UPDATE - Issue 23 - Autumn 2005
Fat men fare badly
If you go to all the trouble of having your prostate out, the last thing you want is for the cancer to come back. And yet that is just what happens to a significant proportion of men who undergo surgery. If you are one of the unfortunate ones, perhaps you ask yourself 'Why me?' Maybe it is something genetic, or a consequence of a late diagnosis or simply bad luck.
A study has been carried out involving over 500 men to look at factors that make it more or less likely for the cancer to come back. And surprise, surprise, they found that relapse of prostate cancer was much more frequent amongst obese patients than slimmer ones. They also found that the onset of biochemical failure, as it is called, measured as a rising PSA reading, came sooner after surgery than in men who did not gain weight rapidly or were not obese.
A separate study amongst 787 men showed an increase risk of contracting prostate cancer of two to three times amongst obese patients.
Currently some 14,000 male deaths are attributable to obesity, a figure set to increase alarmingly. Most men know of the association with heart disease and high blood pressure. Fewer know of the link to diabetes and less than a third are aware that it leads to erection problems. Perhaps this fact is the key to persuading men to lose weight. A recent survey for the Men's Health Forum suggests remaining attractive to women, having the ability to chat someone up and perform in the bedroom are good motivators for men to lose weight.
The moral of this story is clear - avoid becoming fat and, if already on the plump side, do something about it. And how much should you weigh to avoid this derogatory term? Your weight should be less (in kilograms) than 25 times your height (in metres) squared. So, out with the calculator.
Healthy tip
The Government's Five a Day campaign has raised our awareness of what we should be eating. We know that fruit and green vegetables are good for us and contain antioxidants, that can inhibit carcinogens. Recent research has gone further and shown that the younger the shoots of, for example, broccoli, the more the beneficial the effect.