Does eating nuts lower the risk of dying from prostate cancer?

Eating nuts can lower risk of dying from prostate cancer, a new study has found.

A new study from the Harvard Medical School draws a connection between consuming nuts and lowering the risk of dying from prostate cancer.
The study looked at data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study which has been tracking the health habits of 47,299 men over a 26 year period. Researchers found that of the 6810 men in the group who received a diagnosis of prostate cancer, those who consumed nuts five or more times per week had a 34 per cent lower rate of overall mortality compared with those who consumed nuts less than once per month.

“To our knowledge, this is the largest cohort study to prospectively assess the association of nut consumption with being diagnosed with prostate cancer, including subtypes of aggressive prostate cancer,” say the study’s authors.

The Canadian Cancer Society states that prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer for Canadian men excluding non-melanoma skin cancers and is the third leading cause of death from cancer in men. More than 95 per cent of prostate cancers are adenocarcinomas, the majority of which are slow growing and respond well to treatment. Estimates for the year 2015 hold that 24,000 Canadian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 4,100 will die from it, representing 10 per cent of all cancer deaths in men. On average, about 11 Canadian men die from prostate cancer every day.

While the study did not find a correlation between diagnosis with prostate cancer and consumption of nuts, it did see a 34 per cent lower rate of overall mortality from prostate cancer in the participant cohort who consumed a weekly average of at least five or more servings of 28 grams of peanuts or other nuts.

“This is important,” says lead researcher, Ying Bao, MD, ScD, from the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, “since more men live with prostate cancer than die from it.”

Nuts have been found to contain unsaturated fats, protein, vitamins and minerals all thought to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Studies have linked nut consumption to improved insulin sensitivity, a condition associated with prostate cancer risk and progression of the disease.

The study was partially funded by a grant from the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation, an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to supporting nutrition research and education and promoting new product development for tree nut products.

Marvel Comics recently announced it will be promoting Prostate Cancer Awareness Month this September with comic book covers featuring superheroes like Iron Man, Captain America and Captain Marvel dressed in special light blue-coloured costumes in order to bring awareness of the disease.

“We hope that all our fans take a moment during the month of September to educate themselves, as well as their loved ones, on how they can work with their healthcare provider on how to combat this disease,” says David Gabriel, SVP Sales & Marketing for Marvel Comics.

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