Men with prostate cancer may benefit from eating more vegetable fats, often found in foods such as avocados, olive oil, and nuts, according to Mother Nature Network.
A recent study looked at prostate cancer patients who substituted 10 percent of their daily carbohydrate calories with vegetable fats. The study observed 4,577 men who had prostate cancer that had not spread, over the course of eight years. Every four years the men gave the research team information about their diets.
The team found that men who ate more vegetable fat were 29 percent less likely to die from the disease over the next eight years. The patients were also 26 percent less likely to die from causes unrelated to the cancer.
The researchers also concluded that an extra ounce of nuts a day would lower the risk of dying for any health related reason by 11 percent.
"Our findings support counseling men with prostate cancer to follow a heart-healthy diet, in which carbohydrate calories are replaced with unsaturated oils and nuts," the team wrote in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study was able to find a correlation between vegetable fat and prostate cancer survival, but has not yet conclusively found a cause-and-effect link.
The team looked at many outside factors that could also be influencing the survival rates, such as smoking habits and exercise, and tried to have varied subjects. There could however be other contributing factors, such as the way the food was cooked or when the cancer treatments were administered.
Over the course of the study 1,064 men died, 21 percent of those men passed away from the prostate cancer itself. Twenty-one percent of the men died from other types of cancer, and the majority, 31 percent, died from cardiovascular problems.
Dr. Stephen Freedland, of the Duke University Medical Center wrote that obesity is the only factor known to increase the chance of dying from prostate cancer.
"Thus, avoiding obesity is essential," Freedland said.
