The Wellness of YOU! – # 136 – Fats and Prostate Cancer
posted in Nutrition and Weight Loss |
While doing some research for an ebook I’m working on about prostate cancer, I came across an interesting study about the effect of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids on this disease. Since my last article was about fats and we talked about the omegas, I wanted to pass this information along to you.
A new U.S. study found that altering the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in the typical western diet may reduce the growth rate of prostate cancer tumors.
This study with mice is one of the first to show the impact of diet (in this case, more omega-3 fatty acids and fewer omega-6 fatty acids) on lowering an inflammatory response known to promote prostate cancer tumor progression. The finding could help lead to the development of new treatments, the researchers said.
The researchers, from the University of California, Los Angeles, used mice with a hormone-sensitive prostate cancer that closely resembles human prostate cancer. One group of mice was fed a diet that included 20 percent fat with a one-to-one ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. The other group of mice also received a diet with 20 percent fat, but this diet was mostly omega-6 fatty acids.
In the mice that received the balanced diet of fatty acids, tumor cell growth rates decreased by 22 percent and prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels decreased by 77 percent, compared to the mice that received the diet with mostly omega-6 fatty acids.
Omega-6 fatty acids, the predominant polyunsaturated fatty acids in the Western diet, are found in corn, safflower oils and red meats. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in cold-water fish, including salmon, tuna and sardines.
“Corn oil is the backbone of the American diet. We consume up to 20 times more omega-6 fatty acids in our diet compared to omega-3 acids,” principal investigator Dr. William Aronson, professor in the department of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center, said in a prepared statement.
“This study strongly suggests that eating a healthier ratio of these two types of fatty acids may make a difference in reducing prostate cancer growth, but studies need to be conducted in humans before any clinical recommendations can be made,” Aronson said.
(The findings were published Aug. 1, 2006, in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.)
I found this study to be interesting because, once again, the possibility that controlling the types of fats in our diet may have a profound effect on human health, for both men and women. Sure, prostate cancer is a male disease, but the inclusion of the omega fatty acids, particularly the omega-3s, will do wonders for the heart health of both genders.
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Shanti,
Ron
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