prostate-report.org

Delay in body growth linked to prostate cancer

An Italian research team lead by Dr. Paola Muti of the Italian National Cancer Institute, Rome, concluded that boys who reach their adult body size in their early 20s may be more prone to prostate cancer later in life than their peers who achieve their adult size during adolescence

In the journal Urology, July 2008 , Dr. Muti and colleagues revealed that their study has underlined the potential effect of the ‘timing’ at exposure of sexual and (body growth) variables on the risk of prostate cancer. Italian researchers compared early body and sexual development in 64 men who developed prostate cancer and 218 similar men who did not. The age at which the subjects first started shaving was used to gauge sexual development, while the age that maximum shoe size was reached was used to assess body development. Researchers noted that adolescence is a critical period in prostate development.

The findings also showed that individuals who rated themselves as being thinner than their peers at 10 to 13 years were more prone to prostate cancer than those who rated themselves as being comparable or heavier than their peers.