High Saturated Fat Diets Linked to Short, Failure-Free Survival Following Prostatectomy 

A recent study showed that men who consumed a high saturated fat (HSF) diet were significantly more likely to have a biochemical failure following prostate cancer removal and a shorter biochemical-failure-free survival than men on a low saturated fat (LSF) diet. Researchers looked at 309 white patients at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center with clinically organ-confined prostate cancer who were treated only with prostatectomy. Food frequency questionnaires were compiled to reflect dietary intake one year before diagnosis. Five years after surgery, 80 percent of men who consumed an LSF diet were disease free, compared to 65 percent of men who consumed a HSF diet.

Those who consumed HSF diets were comparatively younger and had higher body mass indices at diagnosis than those with LSF diets. The top contributors to the saturated fat intake for this population were beef steak, cheese and cheese spreads, hamburgers and cheeseburgers, eggs, ice cream, and salad dressings/mayonnaise. In this study, LSF intake was on average 23.4 grams per day and HSF was 37.2 grams per day. The government recommends no more than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat.

Strom SS, Yamamura Y, Forman MR, Pettaway CA, Barrera SL, DiGiovanni J. Saturated fat intake predicts biochemical failure after prostatectomy. Int J Cancer. 2008;122:2581-2585.

For information about nutrition and health, please visit www.pcrm.org/.