US
Study associates Obesity, Small Prostate to Cancer Risk
May 24, 2005
According to the U.S. researchers,
Prostate cancer patients who are obese or who have small
prostates seem to have more aggressive tumors.
Prostate cancer is the third most common
cancer worldwide among men. It is often a slow-growing
cancer that can be simply watched without treatment.
But in some cases, it is aggressive and can spread quickly
through the body.
The doctors have been trying to find
the best way to predict which men require immediate
treatment and which men can wait a while.
The blood test for a protein called
Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) can help, but PSA is
produced by both healthy and cancerous prostate cells
and a low PSA reading does not necessarily mean a man
is free of cancer.
Also, fat cells produce estrogen-like
compounds, which may interfere with levels of PSA and
inhibit a correct reading about the tumor presence.
This could lead to cancer spreading and growing before
it can be detected.
The study constituting of 787 men observed
that obese men were more likely to have a positive biopsy
- one that showed cancer. In particular, younger, obese
men carried a higher risk.
Another study that examined the cases
of 1000 men found that the size of prostate was directly
related to the size of the cancer.
Source: http://www.alertnet.org
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