Get off the couch !

I was reminded by a reader who writes various blogs including about fitness in cancer patients, that there are some real data in this regard. I had archived this article from Urology Times and meant to share it with you. In the report from the AUA meeting, Duke University investigators found that among men receiving “early ADT” (presumably those with high risk or PSA’s that didn’t nadir properly) after surgery, obesity was a huge risk factor for developing metastases.

Using Cox proportional hazards models, the authors found men who were overweight or obese had a three-fold higher risk for progression to castration-resistant prostate cancer compared to their counterparts with a normal BMI. Relative to the normal BMI reference group, risk for developing metastasis was increased by more than three-fold among overweight men and by five-fold among the obese men, reported first author Christopher Keto, MD, of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC. All of these differences were statistically significant, and the data also showed a trend for increased prostate cancer-specific mortality among obese men compared with the reference group.

These statistical findings are quite striking and are consistent with many other articles regarding higher Gleason scores and lower survival among men with obesity who develop prostate cancer. I am well aware from personal experience how hard it is to lose weight. But with the added incentive of fighting prostate cancer, I hope I would be successful. At the very least, this makes as much sense as loading yourself with pomegranate juice or any of the other supplements you are taking.