s mother. (Moms still usually retain custody in a breakup or divorce.) Twenty-four million American children—one in three—are growing up in homes without their biological fathers, the 2011 Census says. Children in father-absent homes, it notes, are almost four times more likely to be poor.



Like Ott, now 25, children may grow up with lots of father figures, but no real dad. Or they can be like Arvie Burgos, 17 and in foster care in Utah, who grew up in a virtually man-free zone.

Ott said he learned not to pay attention to stepfathers, even one he had for years. “If I did something wrong and needed discipline, he was all over it. Otherwise, we didn’t have too much to do with each other.”

Meanwhile, Burgos’ sole significant male role model was a young man he saw a few hours each month courtesy of a Big Brothers program. His father had never been part of his life and his mother was a drug addict. He could count on his grandmother, but she died when he was 15, about the time his mentor moved away.

“I think there’s consensus that cultural and family factors are causing children’s family lives to be more unstable than in the past,” said Andrew J. Cherlin, author of The Marriage-Go-Round and director of the Hopkins Population Center at Johns Hopkins University. Experts debate whether recent cultural shifts or economic changes most undermine family stability, but, said Cherlin, “most who I respect believe both are at play.” “None of this implies men are better as dads than women are as moms.”

Most children weather family turmoil and wind up OK, said Cherlin, who coined the term “family churn” to describe what happens to families as couples split, often moving dad out of the home and a new man in. A study in the Journal of Marriage and Family said children in such homes experience an average of more than 5.25 partnership transitions. That’s tough for kids who are used to having their own fathers within reach.

“Dad also helps with impulse control and memory and enhances a child’s ability to respond effectively to new or ambiguous situations, for boys and girls,” said Warren Farrell, author of Father and Child Reunion. Children who are close to their fathers tend to achieve more academically, while kids with absent fathers are more likely to drop out. Fathers are the biggest factor in preventing drug use, Farrell said.

The time a dad spends with his children is a particularly strong predictor of how empathetic a child will become, according to commission of experts who wrote a proposal asking President Obama to create a White House Council on Boys and Men. The group, which Farrell helped assemble, compiled research showing infants with dads living at home were months ahead in personal and social development. Children who lack contact with fathers are more likely to be treated for emotional or behavioral problems. Girls with absent or indifferent fathers are more prone to hyperactivity. If dad is around, girls are less likely to become pregnant as teens.

As early as 1993, studies showed that dads also influenced whether their sons became teenage fathers. A Temple University study found no boys born to teen mothers became teen fathers if they had close relationships with their biological fathers, compared to 15 percent of those who didn’t have that closeness.

“None of this implies men are better as dads than women are as moms,” Farrell and the commission emphasized. Children need both.

But dad’s place is not always secure. The commission report said, “The U.S. has done a better job of integrating women into the workplace than in integrating men into the family—especially into the lives of children in the non-intact family. We have valued men as wallets more than as dads.” The result is “moms feeling deprived of resources and dads feeling deprived of purpose and children feeling deprived of the full range of parenting input.”

Few have studied the relationship between children and sequential parent figures, said Paula Fomby, associate research scientist at University of Michigan. She said research suggests someone not biologically related is less likely to invest in a child for various hypothetical reasons, including unclear parental roles. Sometimes, father figures compete or are stretched thin by obligations to children fathered with other women.

The more transitions a child endures, the worse off he or she typically is, Cherlin said.

In Ott’s case, not all the siblings growing up with him experienced the family’s transitions the same way. Some of his younger half-siblings were actually living with both biological parents while he was dealing with a step-father. It was unequal and complicated as step-fathers treated him and his siblings each differently. He saw friends in intact families enjoy greater consistency, something he wants for his own future children.

“There is a great deal of evidence that children from single-parent homes have worse outcomes on both academic and economic measures than children from two-parent families,” wrote scholar Elaine C. Kamarck and Third Way president Jonathan Cowan in the introduction to Wayward Sons, a report produced for Washington think tank Third Way. “There is a vast inequality of both financial resources and parental time and attention between one- and two-parent families.”

The report also said absent fathers particularly impact the psychosocial and academic development of boys.

University of California-Berkeley’s Philip A. Cowan and his wife, Carolyn Pape Cowan, study parent couples. Their research shows a couple’s relationship is vital to their children, even if they are no longer intimate partners—whether they’re divorced, separated or never married.

