High fat diet linked to prostate cancer

Houston -- Men who ate diets low in saturated fat after having the prostate removed to treat cancer had better survival rates, a U.S. study said.

A study of 390 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston completed a food frequency questionnaire for the year prior to the diagnosis of prostate cancer. Body mass index was also calculated.

Men who consumed high saturated fat diets were younger and had higher BMIs at diagnosis than men with who consumed low saturated fat diets. There were no statistically significant differences in family history of prostate cancer, education, history of diabetes or physical activity between the two groups.

Men on high saturated fat diets also consumed more total calories than men on low saturated fat diets.

During the 97-month follow-up period, 20 percent of patients with organ-confined prostate cancer experienced a prostate-specific antigen failure -- a rise in the blood level of prostate-specific antigen that may mean that the cancer has come back.

The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, found five years after prostate removal, 65 percent of patients who consumed high saturated fat diets had no evidence of prostate cancer compared to 80 percent of men who ate a low saturated fat diet.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.