Prostate cancer risk can be lowered by vigorous exercise, proper diet: study

• comments
• 
• 

Exercise helps maintain optimal health, but for men, vigorous exercise along with a nutritious diet can actually help reduce the risk of prostate cancer, Healthday reports. The risk for prostate cancer increases as one gets older, CDC reports, and according to the organization, in 177,489 in the U.S. alone were diagnosed with the disease in 2012.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center have found, however, that about 50% of lethal prostate cancer cases in the U.S. could have been prevented of patients over the age of 60 followed five or more healthy habits, according to lead author Stacey Kenfield.

Yahoo! Health reports that for the study, researchers analyzed the exercise habits, body mass index (BMI), and smoking habits, and the consumption of fatty fish, tomato, and red meat among participants, and results had shown that exercise had the highest potential preventive impact for developing lethal prostate cancer.

Researchers analyzed data from two studies, namely the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study from Harvard, which analyzed over 42,000 men aged 40 to 75 for over 20 years, and the Physicians’ Health Study with data of more than 20,000 men aged 40 to 84 from 1982 to 2010. From this data, researchers developed a scoring system in which they would assign a point for every affirmative response to the participants' answer to questions regarding lifestyle, specfically sweating, having a BMI of less than 30, being tobacco-free for at least 10 years, consuming large amounts of fatty fish and tomatoes, and eating less processed meat. All participants did not have any diagnosed cancer at the start of the study.

As per the data gathered, researchers found that men who earned five to six points by sweating during exercise or following healthy lifestyle habits had a lower risk for prostate cancer, about 38% in one study, and 68% in the other.

According to Kenfield, "It's interesting that vigorous activity had the highest potential impact on prevention of lethal prostate cancer. We calculated the population-attributable risk for American men over 60 and estimated that 34 percent of lethal prostate cancer would be reduced if all men exercised to the point of sweating for at least three hours a week."

Kenfield explained that while "the mechanisms are not fully known", it may be because of the "effects [of exercise] on hormonal systems in the body, the immune system, inflammation, energy metabolism, and oxidative stress."

When researchers looked at eating habits alone, those who had three healthy habit points were about 30% to 46% less likely to develop lethal prostate cancer compared to their counterparts.

Bioscience Technology reports that senior author June M. Chan, ScD, from the departments of Urology, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF commented, "This study underscores the ongoing need for more effective prevention measures and policies to increase exercise, improve diet quality and reduce tobacco use in our population...These lifestyle habits align with other recommendations to prevent diabetes and heart disease."

Kenfield and her team's study was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.