“The relationship between two biological parents determines a lot about how fathers are going to be involved, and that determines a lot how kids are going to be,” he said. Simply improving the job market for young adults, especially men, would do wonders to stabilize families.

If parents get along, their children tend to be more psychologically and emotionally healthy. Moms who feel their child’s father backs them up are better mothers through all stages of the child’s development, reports the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—“more responsive, affectionate, and confident with their infants; more self-controlled in dealing with defiant toddlers; and better confidants for teenagers seeking advice and emotional support.”

Ott’s father lived too far away to be available physically or emotionally. Burgos “knew” his father through a single letter and a phone call. Neither of them gained the benefits the studies attribute to an involved, interactive dad.

The federal government is beginning to recognize how important fathers are to children after years of focusing almost exclusively on mothers. Government-funded programs to promote marriage for at-risk families now include money for paternal involvement, too, Cowan said. Social welfare programs have been told to include fathers in case management. The Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations all funded healthy-marriage initiatives. Cowan called attempts to include fathers “islands of hope,” but concedes they’re “fighting decades of prejudice.”

The odds are still stacked against fathers in many government and nonprofit agencies designed to assist families, he said. Often, men’s names are not included on case files, even when parents are married.

Simply improving the job market for young adults, especially men, would do wonders to stabilize families—particularly those just starting out, Cherlin said. Experts have been surprised by the real drop in divorce among the college-educated, who still can get good jobs. He said young people need more job training opportunities and apprenticeships, especially if they’re not college-bound. Making sure tax policy doesn’t discourage marriage and providing a modest earned income tax credit for disadvantaged childless young adults would also encourage formation of stable relationships, he added.

Stable relationships are something both Ott and Burgos long for, and each can picture one in his mind. But both admit to feeling somewhat unsure about how to make it happen in real life.

Burgos said he had some good teachers and a foster dad he liked a lot, but no confidants after his “big brother” Jacob moved away. “I don’t really have deep emotional conversations with anybody,” he admits.

Ott recently married and hopes to have children and a stable family life. Burned more than once by the choices adults made when he was young, he keeps one eye on the past. It’s a path he doesn’t intend to travel.

“I’ve never had a family,” Ott said. “I know what I’m not going to do.”

This story is part of The Father Factor, a series, produced in collaboration with the Deseret News, on the role of dads in American society today.

Lois M. Collins and Marjorie Cortez

Lois M. Collins covers family issues for the Deseret News and is a recent National Health Journalism fellow. Marjorie Cortez is a reporter for the Deseret News, where she covers local government and human services issues including poverty, substance abuse, mental illness, homelessness, and refugee resettlement.

See also

• The Rise of the Single Dad
• How Anti-Poverty Programs Marginalize Fathers

When he was 20 years old, Shaun McCoy became one of the rare people who acquired cat scratch disease (CSD) and ended up in a coma. Appalled by his physical condition afterward, he began to train and found himself interested in cage fighting.

His experience in the cage taught him a lot about taking risks, competition, and his ideas of what danger entails.

What I learned while cagefighting: Shaun McCoy at TEDxColumbiaSC

Published on Feb 26, 2014


A writer at an early age, Shaun penciled out his first full-length novel in middle school. At age 20, Shaun was struck with CSD, which put him in a coma and hospitalized him for two weeks.

Army Removes Hundreds of Soldiers Over Sexual Assault Concerns (Jezebel)

At least this is a step in the right direction. WAY too little and TOO late for thousands of women who have been raped by their fellow soldiers. Via Jezebel.

Army Removes Hundreds of Soldiers Over Sexual Assault Concerns

The U.S. Army has banned 588 soldiers from working as sexual assault counselors, recruiters and drill sergeants for a variety of transgressions, many of which are related to their ongoing issues with sexual assault in the military.

Last summer, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel requested that soldiers in these "positions of trust" undergo background checks to make sure they didn't have criminal histories. At that point, only 55 soldiers were removed. But as USA Today reported Wednesday, after the records of 20,000 more troops were reviewed, the new number of soldiers that have been dismissed from these roles by the Army is significantly higher. In contrast, other sections of the military that have had just as many problems as the Army concerning sexual assault removed only a few recruiters and counselors:

The Navy dropped three of 5,125 recruiters it had reviewed, and two of 4,739 counselors. None of its 869 recruit instructors was disqualified. The Air Force and Marine Corps reported that none of their servicemembers had been disqualified.

