After being diagnosed with prostate cancer, men are capable of adhering to a low-fat diet for at least a year if they receive good counseling and support, a new study shows.

There is evidence that dietary fat plays a role in the progression of prostate cancer, Dr. L. H. Lumey of Columbia University Medical Center in New York and colleagues note in the medical journal Urology. However, some doctors have been skeptical about the feasibility putting men with prostate cancer on a low-fat diet.

“It was important for us to establish if this indeed was such a complicated matter,” Lumey told AMN Health.

To investigate, he and his colleagues randomly assigned 48 men with prostate cancer to a diet containing 15 percent fat or less, with or without vitamin E and selenium supplements; to a normal diet plus the supplements; or to a “control” group.

All of the men received nutritional counseling at the start of the study, but the men on the low-fat diet and their spouses received more intensive support, with biweekly visits to a nutritionist for the first four months of the study, followed by monthly group sessions.

After three months, men in the low-fat diet group had cut their calorie intake from fat by 8.6 percent and lost an average of 2 kilograms (about 4-1/2 pounds), while men in the control group had increased their fat intake by 2.1 percent and lost 0.8 kg.

One year after the trial began, men on the low-fat diet had lost 2.8 kg and maintained a 9.8 percent lower fat intake, while those on the normal diet had gained 0.5 kg and were eating 1.6 percent less fat.

A diagnosis of prostate cancer appears to be a strong motivation for lifestyle change, the researchers note.

“These results open the possibility of planning for larger studies to assess the effect of a low-fat dietary intervention on quality of life, disease progression, and survival in men with prostate cancer,” they conclude.

Lumey said he was struck by the commitment to making dietary changes among patients in the study. “People are very involved - this whole diet thing in prostate cancer patients, it’s like a subculture in a way, it generates tremendous involvement and energy,” he said.

“There’s a need to find out what’s going on because it’s not just an academic issue,” he added. “Patients talk about this all the time.”

SOURCE: Urology, November 2004.