A new study finds that regularly consuming deep-fried foods is associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer and that the effect appears slightly stronger in more aggressive forms of the disease.

The study conducted by investigators at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and published online in The Prostate is the first to examine deep frying methods while previous studies looked at high-heat cooking methods. The researchers controlled for factors such as age, race, family history of prostate cancer, body-mass index and PSA screening history when calculating the association between eating deep-fried foods and prostate cancer risk.

The researchers analyzed data from two prior population-based case-control studies involving a total of 1,549 men diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,492 age-matched healthy controls. The men were Caucasian and African-American Seattle-area residents and ranged in age from 35 to 74 years. Participants were asked to fill out a dietary questionnaire about their usual food intake, including specific deep-fried foods.

The Findings 

Men who reported eating French fries, fried chicken, fried fish or doughnuts at least once a week were at an increased risk of prostate cancer as compared to men who said they ate such foods less than once a month.

Men who ate one or more of these foods at least weekly had an increased risk of prostate cancer that ranged from 30 to 37 percent.

Weekly consumption of these foods was associated also with a slightly greater risk of more aggressive prostate cancer.

The Culprits

Possible means for the increased cancer risk include the fact that when oil is heated to temperatures suitable for deep frying, potentially carcinogenic compounds can form in the fried food. They include acrylamide - found in carbohydrate-rich foods such as French fries; heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - chemicals formed when meat is cooked at high temperatures; aldehyde - an organic compound found in perfume; and acrolein - a chemical found in herbicides. These toxic compounds are increased with re-use of oil and increased length of frying time.

Foods cooked with high heat also contain high levels of advanced glycation endproducts, or AGEs, which have been associated with chronic inflammation and oxidative stress. Deep-fried foods are among the highest in AGE content. A chicken breast deep fried for 20 minutes contains more than nine times the amount of AGEs as a chicken breast boiled for an hour.

The link between prostate cancer and select deep-fried foods appeared to be limited to the highest level of consumption defined in our study as more than once a week which suggests that regular consumption of deep-fried foods confers particular risk for developing prostate cancer, said Janet L. Stanford, Ph.D, corresponding author of the study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to look at the association between intake of deep-fried food and risk of prostate cancer. However, deep-fried foods have previously been linked to cancers of the breast, lung, pancreas, head and neck, and esophagus.

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