Meat and dairy prostate warning
Updated on 07 October 2008
Meat and dairy products may increase the risk of prostate cancer by raising levels of a cell-growth hormone, new research suggests.
Scientists found a significant association between blood levels of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) and the likelihood of men being diagnosed with the disease.
For those in the top fifth of the normal range the risk went up 40% compared with those at the bottom end of the scale.
Previous studies have shown that IGF-1 levels are higher in individuals who consume a lot of meat, milk, butter and cheese.
Strict vegetarians are known to have less of the hormone than meat-eaters.
A link between IGF-1 and prostate cancer has been suspected before, but convincing evidence for it has been lacking.
By combining results from 12 separate blood sample studies, the authors of the new research were able to identify the trend more clearly.
The scientists pooled data from a total of 3,700 men with prostate cancer and 5,200 without the disease.
Blood samples were taken on average when cancer patients were 62 years of age, five years before they were diagnosed.
Study leader Dr Andrew Roddam, a Cancer Research UK epidemiologist at Oxford University, said: "What we found was a modest association at best, but it was statistically significant. A lot of the individual studies found the same trend but were too underpowered for their results to be reliable."
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