An investigation published recently in Annals of Oncology, indicates that during nine years it studied almost 3 thousand men.

The investigators discovered that the men who presented/displayed prostate cancer were 50 percents more prone to have high cholesterol than men who did not have prostate cancer.

The association was stronger in those over 65 years (that were 80 % more prone to have high cholesterol) than in younger men (which were only 32 % more prone to have high cholesterol).

Nevertheless, experts in the United States pointed out the possibility that the two diseases are connected indirectly through a third factor.

"Prostate cancer is related to obesity and diabetes and it is known that both are risk factors for it", pointed out doctor Jay Brooks, President of Hematology and Oncology of the Ochsner Health System at Baton Rouge , Louisiana .

Although the age, the race and the family background help to determine who will become affected by prostate cancer, other causes are not well understood, explained the authors of the study, at the Mario Negri Institute of Investigation Pharmacological at Milan .

The authors of the study point at the fact that androgens or masculine hormones have to do with the cancer and the prostate tissue and are synthesized from cholesterol.