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Study
Suggests Western
Diet Tied to Prostate Cancer
Excerpt
By Jacqueline
Stenson,
Reuters Health
Prostate cancer is 10 times more
common in the United States than Japan and preliminary research
suggests that differences in diet may be a reason why.
There has been much speculation
that the Western diet is a factor because when Japanese men move
to the U.S. and start eating plenty of high-fat burgers and pizza
and less soy, their risk of prostate cancer increases.
"Within one generation, the prostate
cancer incidence begins skyrocketing," said study author Dr. Leonard
S. Marks, a clinical associate professor of urology at the University
of California at Los Angeles.
In a new study released Monday
at a meeting of the American Urological Association in Chicago,
Marks and colleagues examined blood and prostate cancer tissue
samples and compared health data from 50 men who had undergone
surgery to remove a cancerous prostate gland.
Half of the men lived in Japan,
while the other half were Los Angeles residents born in the U.S.
to Japanese parents. As such, both groups had similar genetic
roots.
But there were marked differences
in what they ate.
The Japanese-American men reported
eating a diet substantially higher in animal fat. Not surprisingly,
they also had a greater percentage of body fat and higher triglyceride
levels in their blood.
The native Japanese men ate more
soy than the Japanese-American men. Soy has been thought to possibly
offer protection against prostate cancer.
"Soy didn't protect these men,"
Marks said, "but soy may be protecting many other men who don't
get prostate cancer in Japan."
While the prostate cancer samples
from the two groups appeared similar, detailed analysis of the
tumor cells' genetic material told another story. "Since the DNA
was arranged differently, there may be a gene-nutrient interaction
responsible for the differences," Marks said.
"The cancers look the same but
their genesis appears to be different, and that may be a result
of diet," he told Reuters Health.
Still, much more research is needed
to explain why prostate cancer rates vary widely around the world.
"Does this study prove why the differences are there? It doesn't,"
Marks said. "It's a first step."
Reference
Source 89
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