How is prostate cancer caused

Prostate cancer is a cancer disease that many of us have heard of. Sometimes, treatment requires us to understand many aspects of cancer, especially the cause of prostate cancer, which is the key to our treatment. So how does prostate cancer cause it?

Dietary factors

Etiological studies suggest that prostate cancer is related to Western lifestyles, especially to diets rich in fat, meat, and milk. The risk of prostate cancer in Asian people born in the United States is closely related to the length of time they have lived in the United States and the intake of saturated fatty acids. A domestic case-control study also confirmed that the fat intake and energy ratio of fat in prostate cancer patients were significantly higher than those of controls. Fatty acid peroxidation can produce peroxides with carcinogenic damage. Studies have found that the enzyme AMACR (α-methylacyl CoA racemase) involved in fatty acid peroxidation is overexpressed in prostate cancer tissues, but not in normal prostate tissues. Because beef and dairy products are the main sources of daily branched-chain fatty acids, the upregulation of AMACR in prostate cancer may help explain the correlation between Western diet and prostate cancer. In addition, animal fat may promote the occurrence of prostate cancer by affecting hormone levels in the body and producing carcinogens during high-temperature cooking.

Epidemiological studies have also suggested many promising foods for preventing prostate cancer, such as soy and tomatoes. Soy is considered one of the reasons for the low incidence in Asian countries. It is rich in phytoestrogens, which can reduce tumor size and reduce pSA secretion in animal experiments. Tomatoes are rich in an antioxidant, lycopene, and people who consume more tomatoes have a 16% lower risk of disease than those who consume less.

Hormones and other risk factors

Androgens play a key role in the development of the prostate and the progression of prostate cancer. In animal experiments, androgens and dihydrotestosterone can induce prostate cancer. However, epidemiological studies have not confirmed significant differences in androgen concentrations between prostate cancer patients and controls. This may be because the pathogenic effects of androgens occur decades before tumor formation, and current studies have ignored the interactions of complex hormonal networks.

Insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF) are also related factors for the development of prostate cancer. Domestic epidemiological data show that people divided into four groups according to insulin concentration have a 2.6-fold higher risk of prostate cancer than those in the lowest group. IGF-1 is a polypeptide growth factor that participates in regulating the proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis of tumor cells. Prospective studies have shown that the relative risk of prostate cancer in the highest group is 4.3 times higher than that in the lowest IGF-1 group.

In recent years, the correlation between chronic inflammation and prostate cancer has become a hot topic. Men with a history of sexually transmitted diseases or prostatitis have an increased risk of prostate cancer, and genetic epidemiology suggests that high-risk genes for prostate cancer are regulatory genes for inflammatory responses. Of course, like many risk factors not mentioned, the carcinogenic mechanism of inflammation still needs further research and verification.

The above introduction to the causes of prostate cancer is the conclusion drawn by many medical institutions. Sometimes, treatment requires us to figure out these things before proceeding. I hope everyone can recognize this and learn more about this aspect.