Cardiometabolic and skeletal risk factors in black men with prostate cancer starting androgen deprivation therapy. By Gunnarsson et al. 2015
Key sentence from the paper: “Black men with PCa presenting for consideration of ADT have a high prevalence of existing metabolic risk factors.”
For the full abstract, see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25913100
Commentary: It is well known that prostate cancer is both more common and more fatal for black Americans than for Caucasians. This study examined the health status of 111 black men, who were about to begin ADT, in the Boston area between 2007 and 2010. The authors documented various factors that would be likely to increase the side effect burden for men on ADT.
They found that 43% of the men were overweight and 31% were obese. More than a third had poor lipid profiles and 29% were already diabetic, before starting on ADT. Half were vitamin D-deficient and 41% had either osteopenia or osteoporosis. All of these conditions are likely to get worse on ADT, if not addressed by appropriate medications and life style adjustments (such as improving diet and increasing exercise).
Gunnarsson O, Basaria S, Gignac GA. 2015. Cardiometabolic and skeletal risk factors in black men with prostate cancer starting androgen deprivation therapy. Cancers (Basel) 7(2):679-687.