Fats, meat unlikely to impact prostate cancer risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New data from a large ethnically diverse group of men provides no evidence that eating a lot of fats and meat substantially affects a man's risk of developing prostate cancer.

In an email to Reuters Health, principal investigator Dr. Laurence N. Kolonel and first author Song-Yi Park of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, said: "Although diet is likely to influence prostate cancer risk, the intake of total and saturated fat do not appear to be important contributors. However, because high intake of fat can lead to obesity as well as other cancers, the consumption of high fat foods should be limited."

Fat and meat in the diet as potential risk factors for prostate cancer have been the focus of numerous studies, but the results have been inconsistent, the study team notes in a report of their study published in the International Journal of Cancer. Some studies have found a positive relationship between prostate cancer and diets high in fat and meat, while others have found no relationship.

Kolonel, Park, and their colleagues looked for ties between prostate cancer risk and the consumption of different fats (including total, saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fat, and n-3 and n-6 fatty acids), cholesterol, meat (including total, red, processed and poultry), fish and fats from meat in 82,483 men enrolled in a study of diet and cancer. The men were age 45 or older at enrollment between 1993 and1996 and they resided in Hawaii or Los Angeles.

During 8 years of follow-up, 4,404 men developed prostate cancer, including 1,278 advanced tumors. According to the research team, intake of the different types of fat and meat showed no association with overall prostate cancer risk or with advanced tumors.

"Furthermore, we found little evidence of any relation of fat and meat intake with prostate cancer risk within any of the four racial/ethnic groups (African American, Japanese Americans, Latinos and Whites)," they point out.

There was a suggestion of a "weak protective effect" of n-3 fatty acid consumption on prostate cancer that was limited to Latinos and Whites.

Overall, "our findings did not support any association between intake of fat, fatty acids, cholesterol, or various meats and prostate cancer risk," Kolonel and Park told Reuters Health.

SOURCE: International Journal of Cancer, September 15, 2007.