Obesity Heightens Risk Of Death From Prostate Cancer

Overweight or obese men, according to a new US study, are at greater risk of dying from prostate cancer after treatment than men who are thin.

The study, conducted by Dr. Jason Efstathiou and colleagues, published in the journal Cancer, says that overweight or obese men are at a substantially higher risk of death within five years of diagnosis.

Overweight men with some extra fat had a 52 percent higher risk of death from locally advanced prostate cancer, the study reports, while obesity more than doubled the likelihood at 64 percent.

The study followed 788 patients diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer over a period of eight years, examining the relationship between BMI (body mass index) and mortality. Of the randomized patient pool, 241 were considered at normal body weight, 402 were overweight, and 145 were clinically obese.

The rate of mortality following five years of treatment, according to the study, was recorded at 13.1 percent for overweight men, 12.2 percent for obese men, and 6.5 percent for men with a normal BMI.

For more aggressive prostate cancer, obesity was identified as a serious risk factor, but the link between being overweight and survival post treatment needs more research, scientists say.

Cancer treatments - which include surgical removal of the prostate and external beam radiation - may be less effective in men who have higher weights, according to Bloomberg.com, and other health problems may play a part in increasing a patients chance of death.

Over 218,000 men are expected to get prostate cancer in the US alone this year. 27,000, it's predicted, will die from the disease. The study is a first of its kind, investigating prostate cancer's mortality rates coupled with long-term treatment.

The relative risk suggested by those rates is before adjustment for tumor size at the time of diagnosis and other circumstances.