Nut consumption and prostate cancer risk and mortality

Abstract

Background: Little is known of the association between nut consumption, and prostate cancer (PCa) incidence and survivorship. Methods: We conducted an incidence analysis and a case-only survival analysis in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study on the associations of nut consumption (updated every 4 years) with PCa diagnosis, and PCa-specific and overall mortality. Results: In 26 years, 6810 incident PCa cases were identified from 47 299 men. There was no association between nut consumption and being diagnosed with PCa or PCa-specific mortality. However, patients who consumed nuts five or more times per week after diagnosis had a significant 34% lower rate of overall mortality than those who consumed nuts less than once per month (HR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.52-0.83, P-trend = 0.0005). Conclusions: There were no statistically significant associations between nut consumption, and PCa incidence or PCa-specific mortality. Frequent nut consumption after diagnosis was associated with significantly reduced overall mortality.