Testicular Cancer

Young men who began using marijuana as adolescents or who smoke pot at least once a week appear to be twice as likely to develop testicular cancer as those who never used the drug. The association, as reported by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, was strongest with nonseminoma, an aggressive, fast-growing subtype of testicular cancer that typically strikes men between ages 20 and 35.

National No Beard Day seems as good a time as any to remind the follicularly inclined that the month of November -- a.k.a. Movember -- is almost upon us. What's Movember? We're glad you asked. It's an annual charity mustache grow (in Australia, where the effort began a decade ago, that glorious growth of lip spinach is colloquially referred to as a "mo") in which men start the month completely cleanshaven and spend the next 30 days growing a 'stache (and just a 'stache) from scratch.

Male pot smokers beware: Your seemingly harmless habit may be increasing your risk of developing the most dangerous forms of testicular cancer. A new study, published Monday on the website of the medical journal Cancer, reports that men who have testicular cancer are twice as likely to have smoked marijuana before they were diagnosed than control subjects. The association existed only for nonseminomas, the more dangerous form of testicular cancer that is harder to treat. In the study, carried out in Los Angeles, a team of researchers enrolled 163 men who had been diagnosed with testicular cancer between 1986 and 1991.

Like most sequels, the second part of Lance Armstrong's two-night, televised interview with Oprah Winfrey lacked the punch and fireworks of the first segment. All of the major confessions - doping and lying and bullying his accusers - were already out of the way. So, for much of Friday night's one-hour telecast, Armstrong settled in to discuss the fallout from his scandal, the ways in which it has hurt his family, cancer-fighting foundation and - to just as great an extent - his bank account.

Scientists have discovered that testicular cancer can lead to brain damage, seizures, memory loss and dementia long before the cancer is even detected. The brain damage apparently is caused by an overly aggressive attack by the body's own immune system on a protein produced by tumors, the researchers said.

Testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer in young men ages 15 to 34, but if you ask a 25-year-old man when the last time he checked his testicles was, chances are he'll probably tell you a story about a three-on-three basketball game where he got hit in the groin so hard, he threw up and couldn't move for a day or two. Most men who experience groin or lower abdominal pain have the tendency to brush it off as a pulled muscle or a hernia.

David Apolskis, a starter at center in six games for the USC football team last season, will begin chemotherapy treatments for testicular cancer Thursday at USC's Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital. A sophomore from Houston, Apolskis has not played for the Trojans this season. His cancer was diagnosed on Aug. 8, two days before the Trojan veterans reported for practice, and he had a testicle removed that day in an operation at Centinela Hospital Medical Center. Three weeks later, on Aug.

David Apolskis walked slowly off the field at UC Irvine on Wednesday morning, sweat pouring down his forehead, after the USC football team completed its first practice of the summer in full gear. Blinking to clear his eyes, he dragged his helmet and shoulder pads behind him, tired and sore after a two-hour workout. But a smile lit his face.

Nearly three years ago, Larry Bailin pulled a groin muscle while lifting weights. "When the swelling went down," he says, "that's when I knew I had a problem." Bailin felt a lump on his left testicle, and although he was concerned enough to see a urologist, he wasn't alarmed until an ultrasound test showed that the lump was most likely cancerous. Told that he would need an oncologist, Bailin and his wife, Adrian, interviewed four--with mixed results.

Like many men, Bill Kenny wasn't aware of the need to do a monthly self-exam to detect testicular cancer in its early stages. Then came the day, seven years ago, when Kenny couldn't ignore the swelling in his left testicle. "I never expected to hear the word 'cancer,' " says Kenny, a Los Angeles television writer. So dire was the situation that he had surgery to remove the testicle the next day, followed by radiation treatment. Three years later, his right testicle was found to be cancerous.

Well that didn't take long. Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams are making a movie about disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong. The studio and Abrams' production company, Bad Robot, have secured the rights to author Juliet Macur's book proposal "Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong," to be published by HarperCollins. A release date for the book has not yet been set. The news was first reported on Deadline.com. Macur, a sports reporter for the New York Times, has covered Armstrong for more than a decade as the cyclist has made news with his cancer battle, his continuous denial of doping and his admission Thursday night to Oprah Winfrey that he used illegal performing enhancement substances throughout his illustrious career.

