We don’t particularly want to wade into the circumcision debate, because it’s one of the most bizarre fistfights you’ll find on the Internet. Leaving aside the obvious issue of religion, people seem to really, really, really care about whether or not you should get a flap of skin cut off your dong. It’d be one thing if it were about patient’s rights, but it’s not. It’d be something else again if there were any health benefits either side could demonstrate consistently or scientifically, but there aren’t. It is, quite literally, a penis-measuring competition.
And being as such, it gets a lot of junk science. Like this little gem from New Scientist, insisting that if you get a circumcision before the first time you have sex, it’ll lower your chances of getting prostate cancer by 15%.
The key takeaway, however, is the fact that the researchers point to previous studies that demonstrate men with a long or just very active sexual history have a higher incidence of prostate cancer, and that research indicates this is due to sexually transmitted diseases. The researchers think pathogens may linger under the foreskin, raising the likelihood of your catching something nasty, so before you have sex, get a circumcision.
Or, you know, use a condom.
Yeesh.
image courtesy Wikimedia Commons