Delay in body growth linked to prostate cancer

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - 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, Italian researchers report.

"The study has underlined the potential effect of the 'timing' at exposure of sexual and (body growth) variables on the risk of prostate cancer," senior investigator Dr. Paola Muti told Reuters Health.

In the journal Urology, Muti of the Italian National Cancer Institute, Rome and colleagues note that adolescence is a critical period in prostate development.

In the new study, the 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.

On average, the prostate cancer patients reached their maximum shoe size at 20 years of age, roughly 2.5 years later than their peers without the cancer. By contrast, the age at first shaving was comparable in both groups, roughly 18 years.

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.

These results, the team concludes, suggest "that risk determinants operating early in life affect men's subsequent prostate cancer risk."

SOURCE: Urology, July 2008.