A night after Lance Armstrong admitted to doping throughout the course of his athletic career, the disgraced cyclist spent the second half of his much-hyped television interview with Oprah Winfrey talking about fallout from the scandal. Armstrong, who had appeared calm and composed the night before, teared up when he described telling his children about his past misdeeds. “I said, 'Don't defend me anymore,'" he recalled. “'Don't.'” PHOTOS: Lance Armstrong through the years At the same time, he expressed a desire to return to sanctioned competition, such as marathons, and seemed to disagree with the lifetime ban the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency handed down last fall.

Lance Armstrong admitted in the second half of his highly touted interview with Oprah Winfrey that the most humbling moment in his fall from athletic superstar grace was the moment in November 2012 when he severed all ties with Livestrong, the cancer awareness charity he helped found. "The foundation was like my sixth child," Armstrong told Oprah, becoming visibly upset. Livestrong raised nearly $500 million for cancer awareness since 1997 and sold over 80 million yellow Livestrong bracelets.

Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which he is expected to deliver a confession to using performance-enhancing methods to win the Tour de France seven times, is less than two hours away. Armstrong, 41, sat down with Winfrey for 2 1/2 hours at a hotel near his home in Austin, Texas, on Monday, and Winfrey said she was “satisfied” with Armstrong's responses to questions she said were exhaustively researched. The interview will air on the Oprah Winfrey Network at 9 p.m. Eastern time, and can be seen at 6 p.m. Pacific on some satellite providers and streamed on Oprah.com PHOTOS: Lance Armstrong through the years Armstrong has fiercely denied using performance-enhancing drugs like testosterone and the energy boosting substance EPO for more than a decade, citing hundreds of clean test results.

Lance Armstrong admitted to Oprah Winfrey during his televised interview on OWN that in the course of defending himself from charges that he'd used banned substances in his cycling, he became a "bully. " And surprisingly, he attributed it to his battle with testicular cancer that changed his attitude. "I was always a fighter," Armstrong said in the first of the two-part interview that aired Thursday night. "Before my diagnosis, I was a competitor, but not a fierce competitor. Then I said I will do anything I need to do to survive.

While the nation (or at least the news media) continues to reel from the news of Lance Armstrong's confession to Oprah Winfrey, Jon Stewart thinks we're all idiots for believing the cyclist's claims in the first place - himself included. On Tuesday's installment of “The Daily Show,” Stewart raked the disgraced former Tour De France champion over the coals. He began by expressing his outrage over the dollar he spent on a rubber “Livestrong” bracelet that is now “somewhere in his house.” “Well, I think we all owe cancer an apology.

Some are slim and Zorro-like. Others are bushy, but well-kept. And still others, like Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino's, look like they belong on the mug of a biker dude named Bubba. Buscaino's handlebar mustache, one of a handful that have recently sprouted on City Hall faces, was grown in support of "Movember," a monthlong charity event geared toward raising awareness of prostate and testicular cancer. The sight of mustachioed staffers has become common along the corridors of City Hall in recent days - Tom Selleck look-alikes grabbing coffee or whispering asides to their bosses.

As an athlete, an Olympic swimmer with goals different from, say, someone who earns a living as a businessman or artist or construction worker, Eric Shanteau made decisions that might raise an eyebrow. In 2008, less than a week before the U.S. Olympic trials, Shanteau learned he had testicular cancer. Surgery was recommended. Immediately if possible. Shanteau chose to wait. He made the U.S. team and competed at the Beijing Olympics, where his father was able to watch and cheer for his son. Richard Shanteau had lung cancer in 2008, a disease that would kill him in 2010.

Some are slim and Zorro-like. Others are bushy, but well-kept. And still others, like Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino's, look like they belong on the mug of a biker dude named Bubba. Buscaino's handlebar mustache, one of a handful that have recently sprouted on City Hall faces, was grown in support of "Movember," a monthlong charity event geared toward raising awareness of prostate and testicular cancer. The sight of mustachioed staffers has become common along the corridors of City Hall in recent days - Tom Selleck look-alikes grabbing coffee or whispering asides to their bosses.

Marc Rose and Med Abrous, owners of Hollywood's the Spare Room bar, like to support L.A. artists and high-minded causes. The Echo Park band Spirit Vine enjoys getting outside its Eastside comfort zone once in a while. And Paul Beahan, owner of the L.A. indie record label Manimal, just loves "freakin' people out. " Fine, you say. But what's any of this got to do with bowling, male facial hair or testicular cancer prevention? Glad you asked. This month, those mix-and-match imperatives are rubbing shoulders in the "Manimal for Movember" live-music benefit at the Spare Room, the neo-Gilded Age gaming parlor and cocktail lounge that threw open its doors in January 2011 on the mezzanine level of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.