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Parents' drinking influences teenagers

When it comes to alcohol, many teenagers may take a cue from their parents, new research suggests. In a study of more than 4,700 teenagers, researchers found that parents' drinking habits appeared to influence their children in both direct and indirect ways.

In the first case, teenagers seemed to simply follow the example of a parent who drank excessively, the study found. In the second case, many teens seemed to view parents' drinking as a sign of lax parenting, and this, in turn, affected their likelihood of drinking.

Past studies have found that parents can be a strong influence on their children's odds of drinking. The current findings shed light on how this plays out, according to the researchers, led by Shawn J. Latendresse, of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

"I think that this is an important finding for parents in that it raises an awareness of their multifaceted influence on the drinking behaviours of their adolescents," Dr Latendresse said.

Knowing how they influence their kids, he noted, may encourage parents to seek help for their own drinking problems or improving their parenting skills.

Dr Latendresse and his colleagues report the findings in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

The study included 4,731 Finnish teenagers and their parents; all were part of an ongoing health study of twins born between 1983 and 1987. Parents were asked about their past and present drinking habits, as well as any alcohol problems. Their children were asked about any drinking at the ages of 14 and 17, and about their views of their home life.

That included whether they thought their parents were "warm and caring", "indifferent" or "unjust". They also described their parents' tendency to monitor or punish them.

Overall, the researchers found, parents' drinking levels correlated with those of their teenagers. But it was more than a matter of the teenagers simply copying their parents.

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Regular aspirin may lower colon cancer risk in men

Men who routinely take aspirin seem to be less likely to develop colorectal cancer, according to new research findings. However, the benefit requires the dose of aspirin to be higher than usually recommended for heart health, and to be taken over at least six years.

"Long-term data on the risk of colorectal cancer according to dose, duration and consistency of aspirin therapy are limited," Andrew T. Chan, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues write in the medical journal Gastroenterology.

The research team collected data on aspirin use and cancer risk factors every two years among more than 47,000 men between 40 and 87 years at enrollment in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study in 1986.

During 18 years of follow-up, 975 cases of colorectal cancer were documented. After adjustment for risk factors, men who reported taking aspirin regularly (at least twice a week) had a 21 per cent lower risk of developing colorectal cancer compared with men who were not regular aspirin users.

However, men who had been taking aspirin regularly for five years or less did not have lower odds of colorectal cancer. Similarly, after stopping aspirin, the reduction in risk was no longer evident four years later.

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Older men with prostate cancer can wait and see

Men in their 70s and older who are diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer can safely "watch and wait" because they are not likely to die of it, researchers confirmed this week.

Their findings, presented at a meeting of specialists, backs up the widely held belief that prostate cancer rarely kills men if it strikes late in life. Something else will kill them first, said Grace Lu-Yao of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

Her study of more than 9,000 older men with prostate cancer that had not spread showed that just three to seven per cent of the men with low or moderate-grade tumours died of it after 10 years.

"Because prostate cancer therapies are associated with significant side effects, our data can help patients make better informed decisions about the most appropriate approach for them and potentially avoid treatment without adversely affecting their health," Dr Lu-Yao said.

She stressed that men who choose not to undergo treatment should be carefully watched to make sure their cancer does not spread or become more aggressive.

Doctors have been debating when and whether to treat men with prostate cancer, because the disease often comes in a slow-growing form.

Tests that look for a compound called prostate specific antigen or PSA can detect cancer six to 13 years before men experience symptoms such as an enlarged prostate.

Eventually 2,675 of the men did get treated for the cancer, with either surgery, chemotherapy, hormone therapy or radiation, but they waited on average more than 10 years, the researchers told the meeting sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology and the Society of Urologic Oncology.

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