Selected Articles from This Issue

Abstract

Whether neighborhood obesogenic factors are associated with prostate cancer risk has not been studied. DeRouen and colleagues examined neighborhood socioeconomic status and obesogenic environment factors (urbanicity, mixed-land development, unhealthy food environment, and parks) for associations with risk of prostate cancer among 41,563 African American, Japanese American, Latino, and White males in the Multiethnic Cohort Study. The study is unique in assessing neighborhood factors and prostate cancer risk while considering disease aggressiveness as well as individual-level sociodemographic, behavioral, and prostate cancer risk factors. Independent associations of obesogenic environment factors with prostate cancer risk varied by race, ethnicity, nativity, and disease aggressiveness.Modifiable lifestyle-related factors heighten the risk and severity of COVID-19 in patients with cancer. Whether exercise lowers susceptibility or severity is not known. Bliss and colleagues examined the relationship between exercise and COVID-19 risk and severity in 944 cancer patients. In this single institution study, cancer patients meeting national exercise guidelines had lower susceptibility to COVID-19 relative to their sedentary counterparts even after adjustment for important clinical and epidemiologic covariates. Exercise reduced the risk of COVID-19 infection in patients, but not its severity. This data adds to the growing evidence base of exercise benefit following a cancer diagnosis.Adolescent and young adult (AYA) women with cancer can face additional financial stressors from fertility services that are often not covered by insurance. Meernik and colleagues surveyed AYA cancer survivors in North Carolina and California to examine whether women who used fertility preservation had increased financial hardship. Fertility preservation was associated with 1.5 times the likelihood of borrowing money, going into debt, or filing for bankruptcy; and 12% of women who used fertility preservation reported debt of ≥$25,000 (vs. 5% in the referent group). More widespread insurance coverage could expand access to fertility services and decrease adverse financial outcomes after cancer.As alcohol consumption has a J-shape association with colorectal cancer risk (CRC), non-drinking and heavy drinking are both risk factors for CRC. In this study, individual-level data was pooled to compare non-drinkers (<=1 g/day) and heavy drinkers (>28 g/day) with light-to-moderate drinkers (1-28 g/day) in gene-alcohol interaction analyses. This study suggests that the association with CRC in 10q24.2/COX15 was strongest in non-drinkers. Jordahl, Shcherbina, and colleagues also identified rs1318920 as the putative causal regulatory variant for the region. The study identifies multifaceted evidence of a possible functional effect for rs1318920.