This common lawn care staple may increase prostate cancer risk after company was ordered to pay $2.25 billion

More than a dozen chemicals used in popular weed killers like Roundup could be raising the risk of prostate cancer, shocking new research has revealed.In a report published in the journal Cancer, researchers analyzed 300 pesticides and found that 22 were directly linked to the development of prostate cancer, and four were shown to increase the probability of death.The study comes after Bayer AG was ordered to pay $2.25 billion in January after a Pennsylvania jury unanimously ruled that its Roundup weed killer gave a man cancer.In the new study, researchers assessed data related to the annual usage of pesticides between 1997 and 2001 as well as between 2003 and 2006.Taking into account the slow-growing disposition of prostate cancer, they then compared those figures against diagnoses made between 2011 and 2015 and between 2016 and 2020, respectively.

The team said that 19 of the 22 pesticides linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer have not previously been associated with the disease.Four of the 22 pesticides — trifluralin, cloransulam-methyl, thiamethoxam and diflufenzopyr — were linked to an increased likelihood of death by prostate cancer.Dr. Simon John Christoph Soerensen, study lead author and prostate cancer expert at Stanford University, noted that his team’s observational research cannot prove causality.

However, he is hopeful that the results could “potentially explain” some of the “geographic variation” in prostate cancer diagnoses and deaths across the US.“By building on these findings, we can work towards reducing the number of men affected by this disease,” he said.Prostate cancer is fueling a cancer epidemic, with 10% of new diagnoses in the US occurring in men under 55, and deaths from prostate cancer are expected to jump 136% from 2022 to 2050.Prostate cancer is the second most common form of male cancer after skin cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is not typically fatal — in part be...