Approved Research

Prostate Cancer Epidemiology Consortium: Risk factors for prostate cancer

Lay summary

We propose a research programme on hormonal, anthropometric, dietary and lifestyle factors and prostate cancer risk; this will extend the work of an existing consortium co-ordinated in the Cancer Epidemiology Unit Oxford, the Endogenous Hormones, Nutritional Biomarkers and Prostate Cancer Collaborative Group. Initially we will describe the distributions of potential prostate cancer risk factors for men in UK Biobank (including personal characteristics, anthropometry, diet, alcohol intake, physical activity and history of use of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test).

This will provide information that will help in the planning of further analyses of prostate cancer by users of UK Biobank. When at least 2,000 cases of prostate cancer have accrued we will begin the main phase of the project, which is to examine the associations between prostate cancer risk and levels of blood biomarkers (including sex hormones, growth factors and nutritional
biomarkers such as vitamin D) as well as personal characteristics and lifestyle factors, using a case-cohort design. This project will help us to understand what lifestyle factors are associated with risk and the mechanisms through which they may exert an effect.