Healthier childhoods linked to increased prostate cancer risk

Boys brought up in healthy homes are more likely to develop prostate cancer in later life, scientists have said.

A new study found those who grew in environments freer from germs and illnesses had higher testosterone levels as adults, which is linked to a greater risk of the cancer.

The team at Durham University said fighting off sickness in childhood left the body with fewer resources with which to develop the sex hormone.

They studied collected data from 359 men who had either been born in Bangladesh and moved to the UK as children, those who moved to the UK as adults, as well as second-generation UK-born men whose parents were Bangladeshi migrants and UK-born ethnic Europeans.

Published in the Nature Ecology and Evolution journal, the study challenges the theory that testosterone levels are controlled by genetics or race, researchers said, concluding that a man's testosterone levels are more likely to be determined by his environment during childhood than by any other factor.

The study found that Bangladeshi men who grew up and lived as adults in the UK had significantly higher levels of testosterone compared with relatively well-off men who grew up and lived in Bangladesh as adults.

As high testosterone levels potentially lead to an increased risk of prostate enlargement and cancer, the researchers suggest that any screening for risk profiles may need to take a man’s childhood environment into account.

Professor Gillian Bentley, one of the research team, said: “Very high and very low testosterone levels can have implications for men’s health and it could be important to know more about men’s childhood circumstances to build a fuller picture of their risk factors for certain conditions or diseases.”

Meanwhile Dr Kesson Magid, who led the study, said: "A man's absolute levels of testosterone are unlikely to relate to their ethnicity or where they live as adults but instead reflect their surroundings when they were children."