Men – particularly Black men – who pile on the pounds as they get older put themselves at greater risk of prostate cancer, a new study shows. After following almost 84,000 middle-aged and older U.S. men for close to a decade, researchers discovered that White and Black men who had gained weight since the age of 21 had a higher risk of developing prostate cancer. But, compared with White men who gained fewer than 10 pounds, those who gained more had twice the risk of being diagnosed with advanced or aggressive prostate cancer. Among Black men, the risks began increasing after a 25-pound weight gain – though the link was seen only with early-stage and less-aggressive prostate tumors, and not advanced cancer. “These results do not warrant a change in the current public health messages about obesity,” Dr. Elizabeth A. Platz, another researcher on the work and an associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said in a written statement. “Men of normal weight in all racial/ethnic groups should be encouraged to avoid weight gain,” she said, “and men who are overweight and obese should be encouraged to lose weight for good health in general.”

The formula used to determine who’s obese makes it seem as if Black people are fatter than they are, a new study shows. The commonly accepted comment is that African Americans are far more likely to be obese and overweight than their White counterparts. But researchers at the University of Tennessee have concluded that a Black person with the same body mass index (BMI) – the measurement of obesity that takes into consideration weight to height – as a White person tends to have lower fat and tummy fat. What this means, says Dr. Samuel Dagogo-Jack, is that the average muscle mass may be higher in Blacks.  Thus, Dagogo-Jack and his team used more direct measurements of body fat to see if they matched what the BMI was seemed to indicate. “If our results are confirmed in a larger study population by other researchers, the obesity field will need to develop ethnic-specific cutoffs for what values represent overweight and obesity,” he said.

High blood pressure is on the rise. Increasingly, more Americans are being diagnosed and treated for high blood pressure, recent studies by the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute have shown. High blood pressure, by itself, can cause major problems, and is a known risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Also, high blood pressure is diagnosed in obese patients. The institute’s numbers were collected from two National Health and Nutrition Examination surveys, done between 1988 and 1994, respectively 1999 and 2004. After analyzing the data and interpreting the results, the researchers found that women experience higher blood pressure after the age of 40, and men after the age of 60. In the decade prior to 2004, Americans experienced a 5.2 percent increase in high blood pressure cases. However, in the 30,781 cases studied, 72 percent knew they had the disease, 61 percent were in treatment and 35 percent were able to keep their blood pressure in check.

Robin Roberts had an “all-time low” after chemotherapy.  While undergoing chemo treatments for breast cancer, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts says she reached an all-time low.  “I was in a really bad place,” she tells PEOPLE. “I didn’t want to fake it [on TV].”  Roberts, 47, decided to take off the last three weeks of the year – the longest break she had taken since her diagnosis last July. “I needed more rest. It was too much,” she says, especially given her grueling up-before-dawn work schedule. “I don’t recommend anyone going through chemo get up at 4 a.m.”  By December, the treatment had become an emotional drain. “I was mourning the loss of my health,” says Roberts. But she rebounded quickly after her year-end respite. “I think taking long walks really helped,” she says. “And I circled Jan. 10, the day of my last chemo treatment, on the calendar so I had a goal, an end in sight.”

Two of every three Black men are overweight. Two of every three men, four out of five women and one in five children in the Black community are overweight, according to the  50 Million Pound Challenge, which seeks to reduce obesity and encourage healthy lifestyles in the Black community.  Fitness expert and physician Ian Smith said he began the program last year to provide a “national platform” for healthier living among Blacks, reports The Washington Post.  Smith said that the campaign’s challenge for 50 million pounds of weight loss can be met if 25 percent of the 20 million Blacks in the United States who are considered overweight or obese each lost 10 pounds (Kaiser Health Disparities Report, 4/5/07). More than 690,000 people across the nation have joined the challenge since April 2007, and almost three million pounds have been lost. Smith said, “What we are trying to do is not only to get people to lose weight, but to get them to take a better look at the choices that are directly impacting their physical and spiritual health.” He added, “Poor lifestyle choices and cultural entrenchments have, unfortunately, made African Americans extremely vulnerable to a wide range of diseases that are in many cases life-threatening.” 

The nation’s largest doctors group apologizes for discrimination
The country’s largest medical association is about to apologize formally today for its historical hostility toward African American doctors, expressing regret for a litany of transgressions, including barring Black physicians from its ranks for decades and remaining silent during battles on landmark legislation to end racial discrimination, the Washington Post reports. In a commentary in the July 16 Journal of the American Medical Association, Ronald M. Davis, the organization’s immediate past president, noted that many of the organization’s questionable actions reflected the “social mores and racial discrimination” that existed for much of the country’s history. But, he wrote, that mores are no excuse for the organization’s actions. AMA officials would not tell the Post why it chose to make the apology or how it came about. It said that information would be released today. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society and a member of the National Medical Association, a predominantly Black medical association that was established in 1895 in response to the AMA policy allowing the exclusion of African American physicians, welcomed the apology. “Any sort of acknowledgment that Blacks were excluded is a positive step,” Brawley told the Post. “But I’m much more interested in the future than in the past. I would like to see a focus on getting quality care for all people.”

Drugging overweight young people is a bad idea
Vital Signs: The move by the FDA to suggest that doctors give children as young as 8-years-old statins, an adult anti-cholesterol drug, is a bad idea. Vital Signs tell tells you why.

Overweight men have lower sperm counts
Overweight men have lower sperm counts than normal-weight men, a group of researchers told a meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, on Wednesday. There is a very long list of health hazards from being overweight,” said Ghiyath Shayeb, the study’s lead researcher at the University of Aberdeen. “Now we can add poor semen quality to the list.”But experts aren’t sure if that necessarily means obese men face major difficulties having children.”If you have a man who isn’t fantastically fertile with a normal partner who is fertile, her fertility will compensate,” said Dr. William Ledger, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Britain’s University of Sheffield, who was unconnected to the study. But if both partners are heavy, Ledger said that could be a problem, since obesity is known to decrease women’s fertility. Shayeb and colleagues analyzed the sperm samples of more than 5,000 men in Scotland, and divided the men into groups according to their Body Mass Index. Men who had an optimal BMI (20 to 25) had higher levels of normal sperm than those who were overweight or obese. Fat men had a 60 percent higher chance of having a low volume of semen, according to Shayeb’s research. They also had a 40 percent higher chance of having some sperm abnormalities. Shayeb and colleagues found that underweight men were just as likely to have the same problems as obese men. “But there were not many underweight men in Scotland,” he noted