High blood lipids, blood pressure, blood sugar, and body mass index are jointly related to a heightened risk of prostate cancer death
New study results published early online in the journal Cancer suggest that public health recommendations regarding diet and lifestyle to prevent heart disease and diabetes may also decrease a man’s likelihood of dying of prostate cancer.
To investigate the possible links between metabolic factors and the risk of being diagnosed with or dying of prostate cancer, Christel Häggström, MSc, and Tanja Stocks, PhD, both of the Umeå University in Sweden, and colleagues reviewed data from 289,866 men enrolled in the Metabolic syndrome and Cancer project.
Over the course of 12 years, 6673 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 961 died of the disease. Researchers discovered that men with higher body mass index and blood pressure had a 36% and 62% increased risk of dying of prostate cancer, respectively. Also, men with a high composite score of all metabolic factors were more likely to die of prostate cancer.
The study, completed under the leadership of Pär Stattin, MD, PhD, a visiting scientist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, found no evidence for a link between high levels of metabolic factors and a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer. However, study data revealed a link between these factors and a risk of dying from the malignancy. This suggests that, while men with the metabolic syndrome do not have an increased risk of developing prostate cancer, if they do develop it, they are more likely than other men to die of the disease. “These observations suggest that cardiovascular risk factors such as overweight and hypertension are involved in stimulating the progression of prostate cancer,” said Stattin.
Source: Wiley.