Exercise May Prevent Prostate Cancer: Study

Report adds to debate over the value of exercise as a protector for men

Posted: September 25, 2009

FRIDAY, Sept. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Regular exercise may help protect men from prostate cancer, says a new study.

U.S. researchers looked at 190 men who had a prostate biopsy and found that those who were moderately active -- anything equivalent to walking at a moderate pace for several hours a week -- were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The study also found that exercise was associated with less aggressive disease in men who did develop prostate cancer.

"As the amount of exercise increased, the risk of cancer decreased," lead author Dr. Jodi Antonelli, a urology resident at Duke University Medical Center, said in a news release.

The results, published Sept. 22 online in the Journal of Urology, contribute to the ongoing debate about how exercise affects prostate cancer risk, said study senior author Dr. Stephen Freedland, a urologist at Duke and the Durham Veterans Affairs Hospital.

"There have been dozens of studies about the value of exercise in lowering risk of prostate cancer, and some of them quite large, but the bottom line is that they've left us with mixed signals," Freedland said in the news release.

The majority (58 percent) of the men in this study were sedentary, which means they exercised less than the equivalent of one hour per week of easy walking.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about prostate cancer.

This doesn't mean exercise prevents prostate cancer

The trouble with this type of study is that men who exercise more are more likely to also have higher levels of other healthy beheaviors, e.g., higher consumption of fruits and vegetables, less likely to smoke, etc. Unless the study took this into account -- and I'm having trouble finding the study on the journal website SINCE NO LINK WAS PROVIDED (what's the point of publishing something online if you don't take advantage of the strengths of the web?) -- it could be that increased exercise is actually associated with a SECOND factor that is itself responsible for the decrease in prostate cancer incidence. In order to determine that it is exercise itself that is responsible for the effect, a randomized trial is required.

Dulcinea of MI @ Sep 28, 2009 11:06:03 AM

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