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Calcium linked to prostate cancer

Calcium intake, not necessarily from dairy products, may increase prostate cancer risk in men of slight build.

Calcium linked to prostate cancer

Calcium intake, not necessarily from dairy products, may increase prostate cancer risk in men of slight build.

Calcium, a necessary part of a person's diet, is important for bone health. Past studies examining the link between calcium intake and prostate cancer risk have yielded conflicting results. Consumption of dairy products, the primary source of calcium in Western diets, has been found to be positively associated with prostate cancer. In an Asian diet, nondairy foods are the major contributors of calcium. Thus, a study of dietary calcium and prostate cancer in Asians can better inform on whether calcium, as opposed to other dairy components, is responsible for the dairy foods–prostate cancer association.

To investigate this association, researchers studied 27,293 Chinese men, whose calcium intake came mainly from vegetables such as kale or bok choy. The participants were aged between 45 and 75 years and were the residents of Singapore. They were interviewed about their dietary intake and were followed for more than a decade.

One in 100 had developed prostate cancer during this time. Among smaller-than-average men, 17 out of 1,000 of those with the highest calcium intake got cancer - more than twice the number in the group with the lowest intake.

Overall there was no link. But in smaller men, who are believed to absorb the mineral better, even a low intake of calcium increased prostate cancer risk. Those whose diets included the equivalent of about three glasses of milk per day, for instance, doubled their risk compared to those who got less than a glass. The researchers concluded that dietary calcium might be a risk factor for prostate cancer even at relatively low intake.
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