Putting Diet to the Test

Putting Diet to the Test in Foods and Prostate Cancer Survival - How Foods Fight Cancer

The first prospective studies of diet’s potential benefits were purely observational.
In 1999, researchers in Québec City reported their findings after
following 384 men with prostate cancer over a five-year period. It turned
out that those who consumed the most saturated fat—the kind particularly
prevalent in meats and dairy products—had three times the risk of dying
from the disease compared to those with the lowest saturated fat intake.
Increased risk was also found with higher intakes of total and monounsaturated
fat, but these increases were not significant.2

The following year, researchers in Toronto and Vancouver reported the
results of a study of 263 men with prostate cancer. The study found that
the men who consumed the most monounsaturated fat (the type that is
abundant in olive and canola oils) lived the longest. Their risk of dying was
70 percent lower compared to those with the lowest intake of monounsaturates.
The study also found increased risk from animal fat and saturated
fat intake, although these latter findings were not strong enough to reach
statistical significance.3