Beware men who are tall and have wider structure. A recent study has revealed that men who are tall and obese are at higher risk of high grade prostate cancer and prostate cancer death. A study was conducted by a team led by University of Oxford, UK which found that height was not linked with overall prostate cancer risk, but it increased the high grade disease risk and risk of death from prostate cancer by 21% and 17% respectively with every additional ten centimetres of height.
Being overweight was also linked to heightened risk of high grade tumours as well as increased chances of prostate cancer death. Waist circumference is the most accurate measure of obesity than BMI in adults. It was associated with an 18% higher risk of prostate cancer death and 13% higher risk of high grade can cancer with every 10 centimetres of additional waist circumference.
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Lead author Aurora Perez-Cornago said that the finding of high risk in taller men may provide insights into the mechanisms underlying prostate cancer development, for example related to early nutrition and growth.
Perez-Cornago added that they also found that a healthy body weight is associated with a reduced risk of high grade prostate cancer and death from prostate cancer years later. The observed links with obesity may be due to changes in hormone levels in obese men, which in turn may increase the risk of aggressive prostate cancer. However, the difference in prostate cancer may also be partly due to differences in prostate cancer detection in men with obesity.
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"The data illustrate the complex association of adiposity and prostate cancer, which varies by disease aggressiveness. These results emphasize the importance of studying risks for prostate cancer separately by stage and grade of tumor. They may also inform strategies for prevention, but we need to do further work to understand why the differences in risk exist," she added.
The researchers used data from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), a prospective European cohort of 141,896 men, collected in eight countries - Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Germany and Greece. The data included 7,024 incident prostate cancers, 726 high-grade and 1,388 advanced stage prostate cancers, and 934 prostate cancer deaths.
The authors caution that in older adults such as the participants in this study, who were on average 52 years or older, BMI as a measure of overweight and obesity may be less sensitive than in younger cohorts. This may have led to an underestimate of the prevalence of obesity. Nonetheless, waist circumference, which is seen as a more accurate measure of obesity than BMI in older adults, was associated with a greater risk of prostate cancer death and high grade disease.
More research and study is needed to understand whether the higher risk of aggressive prostate cancer in men with higher BMI is because of an increased risk of developing life-threatening forms of disease or to differences in prostate cancer detection.
Here are some ways through which you can prevent prostate cancer:
- Rely on a low-fat diet. Consume more plant based fat in place of animal based fat.
- Increase the portions of fruits and vegetables in your diet.
- Eat fishes like salmon, tuna and herring which have higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids.
- Cut the dairy products from your diet as much as you can. Milk, cheese and yogurt up the risk of prostate cancer in men.
(With ANI Inputs)
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