Diet and cancer of the prostate: a case-control study in Greece

The nutritional aetiology of prostate cancer was evaluated in Athens, Greece, through a case-control study that included 320 patients with histologically confirmed incident prostate cancer and 246 controls without history or symptomatology of benign prostatic hyperplasia or prostate cancer, treated in the same hospital as the cases for minor diseases or conditions. Among major food groups, milk and dairy products as well as added lipids were marginally positively associated with risk for prostate cancer. Among added lipids, seed oils were significantly and butter and margarine non-significantly positively associated with prostate cancer risk, whereas olive oil was unrelated to this risk. Cooked tomatoes and to a lesser extent raw tomatoes were inversely associated with the risk for prostate cancer. In analyses focusing on nutrients, rather than foods, polyunsaturated fats were positively and vitamin E inversely associated with prostate cancer. We conclude that several nutrition-related processes jointly contribute to prostate carcinogenesis.