High-Fat Diet May Harm the Prostate

A new study provides more evidence that a high-fat diet is a potential cause of prostatic diseases, including benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer.

In a study of mice, Sanjay Gupta, MS, PhD, and colleagues found that high-fat diets appear to activate a protein complex—nuclear factor kappa B (NF-ĸB), which could lead to intraprostatic inflammation.

When non-obese mice were fed a high-fat diet for four, eight, and 12 weeks, they exhibited significant increases in NF-ĸB activation, prostate weight, and prostate expression of markers of oxidative stress and inflammation compared with mice fed a regular diet. The researchers reported their findings online in The Prostate.