Association of obesity with prostate specific antigen and prostate specific antigen velocity in healthy young men

We examined whether the body mass index and change of weight are associated with the prostate specific antigen level as well as the rate of prostate specific antigen velocity in healthy young Korean men.

We enrolled in this study 8,176 men who were younger than 51 years and in whom prostate specific antigen was evaluated at least 3 times. Bivariate and multivariate general linear models were used to assess the independent contributions of age, body mass index and prostate specific antigen. Mean prostate specific antigen velocity was compared in the men for different prostate specific antigen ranges, ages, body mass indexes and weight changes using ANOVA tests. Linear logistic regression analysis was used to determine the independent variables related to prostate specific antigen velocity greater than 0 ng/ml per year.

Initial prostate specific antigen decreased in monotonic fashion according to the body mass index category. In the adjusted model the body mass index was a statistically significant variable. The number of men presenting with prostate specific antigen velocity greater than 0 ng/ml per year was significantly higher in those who were older and lower in those who had a greater weight gain (p <0.05 and <0.001, respectively). On multivariate analysis age more than 40 years and a weight gain of more than 5 kg were independent predictive variables that affected prostate specific antigen velocity more than 0 ng/ml per year.

The results of this study show that age and weight changes are associated with substantial differences in prostate specific antigen velocity. Therefore, clinical interpretation of prostate specific antigen velocity may be biased by these factors.