Omega-3 Fatty Acids Guard Against Advanced Prostate Cancer

Omega-3 fatty acids could help protect men against advanced prostate cancer. Eating fish at least once a week may reduce the risk of developing advanced prostate cancer even if one is genetically predisposed to developing the disease. "Eating a healthy diet that includes dark fish and other sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids may decrease risk of more advanced prostate cancer even if one has a cox-2 genetic predisposition to the disease," said lead researcher John S. Witte, a professor in the Institute for Human Genetics, Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. The report is published in the April issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

The researchers found that men who had the highest intake of omega-3 fatty acids had a 63 percent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer compared with men with the lowest intake of omega-3 fatty acids. Then the researchers looked at the effect of omega-3 fatty acid in men with a cox-2 variant called rs4647310, a known inflammatory gene. Among men with low omega-3 fatty acid intake and this variant, the risk of developing advanced prostate cancer increased fivefold. However, men who had a high intake of omega-3 fatty acids had a significantly lower risk, even if they had the cox-2 variant.

Steve - this is very positive because the researchers took into account inflammatory genetic polymorphisms. The positive effect explains fish oil's epigenetic effect in not allowing those polymorphisms to express themselves negatively.