A healthy diet can stop prostate cancer becoming more deadly, a pioneering study has proved for the first time.
The results of the 12-year study of nearly 1,000 people with the disease opens the door to a precise diet plan to battle it.
The breakthrough comes after Olympic legend Sir Chris Hoy last week revealed his prostate cancer was terminal.
Dr Christian Pavlovich, professor of urology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said: ‘We believe that ours is the first to provide statistically significant evidence that a healthy diet is associated with a reduction in risk of prostate cancer progressing to a higher grade group.’
Prostate cancer patients are graded between one and five, with one indicating ‘indolent’ cells that do not spread to other parts of the body, while ‘five’ is the most serious.
Olympic legend Sir Chris Hoy last week revealed his prostate cancer was terminal
Sir Chris Hoy celebrates on the podium after winning a gold medal at London 2012
A healthy diet can stop prostate cancer becoming more deadly, a pioneering study has proved for the first time (stock photo)
Biopsies are performed regularly to determine if the cancer has moved to a higher grade.
The peer-reviewed study led by Johns Hopkins Medicine, published in the JAMA Oncology journal, scrutinised the diets of 886 patients with grade one prostate cancer between January 2005 to February 2017.
The team examined patients’ diets and scored them on the Healthy Eating Index (HEI).
Six and a half years later they found 187 men, or 21 per cent of the study, had been reclassified as grade two while six per cent were in group three or greater.
Researchers found those with a better diet had significantly reduced the risk of a low-grade prostate cancer growing more serious, and every increase of 12.5 points of their HEI score was associated with a 15 per cent reduction in reclassification to grade two, and a 30 per cent reduction to grade three or greater.
Study co-author Bruce Trock, professor of urology, epidemiology and oncology at John Hopkins, said: ‘Hopefully, these latest findings will enable us to develop some concrete steps they can take to reduce the risk of cancer progression.’
