Living a healthy lifestyle could help to lower prostate cancer patients' risk of developing aggressive tumors, according to a new study.


Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles' Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found that following four or more of the World Cancer Research Fund's lifestyle recommendations is linked with a lower risk of developing aggressive tumors among men with prostate cancer.


The lifestyle recommendations, which were crafted to apply to people with any type of cancer, include items such as maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding sugary drinks and energy-dense foods (like processed foods), exercising for at least a half-hour every day, limiting red and processed meats and eating lots of produce.


"Most men are at risk of prostate cancer, but it is the level of aggressiveness of disease that is most clinically relevant," study researcher Lenore Arab, Ph.D., who is a professor at the university, said in a statement. "These findings suggest that even men with prostate cancer can take control of their disease and moderate its aggressiveness through diet and lifestyle choices."


When prostate cancer is caught early and has not progressed outside of the prostate, the "cure rate" for the condition is high, according to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. However, a small group of men do develop aggressive prostate cancer, which grows at a fast rate and can spread elsewhere in the body. When this happens, the condition becomes a lot more dangerous.


The study, published in the journal Nutrition and Cancer, included 2,212 African American and Caucasian men between ages 40 and 70. All of the men had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.


Researchers found that aggressive tumor risk was 38 percent higher for the men who adhered to fewer than four of the lifestyle recommendations, compared with those who adhered to four or more of the recommendations, and this increased risk held true for both African American men and Caucasian men.


Researchers found, particularly, that men seemed to be protected from developing aggressive tumors by limiting red meat consumption -- less than 500 grams (1.1 pounds) over the course of a week -- and consuming fewer than 125 kilocalories for every 100 grams of food each day.


The same World Cancer Research Fund lifestyle recommendations have also been shown in research to benefit breast cancer patients. A study published this year in the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed that health-related quality of life was improved among elderly breast cancer survivors the more they adhered to the recommendations, particularly the physical activity one.


Similarly, a study published this year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and conducted by Imperial College London researchers showed that adhering to the World Cancer Research Fund recommendations could lower risk of death from different conditions, including respiratory disease and cancer.


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  • PSA Testing Could Mean Fewer Cases Of Deadly Prostate Cancer


    To add more to the research on prostate cancer screening, a study in the journal <em>Cancer</em> showed that routine PSA testing is linked with 17,000 fewer cases of the deadliest form of prostate cancer. "By not <a href="http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20120730/study-psa-testing-cuts-worst-prostate-cancers">using PSA tests</a> in the vast majority of men, you have to accept you are going to increase very serious metastatic disease threefold," study researcher Dr. Edward Messing, M.D., the chief of urology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told WebMD. Specifically, researchers calculated that without routine prostate cancer screenings through PSA testing, 25,000 men would have been diagnosed with <a href="http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20120730/study-psa-testing-cuts-worst-prostate-cancers">metastatic prostate cancer</a> (a deadly form of prostate cancer where it has spread beyond the prostate to elsewhere in the body) in 2008, compared with the 8,000 who were actually diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer that year, WebMD reported.




  • Working The Night Shift Could Raise Your Risk


    <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/night-shift-prostate-cancer-health_n_2003392.html">Working the night shift</a> is associated with a 2.77-times increased risk of prostate cancer, according to a study in the <em>American Journal of Epidemiology</em>. The study, conducted by Canadian researchers included 3,137 men with cancer and 512 men without cancer. The researchers also found that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/night-shift-prostate-cancer-health_n_2003392.html">working the night shift</a> raised the risk of lung, colon, bladder, rectal and pancreatic cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.




