Does Mayo have advice for preventive measures men can take for prostate health?
There are no formal guidelines, but the advice I give my patients focuses on living a heart-healthy lifestyle. I encourage them to take care of their hearts because recent research has shown that what’s good for your heart is also good for your prostate, particularly when it comes to lowering your risk of prostate cancer. For example, some recent research indicates that cholesterol levels can correlate with a man’s prostate cancer risk. The higher your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and the lower your HDL (“good”) cholesterol, the higher your risk of prostate cancer. Also, later this year, Mayo Clinic will publish the results of a research study that found men who took statins – drugs used to lower cholesterol – were less likely to develop prostate cancer, compared to men who did not take statins. In this study, researchers followed 2,447 men for more than 15 years. Of the statin users, six percent were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Comparatively, non-statin users were three times more like
