Prostate cancer. What part does diet play?

Male sex, advancing age, racial origin, affected first degree relatives and the ubiquitous 'Western lifestyle' have all been cited as significant risk factors for the development of prostate cancer. Numerous epidemiological studies have been undertaken and others are in place to try and identify specific risk factors but diet has not been conclusively implicated to date. Most of the current prostate research suggests that the roles of dietary fat, soy proteins, selenium and possibly vitamin E are greater in determining the progression or stimulation of established tumours rather than in the development of new tumours per se. Certainly the hypothesis casts some light on the geographic variations of the disease. What part diet and nutritional factors play in the overall jigsaw of prostate cancer development needs to be further established. It is an area that will undoubtedly attract much more research interest in future years.