Lower Prostate Cancer Risk Seen with Metabolic Syndrome

NEW YORK DEC 08, 2006 (Reuters Health) - Men with the metabolic syndrome appear to have a reduced risk of prostate cancer, according to a report in the December 1st issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Diabetic men have a lower risk of prostate cancer, the authors explain, but a similar relationship with metabolic syndrome has not been established.

To study that question, Dr. Aaron R. Folsom from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues used data on 6429 men in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC). At baseline, 1871 subjects had the metabolic syndrome, and during follow-up 385 participants developed prostate cancer.

The team found that men with metabolic syndrome had a relative risk of 0.77 for prostate cancer compared with men without metabolic syndrome.

Adjustment for other factors did not substantially change the outcome of the analysis, the researchers note, but the relative risk of prostate cancer decreased with increasing number of components of the metabolic syndrome.

Inverse associations with prostate cancer were observed for high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, high blood pressure, and fasting hyperglycemia or diabetes, the report indicates, but waist circumference showed no association with prostate cancer. None of these associations was statistically significant.

"Our results suggest that the metabolic syndrome is a marker of decreased risk of prostate cancer," the authors conclude. "We hypothesize that this finding reflects a decrease in bioavailable testosterone in men with the metabolic syndrome and a concomitant reduction in prostate cancer risk."

SOURCE:

• Am J Epidemiol 2006;164:1094-1102.