Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the United States. It is also the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the country. According to the American Cancer Society, 218,890 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year and lead to at least 27,050 deaths.

The cancer is fully curable if detected early. However the preset study indicates that if men are overweight when diagnosed with the cancer, it it likely the cancer will be fatal. Obesity has already been cited as a risk factor in the development of aggressive prostate tumors.

But this is the first study to point out that obesity may in fact lead to death from the cancer. The study involved 788 patients with locally advanced prostate cancer. Lead researcher Dr. Jason Efstathiou and colleagues followed them up for 8 years.

The researchers found men with BMI of more than 25 were 1.5 times more likely to die from prostate cancer as compared to men with BMI of less than 25. Prostate cancer patients with BMI of less than 25 had a cancer mortality rate of 7 percent after five years as compared to 13 percent in men with BMI of more than 25.

Furthermore men with BMI of more than 30 were 1.6 times more likely to die from prostate cancer as opposed to normal weight patients.

Writing in the latest issue of the journal Cancer, the authors said, "Further studies are warranted to evaluate the mechanisms for this increased cancer-specific mortality among overweight and obese men and to assess the impact of BMI on survival following other management strategies and in clinically localized disease."

A recent study had documented that high levels of body fat are implicated in increasing the risk of six types of common cancer including breast cancer, colon cancer, kidney cancer, esophageal cancer, pancreatic cancer and endometrial cancer.

The current study is one more reason to reduce that unwanted weight because localized prostate cancer is rarely fatal. 

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