  • Surgery May Not Be The Best Option For Everyone With Prostate Cancer


    Surgery may not always be the best option for men whose prostate cancer is detected with an elevated PSA (prostate-specific antigen) level, according to a study in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>. For men with early prostate cancer who received a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ProstateCancer/surgery-rarely-best-prostate-cancer-study-suggests/story?id=16805902#.UJrg9m_A_kh">radical prostatectomy</a> (prostate-removal surgery), 47 percent died after 12 years, while 49.9 percent of men who just underwent observation died after 12 years, ABC News reported. Plus 81 percent of men who underwent the radical prostatectomy <a href="http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20120718/prostate-cancer-surgery-may-not-always-up-survival">experienced erectile dysfunction</a> in the two years following, and urinary incontinence plagued 17 percent of the men, WebMD reported. However, ABC News did note that men whose <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ProstateCancer/surgery-rarely-best-prostate-cancer-study-suggests/story?id=16805902#.UJrg9m_A_kh">PSA scores were extremely high</a> -- above 10 -- benefited from receiving surgery, indicating that the study may suggest rather <em>which</em> men may benefit most from receiving a radical prostatectomy for their prostate cancer.




  • Aspirin Could Help Prostate Cancer Patients Live Longer


    Prostate cancer patients who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/health/research/regular-aspirin-use-may-aid-prostate-cancer-recovery-study-finds.html">take aspirin</a> could cut their risk of dying from the disease, Harvard researchers reported this year. <em>The New York Times</em> reported on the study, published in the <em>Journal of Clinical Oncology</em>, which showed that taking aspirin cut in half the risk of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/health/research/regular-aspirin-use-may-aid-prostate-cancer-recovery-study-finds.html">dying of prostate cancer</a> over a decade -- 8 percent of aspirin-nontakers died, compared with 3 percent of aspirin-takers.




  • Circumcision Could Affect Risk


    Circumcision -- or the removal of a man's foreskin before he has sex for the first time -- is linked with a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/circumcision-prostrate-cancer_n_1339047.html">lower risk of developing prostate cancer</a>, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists found this year. The findings, published in the journal <em>Cancer</em>, shows that prostate cancer risk for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/circumcision-prostrate-cancer_n_1339047.html">men who are circumcised</a> before the first time they have sex is 15 percent lower, compared with uncircumcised men. While Dr. Andrew Freedman, who is on the American Academy of Pediatrics' circumcision task force but was not involved in the study, found the findings thought-provoking, he told HuffPost in an earlier article that "this kind of epidemiological research -- how A affects B, and B affects C -- is very difficult to do and makes it very difficult to account for confounding variables."




  • Pan-Fried Meat Could Raise Risk


    Including <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/pan-fried-meat-cancer-prostate-_n_1798970.html">pan-fried meat</a> in your weekly meal rotations is linked with a higher risk of prostate cancer, University of Southern California researchers found. Specifically, men who eat one-and-a-half servings of red meat that's been pan-fried each week have a 30 percent <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/pan-fried-meat-cancer-prostate-_n_1798970.html">increased risk of advanced prostate cancer</a>. And men who eat two-and-a-half servings of the food have a 40 percent increased risk. Hamburger meat in particular -- compared with a red meat like steak -- seemed linked with the increased risk, according to the <em>Carcinogenesis</em> study. And while not a red meat, pan-fried poultry also seemed linked with the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/pan-fried-meat-cancer-prostate-_n_1798970.html">increased prostate cancer risk</a> (while <em>baked</em> poultry was associated with a lower prostate cancer risk).




  • Genetic 'Signatures' Could Predict Aggressive Disease


    Genes could hold a clue to who will go on to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/prostate-cancer-genetic-signatures-aggressive-tumors_n_1949724.html">develop aggressive prostate cancer</a>, researchers found this year. Reuters reported on the <em>Lancet Oncology</em> study, showing aggressive tumors might be able to be predicted by two <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/prostate-cancer-genetic-signatures-aggressive-tumors_n_1949724.html">genetic "signatures</a>": <blockquote>Researchers in Britain and the United States found that by reading the patterns of genes switched on and off in blood cells, they could accurately detect which advanced prostate cancer patients had the worst survival rates.</blockquote>




  • Blood Pressure Could Affect Risk Of Dying From Prostate Cancer


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  • Green Tea Is Good


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  • Living Longer With Prostate Cancer


    In this medical video learn more about the treatments that are enabling men to live longer with prostate cancer.