Johns Hopkins say being obese is worse for PCa outcomes

I know we don't like to cut and paste, but every time I try to send a link to these newsletters, folks have a tough time getting them to hook up.

Here is the salient point of the discussion;

In a study reported in the journal Cancer, obese men with a BMI of 35 or higher were somewhat less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than were normal-weight men (BMI of less than 25). But if prostate cancer developed in these men, it was more likely to be fatal. During the five years of the study, men with a BMI of 35 or higher were twice as likely to die of their prostate cancer as were normal-weight men.

Results of another study reported in Cancer showed that obese men (BMI greater than 30) who had prostate cancer confined to the prostate or to areas surrounding it were three times more likely to develop metastatic cancer than were normal-weight men with a similar diagnosis. In this 10-year study, being obese more than doubled the risk of dying of prostate cancer.

Here is the link to the article just in case it works for you;

http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/alerts/prostate_disorders/JohnsHopkinsProstateDisordersHealthalert_3451-1.html?ET=johnshopkins_blog:e36822:548695a:&st=email&st=email&s=EPH_100316_005

Thought this might be good for a few conversations.

Personally, I am going against the grain of the study. At diagnosis I was 61 years old, 204 lbs, athletically fit with a BMI of 16%. Seems like my cancer has been somewhat aggressive regardless.

Sonny

Steve,

You been talking to my wife? She has been riding my (now 184lb) butt to give up my daily 5 cigarettes for quite a while now. LOL

Sonny

I don't know how accurate this study is but if true, I'm happy with a BMI of 26.5.

Sonny - I bet you know that if you smoke - you're a smoker. Counting down from two packs a day to one pack a day does nothing for your healh...Might as well smoke both packs

On the other hand - I'm getting $1,500.00 worth of remolding work done on my master bath as we type - for FREE. Kind of free...Its from the money I've saved by not smoking in the last 7 months...And I have a lot left over too.

On of the possible causes in the study was that obese men didn't go to the doctor as often, hence their PC was more advanced when discovered.

Sometimes studies don't tell us a lot.

As a higher BMI guy, guess I'll just have to wait and see. I really have a height problem. If I was 7 feet tall, I would have a much lower BMI, hence a less risk of aggressive PC.

Obesity definately compicates PCa. I have a huge gut which precluded me from getting DaVinci surgery. The doctor said they don't make extensions long enough for the tools yet to enable him to use the robot on me. My surgeon told me up front that the big gut would complicate things and it did. My surgery ended up being 6 hours long. My bladder and prostate were in a hard enough position to work on for a normal person, but my gut made the surgery even harder. The incision crosses over the fat fold where I sit down. A couple of staples in that area became infected - again probably from being fat. Also, obesity seems to increase the time it takes to get over incontinence. The extra weight of the gut on the bladder puts a lot of extra prssure on it. Bottom line, being obese is not good for any reason.

Hi Sonny3

Dr. Freedland did a similar study a couple of years ago with the same result. I don't know the site for this info but If you search Duke and obese prostate patients on the Duke web site or do the same search at MSNBC I did an interview with Dr. Freedland for MSNBC. I don't know know why they picked me when they were looking for a fat guy, go figure.

Mika