Our findings suggest that tomatoes may be important in prostate cancer prevention. However, further studies need to be conducted to confirm our findings. Men should still eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, maintain a healthy weight and stay active.
- Vanessa Er, University of Bristol
With 35,000 new cases every year in the UK, and around 10,000 deaths, prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide. Rates are higher in developed countries, which some experts believe is linked to a Westernised diet and lifestyle.
David Neal of Cambridge University's Department of Oncology, together with researchers at the Universities of Bristol and Oxford, looked at the diets and lifestyle of 1,806 men aged between 50 and 69 with prostate cancer and compared them with 12,005 cancer-free men. The NIHR-funded study, published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, is the first study of its kind to develop a prostate cancer ‘dietary index’ which consists of dietary components – selenium, calcium and foods rich in lycopene – that have been linked to prostate cancer.
Men who had optimal intake of these three dietary components had a lower risk of prostate cancer.
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Image: Tomatoes Credit: Ajith Kumar
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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