An Overweight Woman In Times Square, New York
IN PHOTO. An overweight woman sits on a chair in Times Square in New York, in this May 8, 2012 file photo. Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Files

The World Cancer Research Fund, a not-for-profit organisation with cancer prevention experts, and the American Institute for Cancer Research, a large cancer research organisation, published reviews of updates related to prostate cancer prevention as a part of its Continuous Update Project. The report was named Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Prostate Cancer. The data that was taken into account looked into 104 studies which involved more than 9.8 million men and more than 191,000 cases relating to prostate cancer.

According to the Web site, Prostate Cancer News Today, the study found that obese or overweight men had a higher chance of developing aggressive forms of prostate cancer. It was estimated that about 11 percent of the advanced prostate cancer cases in the US could be because of unhealthy weight and could have easily been prevent by reducing weight to become healthy.

Edward Giovannucci, the CUP Panel lead of the Harvard School of Public Health, said that this was the first time that a clear and consistent link had been found between body fat and prostate cancer. He said that now they had something new to tell the men about prostate cancer - that one could take steps to help protect oneself from the most aggressive and deadliest forms of the cancer.

The report also showed that the importance of the strength of the evidence was lessened in the case of linking lycopene and selenium to the reduced risk for prostate cancer, reported The Mercury News. Another evidence that had been downgraded was that linking diets high in calcium to the increased risk of prostate cancer.

The findings by the World Cancer Research Fund was a starting point and had to be taken seriously by the public. The not-for-profit organistaion stated that maintaining a healthy weight was of utmost importance to prevent many diseases and conditions and it stressed on its importance for the purpose of preventing advanced prostate cancer, in particular. With the finding by the WCRF and AICR, prostate cancer becomes the ninth cancer to be linked to obesity, the other cancers being post-menopausal breast, endometrial, esophageal, kidney, colorectal, gallbladder, ovarian and pancreatic cancers.

There was no relationship found between other forms or less aggressive subtypes of prostate cancer and obesity. The researchers are working towards gathering more information about the relationship.