Dec 18, 2005

Lean Body Mass And Prostate Cancer

Lean body mass is calculated using an equation to determine body mass minus the fat. Now a new study has found that a high lean body mass may lower your risk of prostate cancer.

Most previous investigators used body mass index for estimating the risk of development of prostate cancer, but body mass index includes lean and fat tissue, which may have different influences on the risk of cancer.

In an attempt to settle things, John S. Witte from the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues conducted a study of 439 men with prostate cancer and 479 of their siblings without prostate cancer. They examined the effects of weight, height, body mass index, and lean body mass, which they thought might be more relevant than body mass index to the risk of prostate cancer and aggressiveness of the disease.

The researchers found that the higher the lean body mass, the lower the risk of prostate cancer, especially in men with more aggressive disease or who were older when their cancer was diagnosed. They also observed a similar, though weaker, inverse pattern for weight, but found no associations between risk of prostate cancer and body mass index or height.

The investigators suspect that the inverse associations between higher lean body mass and prostate cancer risk may reflect the potentially protective effect of high levels of the male hormone androgen in patients with high lean body mass on the development and progression of prostate cancer.

Mark      

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Prostate cancer
The prostate is located just below the bladder and in front of the rectum in male. The tube that carries urine runs through the prostate. The prostate contains cells that make some of the seminal fluid. This fluid protects and nourishes the sperm. Prostate cancer usually starts in the gland cells of the prostate. This kind of cancer is known as adenocarcinoma. Prostate cancer is usually a slow disease, but sometimes it can grow fast and spread quickly to other organs.