Male Speaker: In this video, we are going to put one of cycling's most enduring myths
to rest. Because over the years, one or two pieces of poor quality research have suggested
that cycling can be detrimental to men's health, specifically, by causing erectile dysfunction
and, potentially, even prostate cancer. Now, for the casual observer, you can understand
why that might make sense. You look at a bike saddle and you think, "It's probably not going
to be as comfortable as what you might choose to sit down and watch TV on." However, this
misinformation also has taken hold among some medical professionals as well. Two years ago,
we spoke to top consultant urologist, Anthony Koupparis, who also happens to be an Ironman.
With his experience, he was therefore incredibly well placed to offer genuine insight on the
topic, which he did. Giving advice to people either with any of those symptoms, or who
are concerned by them, and explaining why the current research was a bit rubbish and
why, with his clinical experience, he could see no link with cycling.
However, what was lacking was robust statistical evidence to back it up. We worked with Anthony
and his team and enlisted the help of the male contingent of the Global Cycling Network
audience asking you to take part in a questionnaire. Many thousands of you did, making it the largest
survey of its kind worldwide and making the results completely watertight. Results that
have been published and peer reviewed in the Journal of Clinical Urology, showing conclusively
that cycling has no negative consequences on erectile dysfunction, on prostate cancer,
on chronic pelvic pain, and on lower urinary tract infections.
We caught up with Anthony so that he could go through the results in a little more detail.
Anthony, great to see you again. The top nine conclusions from this look super encouraging.
I wonder whether you could dive into the results a little bit more for us.
Anthony Koupparis: You know that we've done this massive worldwide survey on the greatest
number of cyclists and their associated men's health issues. There's a long story of cycling
being, apparently, bad for men's health. We looked at things like prostate cancer, the
risk of prostate cancer, erection problems, waterworks problems, long term pelvic pain
problems. What we found was that the rate of those problems in this group was not only
low, but it was really low compared to the general population. Really, really encouraging.
Male Speaker: Those those results do sound fantastic, isn't it? Is it like a protective
element to cycling, given that the reporting of symptoms was so much lower?
Anthony: To be fair, you can't quite say that. We've looked at 8000 men at a particular point
in time. The ability to fundamentally say that there's a causative association, or lack
of one, you can't quite say. There's no doubt that your risk of all these problems is much
lower. In this group of 8000 men, your risk of having a diagnosis of prostate cancer is
0.5%. Your lifetime risk of getting prostate cancer is 15%. The rates are really, really
low, dramatically lower than what you would see if you just picked 8000 men off the street
and assessed their risk of all the number diagnosed with cancer, or waterworks symptoms,
or any of the other variables we looked at. Male Speaker: Could you see from the results
whether there was a link between how much people cycled and the symptoms? Because I
guess that's one thing that people could say, "Well, if you ride more, then presumably you'd
be more likely to suffer erectile dysfunction or something like that."
Anthony: That's something that has been slightly reported in some of the previous studies.
It's been jumped on by lots of media outlets. That was one of the things that we were mindful
of before we did this. We've done some relatively complex statistics to take into account all
of the risk factors that you might have associated with a particular problem. When we first ran
the statistics, without any of, what we call, the regression analysis, we seemed to find
that your risk of having erection problems was higher if you had cycled for more years
than others. Actually, when you take into account all of the other variables, actually,
that was completely lost. It disappeared. If we're looking at your risk of erectile
dysfunction in 8000 men, their risk was less than 5%. In a 40 to 70 year old age group,
which was about the same as ours, your risk of erectile dysfunction is as much as 50%.
Male Speaker: Wow. Anthony: It's a factor of 10 differences between
those two values. Male Speaker: That's [unintelligible 00:05:09].
Now, that surprised me a lot, to be honest with you. Was there anything that surprised
you from the results? Anthony: We've talked about this before. I
approached this with my cancer surgeon, Hassell, and I was being very critical of all of the
previous data, and found that many of the studies that had been talked about before
are very old, they are fundamentally flawed, there's not good quality data collection and
statistical analysis. I hoped that I was right, or we were right, in what we thought. It's
really encouraging that the rates of all these problems are really, really low. As cyclists,
but even as doctors, we need to change some of the information that's out there.
Say, for example, on the Macmillan Cancer website there are some pages that are geared
up to advise GPs, for example, on when to take a PSA blood test, which gives you an
indication of your risk of prostate cancer. It says, "Don't take it if someone has been
cycling for a day or two before." Now, from what we found here, actually, it
makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. Your risk of being investigated for prostate
cancer if you're a heavy cyclist is really, really low. Not only do we need to get it
out there to the wider public, we need to get it out there to the apparent experts in
the field for us to change our guidelines. Male Speaker: Well thanks so much, Anthony,
for taking time to talk us through the results. You look like in the middle of what I would
imagine is a busy day at the hospital. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll hopefully
see you again soon. Anthony: It's nice to speak to you again.
[music] Male Speaker: It's funny, as a lifelong cyclist,
I couldn't help but look at those stories in the media over the years telling me of
the horrific damage that I must be doing to my penis because I rode a bike, and thinking
that something didn't quite stack up. I'm actually delighted that, along with the help
of the largest group of cyclists ever surveyed on this topic, we have definitively answered
this question once and for all. I'm delighted, not for my own sake, but for all those people
that have been really worried about this or that may even have been put off cycling because
of it. The health benefits of cycling far outweigh
the negatives. That said, do not take it as an excuse to put your head in the sand if
you are suffering from any symptoms. Go and seek medical help. We men are notoriously
rubbish at looking after our own health. Please, if your body is giving you any warning signs,
take note. Lastly, I would just like to say a huge thank
you to all of you who did take part in that survey. Your time and effort, I hope, has
been worthwhile. [00:08:17] [END OF AUDIO]