Overweight men are more likely to die from prostate cancer

This study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, is unprecedented magnitude on the subject. The researchers analyzed the situation of more than 200,000 men from the base set up by Biobank, an organization that has for years collected health data in the United Kingdom.

But they are not only based on these data and also take into account the major studies that already exist on the links between overweight and prostate cancer, which covers a total of 2.5 million cases.

Ultimately, the researchers established that the risk of dying from prostate cancer, one of the most common in men, was actually associated with being overweight and only increased with age. importance of this overweight.

We already suspect such a link, but we don’t know specifically how much of a concern this threat is to all men whose weight exceeds normal.

Some researchers have for example made the assumption that it is essentially abdominal fat that promotes the occurrence of serious prostate cancer: a large abdomen is more of a risk factor than a better distributed overweight .

But this study refutes that theory: Wherever the fat is, it doesn’t make much differencetaught AFP epidemiologist Aurora Perez-Cornago, lead author of the study.

However, there is an important limitation to this work: it cannot explain exactly why overweight men die more from prostate cancer.

Does being overweight help the body make molecules that favor this type of cancer? This is a hypothesis that researchers will explore, but it is not certain.

It is also possible that being overweight is sometimes a sign of not paying enough attention to a person’s health, and concerned men see their doctor less when faced with the early symptoms of cancer.

For example, suppose they start going to the bathroom more often at night, a classic symptom of prostate cancer: they may not want to see a doctor.said Ms. Perez-Cornago.

Possible consequences: cancers that are not identified in time and thus become more deadly.