Low carb diet may decrease risk of metabolic syndrome in Prostate Cancer patients

In a new study conducted by Stephen J. Freedland and team found that a low carbohydrate diet (LCD) resulted in a considerably decreased risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and residual cholesterol, as well as a significantly lower predicted Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) risk using Body Mass Index (BMI). By contrast, there was no difference in predicted CVD risk when lipids were used.

The findings of this study were published in the Journal of Urology on 1st December, 2021.

A reduced carbohydrate diet has been demonstrated to inhibit the progression of prostate cancer (PC). LCDs ameliorate MetS without causing weight reduction in noncancer individuals. However, worries concerning the deleterious influence on the risk of CVD remain. The goal of this secondary analysis is to investigate the effect of an LCD on MetS risk and predicted CVD risk in PC patients.

for this research Pooled data from two randomized trials comparing LCD to placebo in 1) avoiding insulin resistance after initiating hormone therapy (CAPS1) and 2) reducing PC development in recurrent PC after first treatment failure were evaluated (CAPS2). Both studies featured a usual care control vs LCD intervention in which patients were told to reduce carbohydrate consumption to 20 gm/day and, in CAPS1, to exercise for 30 minutes per day, five days per week. MetS components (hypertension, high triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, central obesity, and diabetes), 10-year CVD risk assessed using the Framingham Score with either BMI or lipids, and residual cholesterol were compared between arms using mixed models with trial adjustment.

The results states that:

1. LCD substantially decreased the risk of MetS (p=0.004) and residual cholesterol (p=0.001).

2. Furthermore, LCD resulted in considerably decreased predicted CVD risk using BMI (p=0.002) compared to lipids (p=0.14) during the course of the research.

In conclusion, these findings justify the use of an LCD as part of prostate cancer treatment. The study size was modest (79 total patients), and the outcomes did not address prostate cancer outcomes directly. Nonetheless, given the recognized cardiovascular hazards of androgen deprivation, decrease in metabolic syndrome may be a significant objective in men having advanced prostate treatment. LCD was found to be positively associating itself with the risk of MetS and other CVD. 

Reference:

Freedland, S. J., Howard, L. E., Ngo, A., Ramirez-Torres, A., Csizmadi, I., Cheng, S., Mack, A., & Lin, P.-H. (2021). Low Carbohydrate Diets and Estimated Cardiovascular and Metabolic Syndrome Risk in Prostate Cancer. In Journal of Urology (Vol. 206, Issue 6, pp. 1411–1419). Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). https://doi.org/10.1097/ju.0000000000002112