It's unclear what will happen to the suspended troops. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has put forth one of two proposed laws that would change the way sexual assault has been handled by the military, said the "reports paint a very clear picture of why nine out of 10 sexual assault victims don't report their attack and why the military needs a reformed, independent and transparent system of justice." Her sort-of opposition, Senator Claire McCaskill, praised the Army for their thorough review. On Monday, Republican Senator Jerry Moran blocked both bills from being voted on.

The Army has also been working to integrate women into a greater number of combat roles. Along those lines, a new series of in-house studies reported by the Associated Press Tuesday revealed that only 8% of women in the military want these jobs. Interestingly, most of those women were younger and held lower positions in the military.

Image via U.S. Army/Flickr

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, selenium and vitamin E were being touted as the potential cure for prostate cancer. In fact, the most influential study was conducted at the University of Arizona - SELECT (the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial) - just a few miles down the road from here. The SELECT study found no benefit by the time it ended in 2008, but over the following years, they found an increased risk in men who took only the vitamin E supplement (2011):

After an average of 7 years (5.5 years on supplements and 1.5 off supplements), there were 17 percent more cases of prostate cancer in men taking only vitamin E than in men taking only placebos.

Specifically, for every 1,000 men who took placebos there were 65 cases of prostate cancer over 7 years; for every 1,000 men who took vitamin E, there were 76 cases of prostate cancer.  This difference, an absolute increase of 11 cases per 1,000 men, was statistically significant and therefore is not likely due to chance.  These results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association October 12, 2011 (see the paper ).

Now a new study is out showing that in men who take high dose vitamin E and selenium, there is a nearly two-found risks of developing prostate cancer. This new report seems to be using the same men who participated in the SELECT study.

Via Live Science:

Selenium, Vitamin E Supplements May Double Prostate Cancer Risk

By Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer | February 21, 2014 

 

Selenium supplements are popular, but do they work?

Men who take selenium and vitamin E supplements may increase their risk of prostate cancer, researchers have found.

The new study examined about 1,700 men with prostate cancer and 3,100 healthy men. These men had previously participated in a large trial in 2001, in which they had been randomly assigned to take either high doses of vitamin E and selenium supplements, or a placebo. Researchers had measured the amount of selenium in the men's toenails before they started taking the supplements.

Now, the results showed that selenium supplements did not benefit men who had lower levels of the element at the start of the study, and nearly doubled the risk of prostate cancer in those who had higher levels of selenium (but still within ranges common among U.S. men).

In addition, vitamin E more than doubled the risk of the most aggressive type of prostate cancer, but only among men with low selenium levels at the beginning of the study. [5 Things You Should Know About Prostate Cancer]

"Men should avoid selenium or vitamin E supplementation at doses that exceed recommended dietary intakes," Dr. Eric Klein, chairman of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, and his colleagues wrote in their study, published today (Feb. 21) in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study is, in fact, a second look at a previous large, randomized trial, which aimed to investigate whether high doses of selenium and vitamin E supplements could lower a man's risk for prostate cancer, something that earlier studies had suggested.

However, that trial, which included 35,000 men, ended early with concerns that the treatments may do more harm than good. In fact, more users of vitamin E were getting prostate cancer than men who were on placebo. "Vitamins are not innocuous…they can be harmful," Klein told Live Science at the time in 2011.

The doses used in that trial were 200 micrograms of selenium and 400 international units of vitamin E. These doses are higher than most multivitamins, which contain about 50 micrograms of selenium and 30 to 200 international units of vitamin E.

Previous studies have suggested that the effects of nutrition supplements depend on how well-nourished a population is. Similarly, it is possible that the U.S. population is already getting adequately high levels of selenium through diet, and supplementing them with more selenium results in an unnaturally high amounts of the element, and has either no effect or increases cancer risk, the researchers said.

The findings also point to a complex interaction between selenium and vitamin E, the researchers said. The study showed that vitamin E increased the cancer risk in men who had low levels of selenium.

This was unexpected because both vitamin E and selenium have antioxidant roles and one could reasonably expect the opposite -- that supplemental vitamin E could compensate for an antioxidant deficit resulting from lower selenium, wrote Paul Frankel, a biostatistician at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, in an accompanying editorial.

It is unlikely that there will be another trial looking at these supplements and their role in preventing prostate cancer, the researchers said. Given the risks and lacking evidence of benefits for other diseases, men older than 55 should avoid supplementation with either vitamin E or selenium at doses that exceed recommended dietary intakes, the researchers said.

Email Bahar Gholipour or follow her @alterwired. Follow us @LiveScience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.