Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness Linked to Dietary Fiber

Dietary fiber intake is inversely associated with prostate cancer (PCa) aggressiveness in both African-American and European-American men, a study found.

The study, by Fred Tabung, MD, of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and colleagues included 1,923 PCa patients—930 African Americans and 993 European Americans. The aggressiveness of their cancers were classified as high, intermediate, or low based on Gleason grade, PSA level, and clinical stage. The researchers collected diet information using the modified National Cancer Institute diet history questionnaire. Subjects were asked to recall their usual diet for the year prior to PCa diagnosis.

Overall, compared with men in the lowest tertile of total fiber intake, those in the second and third tertiles had a 30% and 39% decreased likelihood of having high aggressive PCa, the investigators reported online in Prostate Cancer. When stratified by race, the study showed that, among European Americans, patients in the third tertile of total fiber intake had a 56% decreased likelihood of having high aggressive PCa compared with subjects in the lowest tertile. Among African Americans, men in the second tertile had a 43% decreased likelihood of having high aggressive PCa.