WEDNESDAY, May 17, 2023 (HealthDay News) — When young men pack on extra weight during their teens and 20s, they could inadvertently drive up their risk for prostate cancer in a while.
The priority stems from latest research that examined several many years’ value of weight fluctuations and prostate cancer rates amongst nearly 260,000 men in Sweden.
The boys ranged in age from 17 to 60. Researchers initially observed that overall, participants who placed on roughly 1 pound or more per yr across their life span had a ten% higher risk for developing aggressive prostate cancer as older adults.
The same weight pattern was linked to a 29% greater risk of fatal prostate cancer.
But digging deeper, researchers found that almost all of the lads grew heavier between the ages of 17 and 29. And ultimately a lot of the weight-associated increase in cancer risk was pegged to weight gains in that age bracket.
“We were surprised [by] the rapid weight gain in young maturity, and that the chance of prostate cancer later in life was strongly related to this rapid weight gain,” said lead creator Marisa da Silva, a postdoctoral fellow on the Lund University Cancer Center in Sweden.
She stressed that the findings should not definitive proof that youthful weight gains caused prostate cancer risk to rise, only that the 2 are linked.
Even the potential of a weight-driven risk factor is vital, da Silva identified, because not one of the other aspects which can be known to drive up prostate cancer risk — including getting older, genetic predisposition and/or a family history of the disease — are issues that patients at high risk can do anything about.
Prostate cancer is the world’s second most typical cancer, researchers identified.
The research was a part of the continued “Obesity and Disease Development Sweden” study (ODDS). Participants enrolled between 1964 and 2014 and their health was monitored through 2019. On average, they were tracked for greater than 4 many years.
During that point, greater than 23,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, at a median age of 70. Of those, almost 4,800 died of the disease.
Average weight gain varied by age group, with the best gains — about 1.6 kilos per yr — seen amongst 17- to 29-year-olds. Men between 30 and 44 gained three-quarters of a pound per yr, and 45- to 60-year-olds, a half-pound.
Beyond linking a lot of the increased risk to the youngest group’s weight gains, researchers noted that 17- to 29-year-olds who gained just over 2 kilos a yr faced a 13% increased risk for developing aggressive prostate cancer, and a 27% higher risk of dying consequently.
Da Silva noted that other research has suggested that weight gain can affect a selected growth hormone known to drive prostate cancer development.
Still, she said it stays an open query whether the brand new study uncovered an increased risk specifically attributable to gaining weight while young, or whether the increased risk is linked to gaining weight period.
Either way, it begs the query as as to whether reducing weight later in life might reduce any increased risk led to by prior weight gain.
The study was not designed to reply this, da Silva said, noting that prior studies of bariatric surgery patients indicate that cancer risk drops after weight reduction.
Connie Diekman is a St. Louis-based dietitian and food and nutrition consultant, and former president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She reviewed the study findings.
Diekman said it’s necessary to tell apart between youthful weight gains attributable to fat accumulation and people more readily attributed to muscle.
“Boys are likely to grow essentially the most from 16 to 25, so during that time-frame there may be muscle mass development,” she said.
Still, Diekman acknowledged that adding excess fat during these growth years likely brings more hormone release. “This could be the connection to disease risk,” she said.
Diekman noted that youth is when people develop eating habits that change into the inspiration for the long run.
“If food decisions promote more body fat development, this lays the groundwork for an increased potential for a lot of diseases,” she said, which could mean that prostate cancer risk is actually a broad reflection of poor decisions made by many young men with respect to nutrition and exercise. These bad habits often last a lifetime.
“At the identical time,” Diekman said, “if a young man is seeking to gain weight by constructing muscle mass, and he finds a superb balance of the most effective food decisions with a superb workout routine, I’m unsure we all know that body weight is a health issue.”
Researchers are slated to debate their findings at a gathering of the European Congress on Obesity in Dublin, from Wednesday through Saturday. Studies presented at meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
There’s more about prostate cancer risk on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
SOURCES: Marisa da Silva, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, Department of Translational Medicine, Lund University Cancer Center, Lund, Sweden; Connie Diekman, RD, MEd, LD, food and nutrition consultant, St. Louis, and former president, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; presentation, European Congress on Obesity meeting, Dublin, Ireland, May 17-20, 2023