In a new study, researchers from the University of South Australia found that men who followed a predominantly Mediterranean diet had lower chances of being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
For their study, the team compared micronutrient plasma concentrations of prostate cancer patients with a control group of healthy participants, indicating low levels of lutein, lycopene, alpha-carotene, and selenium in PC patients and high levels of iron, sulfur, and calcium in the same group compared to controls.
Men with plasma concentrations lower than 0.25 ug/mL for lycopene and/or lower than 120ug/L for selenium demonstrated a higher risk of prostate cancer and were likely to be more sensitive to the damaging effects of radiation.
Study co-author Dr. Permal Deo says: “Our recommendation is to adopt a Mediterranean diet enlisting the help of a dietician because people absorb nutrients in different ways, depending on the food, the digestive system, the person’s genotype, and possibly their microbiome.”
