High-fat Diet Is Linked to Prostate Ills

UPI.com | 07.16.2010

U.S. researchers say they are uncovering the mechanism linking a high-fat diet and prostate illnesses.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland say they are learning why diet is considered one of the most controllable risk factors for prostate diseases such as benign prostatic hyperplasia, prostatitis and prostate cancer.

The study, published in The Prostate, explains how high fat in the diet causes increases in a protein complex that controls DNA transcription active in promoting tumor progression.

The protein complex is activated in the abdominal cavity, thymus, spleen and prostate and causes proliferation, inflammation and oxidative stress -- precursors to hyperplasia, prostatitis and cancer.

Study leader Sanjay Gupta of the department of urology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and colleagues looked at non-obese mice fed a high-fat diet for four, eight, and 12 weeks and mice fed a regular diet. The high-fat diet group had significant increases in prostate weight and in the prostate expression of markers of oxidative stress and inflammation.

"This study strengthens the link between a high-fat diet -- typical of "Western style" diet -- as a potential cause of prostatic diseases including benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer," Gupta says in a statement.

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